New PinePhone user

[dachalife]

Hello all,

I thought I should share my experience with getting a PinePhone, since I lurked here for a long while before joining, trying to get all of the information I could, before I spent my hard earned cash on a Beta phone; I was a bit worried things would not work in my country.

I’m coming from ios, but didn’t need all of the things there and just wanted a basic phone that did not spy on me.

I ordered my PinePhone on August 31st & got it today, September 7th (in the EU). The company did great, very fast order processing & handling, complete with DHL online tracking, which was spot on.

I followed the Wiki and got the phone up & working right out of the box. Calls work both ways and missed calls show a notification popup message from my telco (Telenor). I’m really looking forward to testing out this device.

Great Job on the phone to all at Pine & thank you for your work, I’ve wanted a functional Linux phone for more than 20 years.

[unrealb2]

Which operating system are you using?

[dachalife]

Which operating system are you using?

Just as shipped, Manjaro with Plasma.

I want to keep it as stock as possible for 30 days of testing, only applying updates.

7 days as a daily driver so far, incoming messaging is fast/instant, while outgoing messages seem to lag 20-60 minutes (I have to pay per message, so I don’t really send any), calls work fine & the apps are sufficient for me. Data works, but I don’t use the web much on my phone, have a tablet and laptop with free net.

I really think a lot of the connection issues depend upon your cellular provider. I’m in Eastern Europe with Telenor and they support a lot of products.

I’ve ran into a few software problems, but nothing I couldn’t fix with the information online.

I’m happy to report that my perfectly fine iphone is back in it’s box. 

[bcnaz]

The Pine phone can run any operating system from a micro sd card with No Effect on the system that is installed on the

"Factory installed eMMC operating system".

I recommend testing using just a 8 or 16gb sd card, these are cheap, they can be used repeatedly, and if you need to zero wipe
your sd card....  it takes much less time to zero wipe a smaller sd card.

Some forum members have reported it 'can be hard to record over the Manjaro operating system', SO..
  Say you want to try flashing Arch to your sd card after trying Manjaro,
it may not work just recording over the Manjaro image,  but MAY require a zero wipe first.

Most of the time, just flashing without a zero wipe DOES work,  but ...  sometimes it is necessary to do a zero wipe first.

AGAIN :  testing operating systems running from an sd card, will Not effect your system that is installed to your eMMC,
  ............  simply remove the sd card and your phone will again run from the operating system installed to the eMMC.

[dachalife]

Thanks for the heads up and I have to admit, I did not last the 30 day trial time I set for myself with the stock system.
(I was just happy to be able to do my daily tasks on Linux phone.)

I put Mobian with Phosh on a sd to try today after work and the difference is night and day.