Is the hardware still being developed and refined?

[orbital]

With all the concerns raised about charging difficulties,
I wonder if the PinePhone's hardware is still being improved,
or whether it was a "one and done" operation.
Is Pine working to fix hardware problems?

[bosi564]

As a pinephone user, I'm not sure what work you expect to happen. When a product matures, it'll become extremely difficult to find new and cheap (as in money, time and amount of work) ways to improve it.

Looking at the hardware revision history: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#H..._revisions - most major issues have been already addressed. So I expect things to slow down, because either new things are not a serious problem or it's not cheap/easy to address them.

[orbital]

As a pinephone user, I'm not sure what work you expect to happen. When a product matures, it'll become extremely difficult to find new and cheap (as in money, time and amount of work) ways to improve it.

Looking at the hardware revision history: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#H..._revisions - most major issues have been already addressed.

I'm talking about common sense improvements that rational consumers would expect when paying money for a product.

If the battery runs down to 0%, can the device be charged? Or does the battery have to be replaced?
If it can't be charged from 0%, more work is needed.

If the device is powered down, can the device be charged? Or does it have to be powered up?
If it can't be charged while powered down, more work is needed.

If either of these basic requirements aren't met, the product cannot be called "mature".
At best it is "cha bu duo", like milk with melamine added.

[alaraajavamma]

I'm talking about common sense improvements that rational consumers would expect when paying money for a product.

If the battery runs down to 0%, can the device be charged? Or does the battery have to be replaced?
If it can't be charged from 0%, more work is needed.

If the device is powered down, can the device be charged? Or does it have to be powered up?
If it can't be charged while powered down, more work is needed.

If either of these basic requirements aren't met, the product cannot be called "mature".
At best it is "cha bu duo", like milk with melamine added.

If you bought Pinephone you bought device what is advertised like this:
"Beta Edition PinePhones are aimed solely at early adopters. More specifically, only intend for these units to find their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience."

I have many Pinephones (I mean many and most of them are in daily use) and never had problem with battery that can't be charged.
I think problem is still that if battery goes absolutely 0% then you have to use external charger - how ever I think most of the main OS's handle this thing really well.
I don't know how Android or IOS does this but it might be even the same? Or have you ever gotten absolutely 0% battery with them - I have not?

I have also many many Android devices - with every device I own something starts when you plug charger. Some devices it is the main OS and some devices start the something like "Please charge before boot" mode.
There might be some phones that can be charged completely turned off but I don't think that is super priority thing.

So I think what you mentioned is actually working - at least as excellent that everyone who fits to this can live with PP:
"Beta Edition PinePhones are aimed solely at early adopters. More specifically, only intend for these units to find their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience."

[Zebulon Walton]

I haven't seen a problem charging the battery with the phone turned off. I did it just yesterday - charge level was at 70% and I plugged the phone in and turned it off. Upon turning the phone back on later the battery was at 99% charged. It may not work if the battery is fully discharged but I have an extra battery and an external charger for such an eventuality.

This isn't a mass-market consumer product with a big corporation behind it throwing huge sums of money into development. For myself, having a removable battery and external charger (as well as at least one spare battery) mitigates the problem of charging at 0%. While the Pinephone has some annoying limitations and glitches, overall it's working fine for me as my daily use phone. The big wins that overcome the annoyances is that I don't have to worry about the thing spying on me and I can work with it much as I do with a standard Linux computer.

[orbital]

I haven't seen a problem charging the battery with the phone turned off. I did it just yesterday - charge level was at 70% and I plugged the phone in and turned it off. Upon turning the phone back on later the battery was at 99% charged. It may not work if the battery is fully discharged but I have an extra battery and an external charger for such an eventuality.

OK that is good to hear. With my Android I charge it every day and it never goes below 60%. But one hears horror stories about the Pinephone. Perhaps the problem is that they released it in such an unfinished state, most of the personal anecdotes are horror stories and some of those are quite recent. While it is true that Pine is not a big corporation, I've worked at several startups and I've found that solving serious issues with a device in an underfunded environment is not a big problem. It is a matter of having standards and sticking to proper engineering methods.

[Zebulon Walton]

OK that is good to hear. With my Android I charge it every day and it never goes below 60%. But one hears horror stories about the Pinephone.

The way I typically charge the PinePhone is to plug into the charger while the phone is turned on, then turn the phone off and walk away for a while. Of course if you plug the charger in while the phone is off it automatically turns on, so in that case I just let the phone boot, then turn it off and let it charge. Seems to work OK that way. I really had not even given charging a thought as being a problem. Maybe it doesn't work if the battery is totally drained but I have offline chargers for that, the Pinephone accessory charger and a universal charger.

Really the only thing I find annoying with the hardware is the slow boot time and overall sluggishness. From turning on the phone to being able to make a call takes about a minute and a half, booting from the eMMC. I do have full disk encryption so that may be slowing things up a bit given the Pinephone's weak CPU. Given the low price of the phone though I can't really complain.

[gamerminstrel]

This may be a bit of a hot take, but I think the hardware support for the original pinephone has gotten about as good as it's going to get. And that's ok. I suppose more stability patches would be in the cards maybe, but what's really holding the phone back is the slow trickle growth of good software to use on it. Which is also fine. 

I've had mine 2 years now and I still marvel at how much more usable and sleek performance has gotten since launch. The pinephone will never be "great" for consumers, but I think (despite its limited hardware) it will become far better than it has any right to be, especially long-term.

[bosi564]

... But one hears horror stories about the Pinephone. Perhaps the problem is that they released it in such an unfinished state, most of the personal anecdotes are horror stories and some of those are quite recent. ...

People like to create drama sometimes. The state of affairs will be in  expected possibilities for anyone having any experience with open source projects run partially (or fully) by volunteers. And even for those having not so stellar experience with corporate software.



Things are what they are. Nothing is hidden. If you want to support the effort or you want to try if it'll work for you, then no "horror story" should scare you into not trying new things.

And if you need rock-solid experience - by something backed up by waaay more money. An iPhone has Apple and more than a decade development behinds its quality. An Android phone has more than a decade development of software by Google. The Braveheart edition of Pinephone (shipped early 2020) came with a test program out of the factory and I waited more than a year before the phone could support my use case. Then I bought the Beta Edition with some hardware fixes I really needed.

[dachalife]

I agree with Zeb and I’m also running full disk encryption on my phone.

I don’t have any “difficulties” charging my PinePhone, it’s been my daily driver for about a year &  I’m still using the original battery.

No “Horror stories” here, I save those for Halloween.