06-28-2023, 11:55 AM
not exactly an easy question to answer, honestly. but i'll try to address the complaints I've mostly seen. (of course, i'm not infallible, so other piner please feel free to correct me on any points)
to start pine64 sells devices that aren't exactly meant to put directly in the hands of consumers to tear open and start working. a lot of people have become conditioned that a "consumer device" like a laptop, tablet, or phone should just work when they receive it. pine's devices are geared more toward developing new possibilities with their devices. this means a lot of OSes, functions, and features rely on independent, volunteer developers to get them working. To many, when they receive these development devices, they feel disillusioned that they were sold an incomplete product.
this also leads into the often expected support (or lack thereof.) Pine support only really exists for sales (such as verifying defective hardware, or facilitating bulk orders.) this sales support team is really small, they aren't able to respond to every inquiry in the timely manner that people have typically expect from larger device manufacturers. in addition to the inquiries that the sales support team is there to legitimately answer, they also have to sift through inquiries from people who mistakenly assume sales support handles software support. (pine does 0% with the software on their devices, outside of making BSP sources available for developers when needed.) A lot of people aren't too happy to learn that sale support cannot and will not support software issues, too.
from my observations those are the predominant reasons so many people will negatively review pine.
putting all that aside, we have a pretty active community here. this forum is a great place to ask any questions you may have concerning either the pinebook pro or pinephone. What information are you looking to find?
to start pine64 sells devices that aren't exactly meant to put directly in the hands of consumers to tear open and start working. a lot of people have become conditioned that a "consumer device" like a laptop, tablet, or phone should just work when they receive it. pine's devices are geared more toward developing new possibilities with their devices. this means a lot of OSes, functions, and features rely on independent, volunteer developers to get them working. To many, when they receive these development devices, they feel disillusioned that they were sold an incomplete product.
this also leads into the often expected support (or lack thereof.) Pine support only really exists for sales (such as verifying defective hardware, or facilitating bulk orders.) this sales support team is really small, they aren't able to respond to every inquiry in the timely manner that people have typically expect from larger device manufacturers. in addition to the inquiries that the sales support team is there to legitimately answer, they also have to sift through inquiries from people who mistakenly assume sales support handles software support. (pine does 0% with the software on their devices, outside of making BSP sources available for developers when needed.) A lot of people aren't too happy to learn that sale support cannot and will not support software issues, too.
from my observations those are the predominant reasons so many people will negatively review pine.
putting all that aside, we have a pretty active community here. this forum is a great place to ask any questions you may have concerning either the pinebook pro or pinephone. What information are you looking to find?