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+-- Forum: Pinebook Pro (https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=111)
+--- Forum: General Discussion on Pinebook Pro (https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=112)
+--- Thread: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions (/showthread.php?tid=8024)
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - gristle - 12-06-2019
(12-06-2019, 03:25 PM)neilman Wrote:(12-06-2019, 03:06 PM)gristle Wrote: I rarley post anywhere, apologies if I make some mistakes. I felt compelled to post today to say thanks to the people that made the pbp happen.
The teams that work on hardware/software (thats where the magic happens!), the admins that coordinate efforts and manage logistics (thats where the magic happens!) and to all the people who regularly (and some random) post the solutions and ideas that keep me coming back here(this is where the magic continues to happen!).
So THANKS! and GOOD JOB!
This is not really an initial impression, more of a "I've had some time and know what it's capable of" impression.
I love the Pine Book Pro! It's exactly what i wanted and more than I expected. It reminds me of my acer aspire one when it still worked.
I had forgotten how much i liked that machine, and though i wasnt looking for it, I found a replacement.
I wanted a machince i can dedicate to learning linux on and not get lazy and boot windows on, also learn more about arm and learn to bend sbc's to my will without having to hook keyboards and monitors to it. As it turns out its also a great laptop!
I have had some of the problems i see posted here, most have been resolved by updates or helpful post. This may be a dumb suggestion but to the people having wifi problems, I can't swear this fixed my issue because it's been a while since i made any changes but setting ipv6 to ignore in the edit connection gui seemed to help my issue. I have to do this at work from time to time (windows). I have to turn it back on for captive portal in hotels and such. I have a vague notion about why this may help in my case, its more about the network or router than pbp. Ofcourse this wont help if your antenna is bad and you've measured signal strength with something more legible than the tray icon, and pulled the antenna connection and didn't see a change in signal strength.
I have the no sound in firefox issue and saw the fix for that. Will get to that shortly.
One thing is my bluetooth mouse wont reconnect. The device monitor shows it's connected after reboot, gives link quality info that update and changes but doesnt resopnd to mouse input. Any suggestions on where to look? Pretend I only know enough linux to be dangerous if you have a suggestion, I'm actually pretty good at it. This is only my third unplanned reinstall after all. That reminds me, How can I make a backup, I like what i have now. Do i just RTFM?
I had the same problem with my Bluetooth mouse - it was paired correctly, worked, rebooted, then still listed but wouldn't work.
Turned out to be a simple configuration issue - check the device entry for the mouse - is there a yellow star symbol in the status bar of the device window?
Clicking on that star symbol flags the mouse as a "trusted" device - and the star "goes grey" - mouse works every time now
Oh, well yeah, I mean, thats fine if you want to fix it the easy way.(facepalm)
That worked! Simple and obvious now. I was looking for a more complicated answer cause, linux.
Thanks!
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - neilman - 12-06-2019
(12-06-2019, 04:09 PM)gristle Wrote:(12-06-2019, 03:25 PM)neilman Wrote:(12-06-2019, 03:06 PM)gristle Wrote: I rarley post anywhere, apologies if I make some mistakes. I felt compelled to post today to say thanks to the people that made the pbp happen.
The teams that work on hardware/software (thats where the magic happens!), the admins that coordinate efforts and manage logistics (thats where the magic happens!) and to all the people who regularly (and some random) post the solutions and ideas that keep me coming back here(this is where the magic continues to happen!).
So THANKS! and GOOD JOB!
This is not really an initial impression, more of a "I've had some time and know what it's capable of" impression.
I love the Pine Book Pro! It's exactly what i wanted and more than I expected. It reminds me of my acer aspire one when it still worked.
I had forgotten how much i liked that machine, and though i wasnt looking for it, I found a replacement.
I wanted a machince i can dedicate to learning linux on and not get lazy and boot windows on, also learn more about arm and learn to bend sbc's to my will without having to hook keyboards and monitors to it. As it turns out its also a great laptop!
I have had some of the problems i see posted here, most have been resolved by updates or helpful post. This may be a dumb suggestion but to the people having wifi problems, I can't swear this fixed my issue because it's been a while since i made any changes but setting ipv6 to ignore in the edit connection gui seemed to help my issue. I have to do this at work from time to time (windows). I have to turn it back on for captive portal in hotels and such. I have a vague notion about why this may help in my case, its more about the network or router than pbp. Ofcourse this wont help if your antenna is bad and you've measured signal strength with something more legible than the tray icon, and pulled the antenna connection and didn't see a change in signal strength.
I have the no sound in firefox issue and saw the fix for that. Will get to that shortly.
One thing is my bluetooth mouse wont reconnect. The device monitor shows it's connected after reboot, gives link quality info that update and changes but doesnt resopnd to mouse input. Any suggestions on where to look? Pretend I only know enough linux to be dangerous if you have a suggestion, I'm actually pretty good at it. This is only my third unplanned reinstall after all. That reminds me, How can I make a backup, I like what i have now. Do i just RTFM?
I had the same problem with my Bluetooth mouse - it was paired correctly, worked, rebooted, then still listed but wouldn't work.
Turned out to be a simple configuration issue - check the device entry for the mouse - is there a yellow star symbol in the status bar of the device window?
Clicking on that star symbol flags the mouse as a "trusted" device - and the star "goes grey" - mouse works every time now
Oh, well yeah, I mean, thats fine if you want to fix it the easy way.(facepalm)
That worked! Simple and obvious now. I was looking for a more complicated answer cause, linux.
Thanks!
If its any consolation I only found the answer by accident myself - I wondered what the star was for and "sucked it and saw it worked" - serendipity
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - Arwen - 12-06-2019
And now it's in the Wiki;
Wiki - Pinebook Pro - Bluetooth issues
As usual, feel free to correct, improve or comment, (good or politely bad).
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - User 13598 - 12-07-2019
Firstly would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to bringing the Pinebook Pro to life, I'm thoroughly enjoying using it so far and in most ways it's exceeded my expectations.
Most of my issues have arisen more from my lack of knowledge and one thing I've found particularly annoying is date/time continually resets to the default, I've tried setting it manually in terminal but to no avail.
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - Arwen - 12-07-2019
(12-07-2019, 04:36 PM)cosmichearse Wrote: Firstly would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to bringing the Pinebook Pro to life, I'm thoroughly enjoying using it so far and in most ways it's exceeded my expectations.Yes, I too am quite happy with my Pinebook Pro.
...
(12-07-2019, 04:36 PM)cosmichearse Wrote: ...Do you have a time zone issue?
Most of my issues have arisen more from my lack of knowledge and one thing I've found particularly annoying is date/time continually resets to the default, I've tried setting it manually in terminal but to no avail.
What does this show you?
Code:
> ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Dec 7 17:43 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/EasternBut, changing that link from "Etc/UTC" to "US/Eastern" worked for me.
Setting the actual clock / calendar chip, sorry I can't help, (yet).
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - MrRobot - 12-09-2019
So far I love the PB Pro, better display and battery life compared to all my Thinkpads T’s that I have. Only issue I have is when toggling WiFi privacy switch, on and off. Terminal commands seem to hang for some time. Even Ctrl+C doesn’t stop said command from running. Once this happens even rebooting takes a while or black screen before rebooting. Main issue with this problem is now the LED light for privacy switches should be two blinks, now WiFi is enabled after 3 blinks. Anyone else with this issue? And I also plan on doing a YouTube video since I don’t see too many videos on this product. Overall I love the product and I’m glad to be part of this experience
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - Firestorm - 12-10-2019
I've been using the Pinebook Pro since the beginning of November and collected some impressions so far that I would like to share.
In the following I mostly speak about the hardware. The software seems to be in the flow and as more fixes/updates or simply new distros appear more and more works. For example, the initial issues with Firefox are gone and it works perfectly.
Obviously the selection of software is limited at first since most Linux binaries are for amd64. You need to build stuff from source or wait for somebody to provide a binary for aarch64 or add that software to the package management of whatever Linux distribution you're using. I'm positive that over time the "usual" software will be easy to install.
Also the performance so far seems to be surprisingly good. The only time I noticed a larger difference was when I compiled a dotnet project. It took noticeably longer than on my other machine (which is fair enough since the other one is a modern intel i5). But browsing, youtubing, apt-getting and so on works snappy as advertised
So let us move on to the hardware which is something you have to live with once you bought it.
*Disclaimer: please bear with me, the resume comes at the end. Some parts are critical but I would like to mention everything, feel free to respond to me with enquiries or hints.*
Screen:
Just great, no questions asked.
The lid:
Few people mention this but I just cannot keep quiet about that - it does not open far enough. It is not always comfortable to work *on your lap* with this laptop. Yes, I know it is a design choice and could be seen from the initial pictures already and it is the same with many other models out there. Just saying I like laptops better that open further.
Camera:
I've only tested it in VLC. Did not look very sharp to be honest but I cannot say more since I have not actually used it for anything meaningful.
Battery lifetime:
So far it has been great. Both with original Debian as well as Manjaro ARM the lifetime seems to be very good.
Wifi:
works fine for me, did not try larger distances.
Bluetooth, privacy switches:
did not use yet
- and now to the bigger topics -
Keyboard & Trackpad:
The initial issues where touching the trackpad while typing would disable the keyboard were fixed by the firmware update as promised which is nice. The update worked on the very first try without any problems. What remains an issue is that the cursor occasionally jumps somewhere as you type because you've touched the trackpad with just a tiny edge of your palm. So suddenly you're typing in the middle of another paragraph - happened while typing this text 5 times or so. Hopefully the firmware becomes just a bit more intelligent in this regard but it is OK.
The keyboard itself is indeed fine. Obviously it does not quite compare to my Thinkpad at work but it is OK (and most certainly better than on a Macbook these days - I was really shocked when I tried typing on a Mac the other day but that is a different story).
It takes a while to get used to not having a dedicated delete, home, end, pgup, pgdn buttons and using funny Fn+... combinations - especially when combining with Shift or Ctrl. I'm still not 100% used to that but ok that was the design choice.
What I cannot figure out though are some problems with using the Meta (Pine logo) key. With Manjaro ARM + KDE I can use many of the keyboard shortcuts involving the Meta key BUT NOT ALL?! E.g. Meta + 1 opens/toggles the first app in the quick launch bar (Firefox in my case), or I've configured Meta + D to show the desktop. However using Meta + arrow keys does not do anything although it is configured to tile the window to the right, left, etc... It seems however that no keystroke is sent form the keyboard for this particular combination. Annoying!
The trackpad feels very nice, reacts to taps, no need to press all the way down. Fine. However, as described by others the "drunk" cursor behaviour is really disturbing. It sounds like a small detail but it is surprising how difficult it makes some tasks like selecting particular words of a sentence and such. I hope more improvements of the firmware are on the way in this regard.
Whine / noise:
Being a machine without any fans one would expect it to be as inaudible as any other tablet or phone. Unfortunately there are some issues with PWM (or whatever) signals that do produce an audible whining noise which depends on screen brightness as discussed elsewhere. The noise disappears at maximum or minimum screen brightness but exists in between.
Note that most people reported a noise when the audio interface is up. This is the really loud noise that everyone hears. However even with audio disabled one can hear (at least I can) a very faint high pitched noise. It is very subtle but it can be heard and you notice just how annoying that is once you turn the screen brightness all the way up or down and suddenly it is really silent in the room.
I've also noticed some loud whining noise when booting the machine while it is plugged-in for charging but I do not really care about this since I usually charge it while it is off over night.
Sound:
Guess I'm unlucky with this one. My right speaker has a loose contact. It keeps coming up and then dying as you touch the chassis in any way (put the wrist down on either side, etc...) I hoped it was actually just the contact of the speaker not properly soldered to the cable but, alas, the problem is at the motherboard. I opened up the machine and let it play some audio. It was touching the board that made the difference while the cable and speaker are indifferent to any movement. Guess there is nothing I can do about that?
Apart from that the sound (through the headphones) is fine except for two things: One was mentioned above, the whimering noise of the PWM depending screen brightness that is amplified into the speakers output; the other disturbance is simply white noise being emitted as soon as the sound interface is enabled. It is not so big a problem when using the built-in speakers but is not so pleasant when wearing headphones.
In short: sound is usable so long as you watch a 20min. episode of your favourite show and wear headphones - you won't care too much about quality in this scenario. If you want to listen to music for a longer period of time (and the music is dynamically more diverse than thrash metal
use some other device (or maybe BT headphones / boombox).This got longer than I initially intended. So what is my resume?
I do believe it is a good device and a step in the right a direction: a Linux first, ARM laptop. It is fully functional and serves its purpose. The device does not feel, look or perform as great as some Dells or Thinkpads or what not (but those are also in a completely different price range).
Taking into account that this is a community effort, and the moderate price, I do think this is a good device and sincerely hope it will find more and more users.
I sincerely hope that keyboard/trackpad firmware will be open sourced and improved further. It is certainly doable, only question is how soon.
I'm a bit unhappy with the audio interface and the noises that this devices emits. However, even if the review above sounds very harsh, one can deal with it. I'm not forced to listen to music through this laptop and in environments other than at home there is always enough ambient noise to cover the faint whining noise emitted from the circuitry of this machine.
The reason I discussed some shortcoming in great length is because I hope this will be taken into account for future revisions of the hardware - possibly delivering a more refined product in a future iteration.
In that spirit, please keep up the good work!
edit: PS.: One thing I forgot to discuss but I think it is important. It is not clear why a barrel jack has been chosen as the primary power source. I understand you cannot solely use the USB-C because that is also used for connecting peripherals but then why not just add a micro-USB like on most phones or Raspberries? This way we could have saved ourselves from yet another charger that works with precisely one device in the household. I guess that is something to consider for future models.
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - Linux-Rob - 12-19-2019
I am not that happy with the PBP. The keyboard is somewhat cheap-ish, the sound not so great and a fixed pixel in the upper left quadrant is very inconvenient.
The support team is telling me: If you are not agreed on the disclaimer, then you should not ordered PinebooK Pro in the first place.
Not very cooperative.
No, I would not purchase it again...
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - User 6582 - 12-19-2019
(12-19-2019, 08:19 AM)Linux-Rob Wrote: I am not that happy with the PBP. The keyboard is somewhat cheap-ish, the sound not so great and a fixed pixel in the upper left quadrant is very inconvenient.
The support team is telling me: If you are not agreed on the disclaimer, then you should not ordered PinebooK Pro in the first place.
Not very cooperative.
No, I would not purchase it again...
Sorry you feel that way.....You're the first person I've encountered that does.....
It's not for everyone and hopefully, you read the intro stuff to know this isn't a finished product, but a work in progress....
It's an idea getting the edges smoothed out, you might say. And a lot of folks here are enjoying smoothing things out. :-)
Best Wishes in the future. :-)
RE: Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions - GLSRacer - 12-19-2019
@rick1959, I am also sorry you feel that way. I have really enjoyed my PBP and while it isn't without flaws, I have actually learned a few things while getting everything I need up and running. It has been reliable enough my uses which are typically internet browsing, youtube, and remote management of my servers and VMs. I will be travelling for the holidays and I plan to leave my main Windows laptop at home and only take my PBP this time.
Hopefully you will find a use for it, if not then you could always sell it to someone on here. It seems like the PBPs that have gone up for sale have been sold pretty quickly.