PineBook Pro new model?
#1
Is there any plan to update the PineBook Pro with a more recent CPU, 8GB or RAM, Bluetooth LE Audio, WiFi 6, etc?
#2
(06-09-2020, 08:44 AM)zxorg Wrote: Is there any plan to update the PineBook Pro with a more recent CPU, 8GB or RAM, Bluetooth LE Audio, WiFi 6, etc?

There may be more detailed responses with better inside information forthcoming, but I would not look for such a device on the immediate horizon.
This would necessitate and entirely new SoC, and hence a whole new mainboard. The current Rockchip RK3399 SoC, although 64-bit, is limted by hardware design to 4MB RAM.

Pine is also bootstrapping early community lifecycle for Pinephone and Pinetab, and I think it might be overly-ambitious to iterate on a new Pinebook for the same price point, at the same time!
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#3
Not anytime soon. There are plans to release a PCI adapter board that can be added, in place of the NVMe adapter, that will allow for adding Wifi 6.
#4
Ok I see. Making a new entire notebook is a time consuming job. If it could just swap the motherboard and keep the housing, battery, keyboard, screen, and so on... What do you think of a more modular notebook? Maybe I could put on it a 100wh battery instead of default 10000 mAh. Rockchip RK3399 is starting to show its age, and if I plan keeping the notebook for 4 years, expectations are not very good.
#5
The Pinebook Pro will likely go unchanged for the next 2 years. (It is still pretty new.) I believe it was stated that they will look into a board upgrade for whatever is chosen to replace the RK3399. Pine isn't trying to be like other device manufacturers, cranking out new devices to keep up with the trends, so you should expect a longer product refresh cycle for the devices they do/will offer.
#6
The Pinebook Pro is still pretty new.

However they are/were talking about a new motherboard/upgrade for the older Pinebook.
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#7
(06-09-2020, 11:50 AM)tophneal Wrote: The Pinebook Pro will likely go unchanged for the next 2 years. (It is still pretty new.) I believe it was stated that they will look into a board upgrade for whatever is chosen to replace the RK3399. Pine isn't trying to be like other device manufacturers, cranking out new devices to keep up with the trends, so you should expect a longer product refresh cycle for the devices they do/will offer.

This is very accurate.
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#8
Let's wait till people get their pinebook pro.before discussing upgrading it lol
#9
(06-09-2020, 02:56 PM)bcnaz Wrote: The Pinebook Pro is still pretty new.

You must be delusional. Just saying that the RK3399 can be compared to Kirin 990 or Snapdragon 865 demonstrates that you have no clue about hardware evolution. The are MASSIVE differences between newest ARM processors and the one on the PineBook Pro.

Justifying the bad performance because it's open hardware only keeps perpetuating the concept that Free Software has 0 development costs and that they use it because they can't do better.

Make a goddamn top of the line Macbook Air killer. It's not admissible that the PineBook Pro is considerably bigger than the Dell XPS 13. Leave the 17" gaming notebooks for later.
#10
(06-15-2020, 03:26 AM)zxorg Wrote: You must be delusional. Just saying that the RK3399 can be compared to Kirin 990 or Snapdragon 865 demonstrates that you have no clue about hardware evolution. The are MASSIVE differences between newest ARM processors and the one on the PineBook Pro.

I don't think anyone made the claim that the Rock chips are comparable to the 990/865/A13/etc. However, one of the focuses of Pine is that the hardware is reasonably open and well documented - which I don't believe can be said of most of the flagship ARM processors. At least, I certainly can't find much information on them beyond the usual spec sheets. If you want an ARM laptop with undocumented hardware, there are plenty of options.

Quote:Justifying the bad performance because it's open hardware only keeps perpetuating the concept that Free Software has 0 development costs and that they use it because they can't do better.

I'd justify the performance more on the fact that it's $200 than the fact that it's open, though if you know of a radically higher performing open ARM chip, feel free to build a company around boards for it. Pine is built around the Rock chips, and that sort of thing tends to persist through a company's history. Changing architectures/SoCs/etc is far from simple.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do with your hardware, but I'm perfectly happy with the PBP performance. Then again, I've deliberately tried to turn away from modern, top of the line, broken, proprietary hardware, and reduce my demands to what far simpler, less complex systems can deliver.

Quote:Make a goddamn top of the line Macbook Air killer. It's not admissible that the PineBook Pro is considerably bigger than the Dell XPS 13. Leave the 17" gaming notebooks for later.

Might I suggest that what you're looking for doesn't appear to be, at all, what Pine is interested in producing? The world has plenty of good $1000, $2000 laptops. It lacks many good $200 laptop options with open, well documented hardware. The Intel netbooks aren't particularly compelling at the price point.


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