08-24-2020, 01:58 AM
(08-23-2020, 09:06 PM)mrboring Wrote: I'd like to take pictures, have good phone calls, send and receive messages, surf the web including watching youtube videos.
First: Currently, the PinePhone is sold out, so you would have to get one on eBay or wait for the next Community Edition to be available or some stock coming of the postmarketOS CE being back. So you don't need to hurry and can take your time.
That said, taking pictures does not really work yet. Some distributions have working camera apps, but that's all at a blurry 2 mega pixel resolution with a 1 FPS viewfinder. I am sure that this will eventually improve, but there is so much else that arguably has a higher priority with many of the nascent software projects, that no ETA can be given.
Good phone calls. Well, phone calls have been reliable for me lately, but do they sound hi-def? No. Also, the phone get's hot, and most people report that calls longer than 30 minutes don't really work yet.
Sending and receiving messages. Which kind of? Texts have been working fine for me, but then, I barely use SMS anymore. MMS is an entirely different beast (and in my eyes a horrible technology that has no reason to exist, if you have mobile data, why not use email?), some people on some carriers on some distributions apparently made it work for themselves, so: Don't expect SMS. If you are using specific apps, well... I will look into WhatsApp on Anbox (an Android layer, which does not work reliable yet) this week, Telegram works either with Teleports on Ubuntu Touch or with Telegram Desktop on the other distributions, Signal supposedly works on Ubuntu Touch, although I did not try it and should be portable to other distributions.
Surfing the web. It works. But.. with most of the current crop of browsers, that mostly have not been designed for mobile from the ground up, multi-tabbing can slow things down or even crash the browser, as it runs out of memory. Watching YouTube works, even without MPV, but the experience on your Android phone with something like the NewPipe app is likely better.
There is a ton of videos on the web showcasing different mobile operating systems for the PinePhone, just watch them. Arguably, the most ready one that is a true mobile OS in general is Ubuntu Touch, and according to their website, the good old One Plus One which might cost you next to nothing is the device that is best supported (btw, PinePhone support for Ubuntu Touch improved a lot with the recent OTA update, I would not call it "experimental" any more, even though some features don't still work yet (Online Accounts wizard, Libertine with GUI..). Another popular option is Sailfish OS. They have a program called Sailfish X, where you can buy an officially supported image for certain Sony devices. These might be good options for you as well and would solve the "I don't feel in control" issue while still being able to take better pictures than with a PinePhone.