Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions

[Luke]

@Unorthodactyl Update the installation and update the trackpad firmware (see stickied threads in Pinebook Pro general forums). That will solve most of your listed issues.

[Unorthodactyl]

@Luke The trackpad is much nicer to use now, but still unresponsive for small motions.
All the other issues still remain. I'll have a look at the suspend one when I get the chance, can't be too hard a fix.

[Soul_Hacker]

I thought i know what i was getting since i already own and sort of daily-drive my 14" OG Pinebook, but i was pleasantly surprised.

The Body is very nice and premium feeling.
The Keyboard is fixed, flex is absolutely no issue anymore thanks to the Aluminium.


Screen is very crisp and clean, also little to no flex.
Performance is very good with the additional feature to clock the CPU so i can work in terminal-only on 400mHz.

The Battery is also good but i think you could squeeze out more by optimization, which really doesn't matter because you can charge it anywhere with an USB port  and an USB-C cable.

I was surprised by the usability "out of the two boxes", even if it's second batch, i had little problems using it outside of the terminal except the Chromium Browser...

i had chromium fixed in less than a few minutes but that got me thinking about firefox/iceweasel, which i still cannot get to run. And whats worse is, thunderbird does work fine on my OG pinebook (even with the exchange-plug-in), but not on the Pro, and i really want that to work.

Oh yeah, i really dislike the ISO Keyboard. Ordered a new one with ANSI, but that's my fault i guess.

Overall i will use the Pinebook Pro as my new daily driver, that's why i sold my ISO/UK to another enthusiast and ordered an ANSI one.

[bcnaz]

Hmmm.....Sent from my un-modified Debian Pinebook Pro using 'Firefox'...
(Just the prescribed MisterFixIt 'updates')

[richfm]

Here's screen capture video of my PBP desktop and the wifi performance that I'm getting. I can use wifi only in the room with gateway, too slow in the next room. Sorry about the poor video quality. Do other users have the same decrease in wifi reception when you move out of the room with the gateway?

https://youtu.be/K3Gt1VxQiBU

[bcnaz]

Perhaps an antenna issue ?

Interesting I will check mine under diversified conditions as well.
I had not noticed a big difference. BUT I was not checking on it ether.

The room with my router has 3 or 4 walls to go through and about 40 foot in distance to the room I usually use my PBP in.
I will post back after some testing myself

[richfm]

Perhaps an antenna issue  ?

Interesting   I will check mine under diversified conditions as well.
I had not noticed a big difference.   BUT I was not checking on it ether.

The room with my router has 3 or 4 walls to go through and about 40 foot in distance to the room I usually use my PBP in.
I will post back after some testing myself

I don't have the same decrease in signal speed with my 2 other laptops so doubt it's an antenna issue. My walls are Wood studs with plaster. The next room is about 12 feet away and through a wall.

[bcnaz]

The PBP antenna, not the router.

[richfm]

The PBP antenna,  not the router.

I didn't know the PBP had a wifi antenna. If that is not working properly, then I paid for a defective device and want a working replacement.

I tested the wifi reception on my 3 laptops, the PBP running ubuntu mate, an ASUS laptop running ubuntu mate, and a netbook running ubuntu mate. My house is 1 floor, 2 bedroom, wood frame house with plaster walls. I took each laptop from the room with the gateway to the opposite end of the house and noted the wifi signal strength. The ASUS laptop's signal was steady at 65 mb/s in every room. The Toshiba netbook was steady at 52 mb/s in every room. The PBP varied from 72 to 65 mb/s in the room with the gateway down to 6 mb/s in other rooms! This tells me the wifi hardware in the PBP is defective. I've tried several things to improve page loading on the PBP like increasing the CPU speed to maximum and flashing several OSs to MMC. The signal strength so was still too slow.

So far the Pine Info team has been slow to make suggestions and their suggestions (reboot router and install default Debian) have not made any difference.

[ndp]

I have had my Pinebook Pro for about 4 weeks now and have been using it extensively.

My PBP was one of the last Batch 1, 128GB ISO Keyboard versions shipped at the end of October.

Hardware:

I am very impressed with the overall build quality and love the magnesium alloy shell ( It may be a fingerprint magnet, but a quick wipe with a microfibre cloth takes care of that)

The screen is excellent - no dead pixels and very high quality for the money

The ISO Keyboard works perfectly for me here in the UK and as my hands do not touch the trackpad when typing, I have not encountered any problems and the keys feel good to the touch.

The trackpad is okay for the price and I'm sure it'll get even better with firmware tweaks.

The webcam is just about okay if you limit the resolution to 1280x720 - any higher and it stutters badly.

The speakers could be better but I have not encountered any of the problems experienced by others.

The headphone jack works fine for sound output, but I'm not sure whether the input is being picked up by the headset mic or the onboard mics.

I have been unable to test the NVMe adaptor as the PCIe socket on my mainboard is faulty - the cable latch fell apart as soon as I touched it.

The onboard 128GB Emmc is fine and is fast enough for my needs.

WiFi works well for me at home on 5GHz but I have noticed that in my girlfriend's house which has 5Ghz & 2.4Ghz and thick walls, my connection flip-flops between the two frequencies as I move around the house and this gives the appearance of being an unstable connection.

Bluetooth audio works well with my Orbitsound soundbar.

Green power light on dashboard flickers with disk activity under Debian/Mate but remains static with Ubuntu Mate (running on emmc or sdcard).

Charging from barrel jack power supply and USB-C both work okay.


Operating Systems:

I like Mrfixit's default Debian Mate image, but It does not seem to be quite as stable as ayufan's Ubuntu Mate imgage which I have now flashed to emmc and am using as my daily driver.

Thunderbird Email works with Ubnutu Mate but crashes on startup with the Debian Mate image (see forum post).

VSCode works with both distros, but only if the version is pinned at 1.29 

My Python3/Kivy development environment is so far working as expected under Ubuntu Mate.

Chromium Browser seems to have issues on both distros - settings page crashes with "Aw, snap" error message and BBC Iplayer video buffers quite a bit at first and then sometimes settles down.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video work fine with Wideveine insrtalled , as does Youtube.

Firefox is okay, and BBC Iplayer Video streams without buffering , but I cannot seem to get it to use widevine for Netflix, etc.

After flashing Ubuntu Mate to emmc, I could no longer boot from sdcard until I implemented the manual procedure recommended by argiebargie in the forums.

Ubuntu Mate automatically recognised and configured my Epson WF-3520 all-in-one printer and SimpleScan worked immediatley after I installed it's package.

Overall, I am extremely impressed with the PBP - it is a brilliant first effort by Pine64 and I'm sure it will go from strength to strength in future.


I shall continue to use my PBP as a complement to my main development workstation. I'm happy that the PBP will fulfil all my requirements when travelling and away from my main working environment,

Well done to all at Pine64 and everyone in the community for getting the PBP off to a flying start !!