05-09-2017, 09:58 AM
I received my 14” Pinebook on 5 May. Paid on 25 April. I don’t know when I put my name of the BTO list but it must have been early.
The package was delivered by DHL. The PineBook was packaged in a plastic “waffle” case for protection. (A note says that this is a shipping case designed for one time use. It did have a few minor cracks from shipping but it did it’s job of protecting the PineBook.) It doesn’t have any external logos but comes with a set of stickers.
I turned it on and it booted Ubuntu Mate. This first boot took a long time but subsequent boot times are less than 30 seconds. Shutdown and wake up when closing and opening the lid works well.
Since the package also included a note to check for an update of the OS, I installed the Pine64 Install utility on my OSX laptop. I was able to download the latest build 20170505. The installed did have some problems with the download as it disconnected about 5 times during the download but fortunately it was smart enough to resume where it left off. After that, I wrote an SD card, put it in the PineBook and booted. It found the new image and automatically installed it and the new image booted up quickly.
I also tried out the Android 6.0 build 20170411 which is the only other option available in the install utility. This also installed automatically from the SD card and booted to Android. The USB next to the power jack doesn’t work on this but a mouse does work on the right side USB port. The HDMI port mirrors the display. (Set it to 720p)
I used the Pine64 Installer to try out the Android 7.1 image (you can drag an image into the installer) and this successfully started to boot but got hung up during the Android animations with a system process failed to start timeout. This did (start to) boot from the SD card and did not install itself in the eMMC memory.
There are two microphone symbols and holes on the case. Informal testing (with Android 6 image) seems to indicate that only the left hand microphone is active.
Initial assessment.
Well, it’s amazing! I bought this pretty much as an impulse purchase to see what was possible with a $99 laptop. It runs great and is quite responsive. The keyboard requires deliberate typing or you will miss keystrokes. The screen is very good for straight on viewing but fades rapidly to the sides (vertical worse than horizontal). The mouse pad is responsive but I did end up with a lot of sudden mouse shifts when clicking. I think I need some practice with it.
The specs mentioned that it can boot from the SD card or internal memory and that would be nice to have multiple OS options rather than installing everything to internal memory (and wiping out the old installation in the process). I’m not sure how to do that. (Android 7.1 image does this)
All in all, I’m very impressed by this $99 notebook. It’s clearly not up to the performance and hardware of a $1000 notebook but for 1/10 the cost, it’s an effective notebook. Once a few niggling software issues are resolved, it should function well.
The package was delivered by DHL. The PineBook was packaged in a plastic “waffle” case for protection. (A note says that this is a shipping case designed for one time use. It did have a few minor cracks from shipping but it did it’s job of protecting the PineBook.) It doesn’t have any external logos but comes with a set of stickers.
I turned it on and it booted Ubuntu Mate. This first boot took a long time but subsequent boot times are less than 30 seconds. Shutdown and wake up when closing and opening the lid works well.
Since the package also included a note to check for an update of the OS, I installed the Pine64 Install utility on my OSX laptop. I was able to download the latest build 20170505. The installed did have some problems with the download as it disconnected about 5 times during the download but fortunately it was smart enough to resume where it left off. After that, I wrote an SD card, put it in the PineBook and booted. It found the new image and automatically installed it and the new image booted up quickly.
I also tried out the Android 6.0 build 20170411 which is the only other option available in the install utility. This also installed automatically from the SD card and booted to Android. The USB next to the power jack doesn’t work on this but a mouse does work on the right side USB port. The HDMI port mirrors the display. (Set it to 720p)
I used the Pine64 Installer to try out the Android 7.1 image (you can drag an image into the installer) and this successfully started to boot but got hung up during the Android animations with a system process failed to start timeout. This did (start to) boot from the SD card and did not install itself in the eMMC memory.
There are two microphone symbols and holes on the case. Informal testing (with Android 6 image) seems to indicate that only the left hand microphone is active.
Initial assessment.
Well, it’s amazing! I bought this pretty much as an impulse purchase to see what was possible with a $99 laptop. It runs great and is quite responsive. The keyboard requires deliberate typing or you will miss keystrokes. The screen is very good for straight on viewing but fades rapidly to the sides (vertical worse than horizontal). The mouse pad is responsive but I did end up with a lot of sudden mouse shifts when clicking. I think I need some practice with it.
The specs mentioned that it can boot from the SD card or internal memory and that would be nice to have multiple OS options rather than installing everything to internal memory (and wiping out the old installation in the process). I’m not sure how to do that. (Android 7.1 image does this)
All in all, I’m very impressed by this $99 notebook. It’s clearly not up to the performance and hardware of a $1000 notebook but for 1/10 the cost, it’s an effective notebook. Once a few niggling software issues are resolved, it should function well.
