Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions

[Arwen]

First impression: WOW, looks great for a $200 Laptop.
But I have troubles to power it on.

We have started a troubleshooting guide;

Wiki - Pinebook Pro - Troubleshooting guide

It may not help, but, it's at least a start. And if your issue ends up not being one already listed, and affects more than one person, we can add it to the troubleshooting guide.

[odinson]

Finally got mine, a bit late in the day so haven't been able to do a lot of what I was hoping to on the first day. First impressions:


I'll get the negative out of the way first...

I dislike the trackpad. It has a very loud click to it that reminds me of a cheap dell laptop. In fact, right after I thought that the first time I clicked it, my wife said "that sounds like the cheapo dell laptop from my last company" out loud. She heard it across the room.

The keyboard experience is, at this point, disappointing. The delays in picking up keystrokes and the general quirkiness it exhibits combined with noticeably more chassis flex than I prefer, has me typing at greatly reduced speeds. At this point, it would not be fun to stay up late coding with it or engage in an IRC flame war. That keyboard firmware update can not come soon enough.

I also have flaky sound issues I haven't dug deep into yet. It didn't work, then it suddenly worked, and now it doesn't work again. Talking built in speakers, I haven't tried headphones yet. I'll look into that more tomorrow. When it did work, the quality was just okay. I've heard far worse laptop speakers, but I've also heard far better. I don't consider the sound quality a negative, but the working/not working part is. 


Okay, initial negatives out of the way, on to the good...

The processor and RAM combo are, when you set the performance to max, a bit on the surprisingly good side compared to what I was expecting. I'm not going by benchmarks on this, I'm going by how it feels when I just use it, as that's what matters most in the day to day. It doesn't feel like some budget laptop. It's not a speed demon, but it feels like a decently powered work laptop. I would strongly recommend having PBP default to the performance setting out of the box or locked at top gigahertz setting, in order to create a really good first time use experience for people. When it's on Conservative and Power Save or whatever it was defaulted to, it's ugh. When it's on performance or even better, locked at 1.99, it's nice. It's got the oomph to work out as a daily driver. I'm convinced of that now.

The biggest and most pleasant surprise so far, even though I was already expecting it to be good based on other's feedback and the shared specs... the screen really is nice. I'm used to working on retina displays, and I'm used to thinking "ugh, this is ugly" when I find myself in front of non-retina displays... this is not ugly. The viewing angles are great, the brightness range is great, the colors look good. 1080p videos look great. Playing the same 1080p videos side by side on it and my macbook pro 15 and there was not like the massive radical difference between them like there is with other monitors and laptops I've done that with. It's really above and beyond my already high expectations. I would suggest setting the default out-of-the-box text size to like a 13 point font for best first use impact. The default 10 point font is going to be too small/a bit unpleasant for most people. 


So those are my first impressions of it after about an hour of playing around with it. I'm hoping to get a lot more play time with it tomorrow.

[pnts-se]

I just got my PBP yesterday. I havn't been experiencing any of the problems mentioned in the thread. It worked like a charm right out of the box. I like the sturdy metal feel of the chassi.

The best thing is the screen. I was watching the ATP tennis from London all evening and the video was smooth and very nice colors. Compares well to my Macbook Pro IMO.

When watching tennis I plugged in the power chord and brought up the screen brighness to 80-90%. The battery time seems good though. I've had it running today for 2-3 hours doing terminal work and browsing at about 30% brightness. I'm at 70% percent battery remaining.

The keyboard is just fine! Perhaps not for doing 8 hours work/day but my initial impression is kind of neutral. Not the best I've tested but certainly not the worst either. It won't be a problem for me.

My line of work is media services, mostly video conferencing, so I wanted to test the built in camera straight away. I had some trouble with white balancing (too much reds) and exposure distortion in the whites. I was running webrtc in chromium on the factory mate os. I will look into this!

The only thing that I don't like at all is the trackpad. Precision is difficult and there's latency. It's no big problem for me though. 95% I use usb mouse or keyboard.

My overall impression is very positive!

[r59vde]

received mine yesterday - DHL just left it by the door, after 3 text messages stressing the need for a signature...
after trying things out some here are my observations:

default debian-mate build :

firefox crashes on startup, no fix found, not usable
chromium-browser - crashes in settings screen - fix: remove the user-agent setting from the default menu launcher
### summary - no working browser as delivered (chromium is a simple fix, no firefox fix found yet)
## not a problem: speakers are a bit weak - update depends on source? weak youtube, plenty loud in vlc

trackpad is (as previously reported) "drunk","laggy" - hoping for updates...
trackpad physically is crimped/bent - seems not to affect function though - ie works, but as poorly as others have reported...
a cheap wireless mouse works flawlessly
### summary - trackpad is a work in progress, currently not usable

no functioning local video player (smplayer crashes on startup, mpv does not even start)
installed vlc, works fine

mate lag - not as bad as some systems, but noticable - not a pinebook problem, mate is just slow

network :
connect to a wired network - network kept switching back and forth wired/wireless - disable wireless (pine-F11), within a couple of minutes the system hung (wpa-supplicant runaway proc), then crashed and rebooted
disable wifi while connected to wifi - shortly system will crash (runaway proc dhd_dpc)
disable wifi while not connected - runaway proc kworker/2:OH, eventually recovers, no crash
connect to wired (wifi disabled first) - connection bounces 3 or 4 times then seems stable (original pinebook sb-ethernet adapter - rock solid on original pinebook)
update - not stable, drops and reconnects randomly, often 2-4 times in sequence, then stays stable for a few minutes...

synergy (keyboard and mouse sharing) works as a client, but with terrible delays, seems like dropping packets?, - worked perfectly on original pinebook (wired and wireless both bad)

### summary - network is a work in progress, not stable, not reliable, OK for casual use where random drops and packet loss are acceptable

youtube on chrome video plays fine at 1080

keyboard drops keystrokes (trackpad?)

when inactive, screen dims, but randomly (every few minutes) brightens, with no input
does not seem to happen once screen is off

notification-area in the panel crashes on login, restartable from notification (annoyance)

-----
ayufan bionic-lxde build:
firefox works "perfectly" (very limited testing...)

no working battery monitor applet - deal breaker for a laptop
?possible fix - point config to /sys/class/power_supply/rk-bat/capacity ?

apt update reports: The keys in the keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ayufan.key.chroot.gpg are ignored as the file has unsupported filetype. (several times...)
bugreport filed since 2019-08-15 : https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/389

network problems as above - status change (disconnect wifi, connect new wired adapter, etc) causes system crash and reboot
wired networking does not work as delivered - may be possible to configure by hand
wireless "autoconnect" does not work - update : takes so long that it appears not to work (5-10 minutes from boot)
synergy on wifi works usually - some cases of apparent packet drop, much less than debian/mate
keyboard layout is US - does not match UK/iso keys (US touch-typist will be OK)

-----
ayufan bionic-mate build :
apt/gpg keyring problem as above
boot, login both have long delay with just a mouse pointer on screen
very annoying noises on menus etc. (mate setting, can be turned off)
windows minimize on their own - wtf?
new windows sometimes open behind/below other windows
synergy works mostly, occasional lagging, varies from good to hardly usable -- the original pinebook works flawlessly...
firefox:
web pages load very slowly (firefox)
youtube playback at 1080 works, but playback starts at very low res and stuttering
smplayer works, but opens a 1080p video in a tiny window ?
keyboard layout is US - does not match UK/iso keys (US touch-typist will be OK)
have not tried a wired connection yet
mate always rejects first password entry

-----

final software summary : ayufan bionic-mate is the most ready for use of the linux options, pre-installed debian-mate is the least ready, and makes a very bad first impression

hardware
metal case is very nice (my original pinebook plastic has not weathered the years of use well)
keyboard - nice feel for a compact/laptop keyboard, iso layout is not easy to get used to (my fingers know US/ansi, and have trouble with "\", "|", "~", "@" and the enter key ...)
screen - nice!, bright, matte finish so no glare, good control
trackpad - sucks, hopefully the promised firmware update will improve this
note - mine has a "crimp" in it, appears to be aesthetic only? but not a good look...
fit-n-finish - generally excellent, except for loose bezel around the camera area
battery - good, first charge seemed to be better even than the original pinebook, will update after more use (currently waiting for full charge...)
network performance is not good, this is the real "deal-breaker", not ready for prime time problem that needs fixed

I will try installing xfce tomorrow (mate is annoying)

[forkbomb9]

So, I received my PBP yesterday and so far, so good. It really looks awesome!


The good:
It's a well built device, and also very sleek. My brother says it looks like a dark 2014 Macbook Air (which does, but it's not a bad thing)
I was super impressed by the boot time. My Dell's Artix Linux+runit+btrfs compressed root boots in 12 seconds from an HDD, but this thing is ready in almost less than 5!
The keyboard is _awesome_. Really. I can't compare it to a mechanical keyboard, but it's ten times better than my Dell Inspiron 14 one. It's also louder, but I like that.
I'm used to a Latin American keyboard layout, so an ISO isn't a deal breaker.
The screen... Can't describe well enough. The colors are _much_ better than the ones on my Dell. It's also FHD, and mate (I can finally write near my windows!) Comparing the two, side by side, on the same moment of the same movie, the Dell looks faded.
A word on the FHD thing. I like it a lot, but by default everything looks _small_ (and I like small things). I had to increase the font size, and scale chromium to 1.2 to see something. (But you see much more web content than on a same size HD screen. IDK if it's good or bad )
The OS works well by default (except from the font size). Firefox does crashes, but Chromium works very well (I wonder why the launcher uses the ChromeOS user agent?)
I was waiting to get a touchpad almost unusable, but it's actually good enough. I mean, it can be improved, but it's not that bad. You get some sloppy scrolling on Chromium, which doesn't happen with an USB mouse, but I think with the firmware update it'll be much better.
Also, I have to plug in a WiFi repeater to connect with my Dell, but the PBP gets it perfectly. That's a huge plus.
The speakers are good enough for a laptop.

The bad:
The touchpad does a loud click when you press the buttons, and if you click in the center it presses the two buttons at the same time.
On the software side, there's some problems: the kernel provided by Debian 9 doesn't support Btrfs. (and before anyone says _don't use it, it breaks, blah blah blah_, it works well for me, Never had data loss and I feel like it's faster, so I've got btrfs on my external HDD, and it's a shame I can't access it from the PBP (Have to boot into my laptop, copy a movie to a pendrive and then watch it on the PBP...)
Also, I think it's a software issue, but playing a FullHD youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyqNR6W_MUQ) skips a lot of frames. And it's not the only one, just an example. It doesn't really matter to me, as I don't use youtube too much, but I wonder why that happens. Maybe the Debian build isn't optimized to the max? EDIT: downloaded firefox 70 from http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/f/fire..._armhf.deb and hadn't got a single crash with it. It also plays FHD videos perfectly.

The ugly:
NULL

Final notes:
I haven't tested yet USB-C dock/video/charging/ethernet, as I haven't any external display nor USB-C cable, but I'm getting a display by the end of the month. I will update the post then (if I rememeber ).
If anyone can tell me which USB-C to ethernet and USB-C to hdmi adapter works, I'd be really grateful. (I'm getting this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JW7...C2TF&psc=1 and if doesn't work, return it)
Overall, I'm super impressed with my PBP, and Pine64 has done a very good job on this. Really, huge thanks to all the Pine64 team.
I'll try to use it as my daily driver this week. Maybe not for developing heavy C programs, and I have yet to try Rust compiling here, but for web browsing/watching local movies (don't have netflix)/using libreoffice, I really like it.

Almost forgot... I'm running FreeBSD on my Dell, and I like it a lot. I know about low level things, even if I haven't written any driver on my life. But I learn fast, so I'll try to get it running on the PBP (Any FreeBSD developer? Want to team up?)

[jpakkane]

If anyone can tell me which USB-C to ethernet and USB-C to hdmi adapter works, I'd be really grateful. (I'm getting this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JW7...C2TF&psc=1 and if doesn't work, return it)

I have that exact converter and it works fine with two caveats:

If you use both a 4k external monitor and the internal one, then the right third of the external monitor shows random color garbage. Disabling the internal monitor fixes it but turning it back on breaks it again. Most likely a video card driver issue.

The adapter does not do 4k at 60 Hz. Not sure if the device's HW can do that either.

[Jeffersoniantoo]

If anyone can tell me which USB-C to ethernet and USB-C to hdmi adapter works, I'd be really grateful. (I'm getting this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JW7...C2TF&psc=1 and if doesn't work, return it)

I have that exact converter and it works fine with two caveats:

If you use both a 4k external monitor and the internal one, then the right third of the external monitor shows random color garbage. Disabling the internal monitor fixes it but turning it back on breaks it again. Most likely a video card driver issue.

The adapter does not do 4k at 60 Hz. Not sure if the device's HW can do that either.

Ahh!  Thank you!  I had tried the 4K again but got the same noise on the right third.  I will try it with the internal off and see what I get.  Would still like to have both.  Hopefully can be easily fixed.

[Nappael]

Hello all,

I noticed today that the bottom cover is not flush with the edge of the case on my Pinebook Pro. In particular, on the left edge near the IO. I had a brief look around and so far it seems pretty difficult to get both sides to go home at the same time. Anyone had something like this? I also noticed that one of the plastic standoffs were broken pretty much as soon as I opened the case.

[Dcjose48]

Hello all,

I noticed today that the bottom cover is not flush with the edge of the case on my Pinebook Pro. In particular, on the left edge near the IO. I had a brief look around and so far it seems pretty difficult to get both sides to go home at the same time. Anyone had something like this? I also noticed that one of the plastic standoffs were broken pretty much as soon as I opened the case.

I noticed the same thing on my pinebook pro as well. I haven't even bothered to open it up because I have read posts on here about how hard it is to take the back panel off and don't want to break any of the clips that snap into place. I guess I'll just make do with it. Besides that I have liked this laptop. I've been able to use firefox and chromium and haven't had any of the crashes people have discussed. I wonder if they would have charged at least $100 more, how much better the build quality could have been. I do wish the speakers could be better but doesn't really bother me.

[enip]

I wonder if the battery is some generic one I can find a spare one in local stores?