08-26-2017, 02:18 AM
Just received the Pinebook.
First impressions and thoughts.
At first all seemed well.
The battery was 95% charged upon delivery so that was an improvement on many people's experience (flat due to not shutting down properly after testing).
Then I spotted a stuck LCD panel pixel - just a single pixel off to the upper left screen permanently green. Poor QA. Should never have left the factory in that condition.
More concerning is quite serious keyboard faults. For some reason I can't fathom, the '-' (minus) key (between '0' (zero) and '+' (plus) produces multiple key presses on a single quick touch, and then sticks causing repeat characters until I hit another key. Disabling the key repeat in the Mate operating system helps, but why the fault?
I've checked the seating of the ribbon cable. It is fine. I've even lifted off the key cap. No difference with the key cap off and no change when I pop it back on either.
Additionally, I later found that the combination left Shift and 'm' does not produce a capital 'M'. It doesn't produce any key press. The right Shift combined with 'm' correctly produces 'M'.
I can't work out how, if or whether this could be a physical hardware problem or a software scan problem.
Finally, there is no video output to the mini HDMI port on the left hand side on the Pinebook. Should this work yet or do I need to wait for a driver update?
I also have a Rock64, 4GB RAM with 64GB eMMC, which I am very impressed with. I even managed to flash the eMMC without faffing about with a console cable. Just used a jumper cable (actually a GPIO wire from my several Raspberry Pi models!), waited for a few seconds so both eMMC and microSD card were visible to the system, booted off the SD and then wrote an image to /dev/mmcblk0 (the eMMC)
On the whole I am quite disappointed with the Pinebook and regret buying it. I am pleasantly surprised with the Rock64 which seems to hold much promise. I'm glad I didn't suffer the dreadful experiences with the original Pine64. But I feel I've been stung with the Pinebook. Should have just stuck with the order for the Rock. Oh well!
Any advice and comments would be welcome.
First impressions and thoughts.
At first all seemed well.
The battery was 95% charged upon delivery so that was an improvement on many people's experience (flat due to not shutting down properly after testing).
Then I spotted a stuck LCD panel pixel - just a single pixel off to the upper left screen permanently green. Poor QA. Should never have left the factory in that condition.
More concerning is quite serious keyboard faults. For some reason I can't fathom, the '-' (minus) key (between '0' (zero) and '+' (plus) produces multiple key presses on a single quick touch, and then sticks causing repeat characters until I hit another key. Disabling the key repeat in the Mate operating system helps, but why the fault?
I've checked the seating of the ribbon cable. It is fine. I've even lifted off the key cap. No difference with the key cap off and no change when I pop it back on either.
Additionally, I later found that the combination left Shift and 'm' does not produce a capital 'M'. It doesn't produce any key press. The right Shift combined with 'm' correctly produces 'M'.
I can't work out how, if or whether this could be a physical hardware problem or a software scan problem.
Finally, there is no video output to the mini HDMI port on the left hand side on the Pinebook. Should this work yet or do I need to wait for a driver update?
I also have a Rock64, 4GB RAM with 64GB eMMC, which I am very impressed with. I even managed to flash the eMMC without faffing about with a console cable. Just used a jumper cable (actually a GPIO wire from my several Raspberry Pi models!), waited for a few seconds so both eMMC and microSD card were visible to the system, booted off the SD and then wrote an image to /dev/mmcblk0 (the eMMC)
On the whole I am quite disappointed with the Pinebook and regret buying it. I am pleasantly surprised with the Rock64 which seems to hold much promise. I'm glad I didn't suffer the dreadful experiences with the original Pine64. But I feel I've been stung with the Pinebook. Should have just stuck with the order for the Rock. Oh well!
Any advice and comments would be welcome.