Pinetab2 - First impressions

[Surehand53]

Pinetab 2, first impressions

This text was written on the Pinetab2 

Unpacking
Packaging is all in white and it feels good. Looks really nice.
A bit of plastic could maybe have been avoided.

You get two packages:

First package with:
- Pinetab2
- Small user guide
- Charging cable
- Serial UART to USB connector to analyse errors if the dispaly does not turn on (hopefully not needed)

The Pinetab has a nice feel to it. A sturdy, not super light feeling. 

Package two:
- Keyboard


Keyboad cover
Check for the camera hole and the pogopins to get the connection right.

The keyboard feels great for a keyboard cover. 
The touchpad is quite big, also good.

First Startup
- The boot time is surprisingly fast.
- The passwd for user alarm is: 123456

Dispaly
I have not taken the transport cover off. The firt impresion is good.
I am writing this outside and it works. My iPad mini is not brighter. Not super bright but normal and usable.

The resolution is not bad and not particular good. For this price point its absoutely fine.

Wifi
Everyone probably knows by now that the existing Linux Wifi driver needs work. Now that the Pinetab2 is out with the users there should be some progress.

In the meantime you can use a Wifi Dongle or connect a Mobile with a USB cable. Instructions are in the Wiki. I am using the USB cable to an Android mobil. Apparentl iPhone could work as well, but I have not tried it yet.

With a dongle or mobile it works fine, the native driver needs patience or active contribution.

Bluetooth.
Not tried, but apparently the driver needs work anyway.

Sound
Works fine. The Pinetab has a nice sound, not super loud, not very much bass  but it sounds very natural and nice.

Touchpad
I can't emphasis enough how smooth the touchpad feels. Not only in comparison to the Pinebook Pro, but in general.
It is super smooth.

The OS
The original OS is based on Archlinux and adapted to work well with the Pinetab2. It is a rolling distribution, means new software is installed when it is available. This will probably work fine for the upcoming active development phase for the Pinetab2.

The KDE GUI  is using Wayland and feels very smooth. Quite surprising in fact.
There might be the odd second wait before something happens to load the app or so, but once the result is shown it looks quite realxed and fluent.

The installed browser is Anglefish and also feels surprisingly quick and definately useful.
Overall, just by gut feeling the Piinetab2 feels on the same level as the Pinebook Pro. There might be smll differences here or there but not much. This might be different for computin intense usecases, but that is also not original tables territorry. The Pinetab2 feels fst enouch for tables tasks.

So there it is. Quite a pleant first day experience 

[israel]

Where is the development of the Wifi driver happening?  I was looking for information about this. I would like to see if I can help in anyway

[Surehand53]

Where is the development of the Wifi driver happening?  I was looking for information about this. I would like to see if I can help in anyway

I would guess the best way would be to contact @Segfault in the Matrix room.
#pinetab64:matrix.org

[angeloweb]

[quote pid="117754" dateline="1685982954"]
     - Debugger to analyse errors if the dispaly does not turn on (hopefully not needed)
Is the debugger the device in the little box with the red cord that has 1 usb-c on one side, 2 on the other?

Also curious why the tablet has a sticker on the protective sheet with "2 Please peel of thiis mask AFTER application completed". Application of what?? And what was step 1?

[israel]

[quote pid="117754" dateline="1685982954"]
     - Debugger to analyse errors if the dispaly does not turn on (hopefully not needed)
Is the debugger the device in the little box with the red cord that has 1 usb-c on one side, 2 on the other?

Also curious why the tablet has a sticker on the protective sheet with "2 Please peel of thiis mask AFTER application completed". Application of what?? And what was step 1?

[/quote]
It looks like the screen protector for the pinephone, I think they already did "step 1" which was applying the screen protector

[fxc]

[quote pid="117754" dateline="1685982954"]
     - Debugger to analyse errors if the dispaly does not turn on (hopefully not needed)
Is the debugger the device in the little box with the red cord that has 1 usb-c on one side, 2 on the other?

Also curious why the tablet has a sticker on the protective sheet with "2 Please peel of thiis mask AFTER application completed". Application of what?? And what was step 1?

[/quote]

The sticker is part of the display units the factory receives and they just keep it on after assembly so there is some protection on the screen for shipping. So it basically has the note for factories assembling the units.

[zer0sig]

The sticker is part of the display units the factory receives and they just keep it on after assembly so there is some protection on the screen for shipping. So it basically has the note for factories assembling the units.

The sticker is part of a screen protector that is pre-applied, you can feel the thin piece of glass on top of the main screen. Nice little bonus, those don't always work as well as I'd like (I think the adhesive ages sometimes, not sure) and it's already there so I don't have to mess with it.

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Pinetab 2, first impressions

I agree with you on all of this. The lack of wifi is a little annoying but out-of-the-box, especially for a new device, this thing is great. Looks good, feels good in hand, decent case, screen protector, it was completely ready to go. Linux wifi can certainly be weird and I'll probably tether or use a dongle until wifi is working correctly (it wouldn't surpirse me if it was just a couple of kernel variables, many wifi adapters work fine on linux, but less well known ones frequently have weird little modifications to work correctly).

Performance seems good, I'm looking forward to messing with this one more, and I am really impressed that this seems so together (I expect some quirks but fortunately, seeming slow, janky, poorly-built, etc don't seem to be on the list)