03-02-2019, 01:35 AM
The prospect of an affordable, non-android-and-vendor-crapware-laden phone is exciting (the only thing I'd miss would be google maps/waze).
Is there any idea at this time about what US carriers the Pine Phone is likely to be compatible with and accepted by? Other than some very old knowledge about GSM vs CDMA networks, I'm pretty much clueless (the most "advanced" thing I've done involving cell phones in the last decade was swapping out SIMs to switch from Verizon to StraightTalk...).
Here are some of the questions/suggestions that have come to mind since I first read the FOSDEM post. Presented for your amusement:
- How easy will it be to replace major components (at least the screen and main logic board)? Are there plans to offer repair components?
- Is tethering a part of the design (or is this really just a software issue?). I would love to have a tethering phone with one of the pure pay-for-the-data-you-use virtual carriers like Ting. Will the USB port act as a host port as well as a device port?
- Are there plans for "hackability" or user modifications? Since there is mention of the back panel being removable to access the battery/sim/microsd/switches, I'm thinking along the lines of other expansion options that might be exposed (at the cost of the modder having to make a new back panel to bring these things out):
-- An external antenna port?
-- Bring I/O lines that aren't required for the phone out to some kind of expansion header (or just pads that could be used with pogo-pins). Perhaps there is a USB port, some GPIO/I2C/SPI or serial port available?
-- A secondary power connector? Would that even be useful?
-- If there were the possibility of user modifications, is there space anywhere to allow screws to secure these hypothetical modified back panels. You know, because there so much unused board space in a cell phone...
...Or would it make more sense to forget the phone as a target of hacking and say those kinds of things would be better suited to something like a Sopine module hooked up to the cellular board like with the the dev board configuration? Which begs the next question, will cellular boards be offered?
Thoughts? Ridicule? Taunts?
Is there any idea at this time about what US carriers the Pine Phone is likely to be compatible with and accepted by? Other than some very old knowledge about GSM vs CDMA networks, I'm pretty much clueless (the most "advanced" thing I've done involving cell phones in the last decade was swapping out SIMs to switch from Verizon to StraightTalk...).
Here are some of the questions/suggestions that have come to mind since I first read the FOSDEM post. Presented for your amusement:
- How easy will it be to replace major components (at least the screen and main logic board)? Are there plans to offer repair components?
- Is tethering a part of the design (or is this really just a software issue?). I would love to have a tethering phone with one of the pure pay-for-the-data-you-use virtual carriers like Ting. Will the USB port act as a host port as well as a device port?
- Are there plans for "hackability" or user modifications? Since there is mention of the back panel being removable to access the battery/sim/microsd/switches, I'm thinking along the lines of other expansion options that might be exposed (at the cost of the modder having to make a new back panel to bring these things out):
-- An external antenna port?
-- Bring I/O lines that aren't required for the phone out to some kind of expansion header (or just pads that could be used with pogo-pins). Perhaps there is a USB port, some GPIO/I2C/SPI or serial port available?
-- A secondary power connector? Would that even be useful?
-- If there were the possibility of user modifications, is there space anywhere to allow screws to secure these hypothetical modified back panels. You know, because there so much unused board space in a cell phone...
...Or would it make more sense to forget the phone as a target of hacking and say those kinds of things would be better suited to something like a Sopine module hooked up to the cellular board like with the the dev board configuration? Which begs the next question, will cellular boards be offered?
Thoughts? Ridicule? Taunts?
