Low Power Consumption Phone

[SteveSquatch]

I've been thinking lately one of the issues with the PinePhone concept is that people are working very hard to just replicate what you already can get through Android or IOS. In a way it's almost just a novelty.

Quite frankly, this is a somewhat wrong way of thinking.  Please allow me to explain.

While I do agree that replicating Android or iOS makes very little sense, the whole point of the PinePhone is to have an (as much as possible) open-hardware embedded device that allows anyone to do whatever they want with it (just like with a desktop PC), and allows anyone to know what it is actually doing (unlike Android or iOS), while it may also provide the functionality of a (smart)phone, if desired so.

Please, don't get me wrong, I do not advocate that the PinePhone is going to become another Android.  In fact, it should not and cannot become that, simply because it's very far from being realistic.  If anyone wants "just a smartphone that works well", buying a PinePhone makes no sense whatsoever.  Instead, go buy an Android or iPhone, it would be a much better choice.  If you want "just a phone that works", go buy a used old Nokia phone or something similar.  However, if anyone wants another embedded Linux computer that may also be used as a phone, definitely go buy a PinePhone (or two).

In other words, the PinePhone is an open embedded computer that may also be used as a phone, if desired so.  That's an awesome concept, IMHO, which unfortunately was absent for at least a couple of decades.

You know, I stand corrected. That is a good way of looking at it.

FWIW, I ordered a Pinephone that should hopefully be here in a couple weeks. I'm using a Punkt MP02 phone right now, and I'm hopeful this will be the best combination: using a "dumb phone" for reliable call/text and hotspot. Then having a mini Linux touch device as a "companion" device where I'll have something smarter than the Punkt phone at my finger tips when needed.

I'm looking forward to setting up my Raspberry Pi 4 as a media server at home and connecting to it via SSH with a phone. I'm going to work on some Python scripts for scraping podcasts and vlogs to the RPI and then being able to browse my inventory through SSH to download content to the Pinephone for my commute.