Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions

[bifo]

Longtime linux user, never used Manjaro before but I started on Mandrake 6.1 back in the 90s with a hand-me-down P166, when Mandrake was just a better version of Red Hat you could purchase in bookstores (?).

Received my mid-2020 pinebook pro early today, it was supposed to arrive monday.  The build quality definitely meets expectations, the keyboard feels great and I'll have to get used to dealing with the multitouch trackpad.  I find them annoying because they have to be big and my palms beneath my thumbs sometimes hit them so I always turn things off.  I'm not enjoying the Manjaro experience on that level so I'll be installing something with MATE soon.

Everything has worked as expected out of the box, the screen is fitted well and has no obvious dead pixels, and I have not seen any physical defects reported with the early-2020 COVID models.  Hopefully everyone else sees the same quality.

One actual concern which many might not notice, I have another laptop with a metal case which is plugged in and grounded.  I have my pinebook closed at the moment but plugged in to the power charger and I'm resting my arm on it, and i am definitely conducting some small but noticeable amount of electricity between the two.  It stopped happening when I unplugged the charger from the pinebook.