I am currently a huge fan of pine64, but am wondering if it would be possible to get a more powerful version of the pinephone, maybe a pinephone pro? I know that pine64 is trying to support certain chips for as long as possible but with the introduction of the pinebook pro and the rockpro64 using the Rockchip RK3399 could it be possible to make a pinephone with this chip and maybe 4 GB of RAM? Personally, I know that I would buy the better performing one if I had the option, even for $100 more and I'm sure that many others would like to see it as well.
A PinePhone based on the RK3399 is all but impossible. That chip is too large, makes too much heat, and is missing many of the peripherals you need when making an ultramobile device like a phone or tablet. It was designed for laptops and infotainment systems, and that is what it is best suited for.
Eventually there will be a new PinePhone based on new technology, but it's probably several years away. There's no good chip available at the moment to replace the A64, and also we don't want to fall victim to the Osborne effect.
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pine phablet pro! 
Hello,
I am too waiting for a more powerful CPU / GPU.
40nm for the a A64 is pretty ancient, this has an impact on battery life.
Having an A63 in 28nm would be already more up to date.
I have really felt the difference on my smartphone with 14nm CPUs.
Since ~2017 you get smartphone that lasts long + you can play 3D games which looks sufficiently good like the PS2 / PS3 erra.
With the A64 we are stuck in an age of 2D games because most 3D games will not run on such old specs.
As some pointed out, this is not a "daily driver".
To summarize :
Pinephone is a very good proof of concept / V1.0 .
But having a CPU in 14nm would be a sweet spot to get good battery life and usable game platform.
Hopefully as the industry moves to 7nm and below , we will get low cost 14nm CPUs.
You're right that, if you want to run 3D games, the Pinephone is not a good fit for you.
This is an experimental device in an ecosystem (Linux applications on mobile devices) that barely exists yet. It uses a processor that is relatively tried-and-true for Pine64's development community - the A64 - which was a very reasonable choice because it keeps the system relatively simple to develop for and inexpensive. Computing power on the order of what other extant smartphones are capable of would have been a bad decision, because it would have jacked up the price and development complexity of a unit that is really not much more than a field testing platform for a very new category of free software, and not given us much in return because so little usable software is available presently.
If you really want a foss-phone that has more premium specs, you can always check out Purism's Librem 5. It costs 750 USD, and will be plagued with more or less all of the same software issues we have over here, just with overall slower progress, since far fewer people can actually afford to buy the phone in order to work on it. I like Pine64's approach better.
The Librem 5 is still a quad A53, although on a somewhat smaller process. The problem for both Purism and Pine64 is that the choice of processors that have sufficiently open drivers, bootloader and documentation is very limited. There's a further problem in that they're both low volume, too small for some suppliers even to talk to you. Some of this is improving - open graphics drivers for ARM have improved hugely in the last couple of years - but there's some way to go yet. I live in hope that Google may mandate upstream drivers only for Android, but I'm not holding my breath...
06-08-2020, 04:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-08-2020, 04:39 PM by PhoenixLandPirate.)
I've only been using my pinephone for the day, and of cause theres no real way to push the system yet, unless you put something like Manjaro on it, or find something pretty heavy with Libretine, which I just haven't bothered to do.
Currently theres nothing really pushing that need, I've seen videos of people playing mario 64 pc on the PinePhone, I dont know how well it ran, and if there where significant slowdowns, the videos have been taken down now because of copyright infringement, but if that runs fine, I think many games that will come to Linux on arm will probably run half decently.
I've been quite amazed at how well the pinephone runs actually, it only takes about 3 more seconds to open fluffychat from a fresh launch then my OP3.
My biggest negative with the hardware so far, is that the screen looses detail in darker colours, if you compare the colours of Podbird on the OP3 and Podbird on the PinePhone you can really see the difference, I think AMOLED's just produce better darks, and really make the colours pop, where as IPS displays are apparently better with lighter/whiter colours, but honestly, I think most people in the community either wouldn't notice, or would but wouldn't care, because its pretty much a nitpick, but also, Pine does replacement parts, the idea that they could give people the option to buy a IPS or AMOLED screen in the store, for you to replace your original screen, isn't to of an obtuse idea, and the software can manage that change, it happened with the FairPhone 2.
Either way, I am very impressed with what the PinePhone can do with the hardware power it has, obviously, if you want to play 3d games on this, you might have a hard time, most probably, but for everything else, I think you'd be shocked at how good it is for its price, and the hardware it has in it!
(06-08-2020, 04:37 PM)PhoenixLandPirate Wrote: I've only been using my pinephone for the day, and of cause theres no real way to push the system yet, unless you put something like Manjaro on it, or find something pretty heavy with Libretine, which I just haven't bothered to do.
Currently theres nothing really pushing that need, I've seen videos of people playing mario 64 pc on the PinePhone, I dont know how well it ran, and if there where significant slowdowns, the videos have been taken down now because of copyright infringement, but if that runs fine, I think many games that will come to Linux on arm will probably run half decently.
I've been quite amazed at how well the pinephone runs actually, it only takes about 3 more seconds to open fluffychat from a fresh launch then my OP3.
My biggest negative with the hardware so far, is that the screen looses detail in darker colours, if you compare the colours of Podbird on the OP3 and Podbird on the PinePhone you can really see the difference, I think AMOLED's just produce better darks, and really make the colours pop, where as IPS displays are apparently better with lighter/whiter colours, but honestly, I think most people in the community either wouldn't notice, or would but wouldn't care, because its pretty much a nitpick, but also, Pine does replacement parts, the idea that they could give people the option to buy a IPS or AMOLED screen in the store, for you to replace your original screen, isn't to of an obtuse idea, and the software can manage that change, it happened with the FairPhone 2.
Either way, I am very impressed with what the PinePhone can do with the hardware power it has, obviously, if you want to play 3d games on this, you might have a hard time, most probably, but for everything else, I think you'd be shocked at how good it is for its price, and the hardware it has in it!
Wait, the PinePhone can run Super Mario 64 PC Port? If it's playable that would be quite interesting. Might try to play games on it but nothing too demanding and that's not very high on my priority list of things for the phone.
(06-08-2020, 11:14 PM)DrewTechs Wrote: (06-08-2020, 04:37 PM)PhoenixLandPirate Wrote: I've only been using my pinephone for the day, and of cause theres no real way to push the system yet, unless you put something like Manjaro on it, or find something pretty heavy with Libretine, which I just haven't bothered to do.
Currently theres nothing really pushing that need, I've seen videos of people playing mario 64 pc on the PinePhone, I dont know how well it ran, and if there where significant slowdowns, the videos have been taken down now because of copyright infringement, but if that runs fine, I think many games that will come to Linux on arm will probably run half decently.
I've been quite amazed at how well the pinephone runs actually, it only takes about 3 more seconds to open fluffychat from a fresh launch then my OP3.
My biggest negative with the hardware so far, is that the screen looses detail in darker colours, if you compare the colours of Podbird on the OP3 and Podbird on the PinePhone you can really see the difference, I think AMOLED's just produce better darks, and really make the colours pop, where as IPS displays are apparently better with lighter/whiter colours, but honestly, I think most people in the community either wouldn't notice, or would but wouldn't care, because its pretty much a nitpick, but also, Pine does replacement parts, the idea that they could give people the option to buy a IPS or AMOLED screen in the store, for you to replace your original screen, isn't to of an obtuse idea, and the software can manage that change, it happened with the FairPhone 2.
Either way, I am very impressed with what the PinePhone can do with the hardware power it has, obviously, if you want to play 3d games on this, you might have a hard time, most probably, but for everything else, I think you'd be shocked at how good it is for its price, and the hardware it has in it!
Wait, the PinePhone can run Super Mario 64 PC Port? If it's playable that would be quite interesting. Might try to play games on it but nothing too demanding and that's not very high on my priority list of things for the phone.
Danct12 is the guy who uploaded videos but had to take them down, I'm sure he'd give you some details and information about how it works/worked.
He's @RealDanct12 on twitter, and his twitter gives you more ways to contact him, aka Telegram and Matrix.
(06-09-2020, 06:31 AM)PhoenixLandPirate Wrote: (06-08-2020, 11:14 PM)DrewTechs Wrote: (06-08-2020, 04:37 PM)PhoenixLandPirate Wrote: I've only been using my pinephone for the day, and of cause theres no real way to push the system yet, unless you put something like Manjaro on it, or find something pretty heavy with Libretine, which I just haven't bothered to do.
Currently theres nothing really pushing that need, I've seen videos of people playing mario 64 pc on the PinePhone, I dont know how well it ran, and if there where significant slowdowns, the videos have been taken down now because of copyright infringement, but if that runs fine, I think many games that will come to Linux on arm will probably run half decently.
I've been quite amazed at how well the pinephone runs actually, it only takes about 3 more seconds to open fluffychat from a fresh launch then my OP3.
My biggest negative with the hardware so far, is that the screen looses detail in darker colours, if you compare the colours of Podbird on the OP3 and Podbird on the PinePhone you can really see the difference, I think AMOLED's just produce better darks, and really make the colours pop, where as IPS displays are apparently better with lighter/whiter colours, but honestly, I think most people in the community either wouldn't notice, or would but wouldn't care, because its pretty much a nitpick, but also, Pine does replacement parts, the idea that they could give people the option to buy a IPS or AMOLED screen in the store, for you to replace your original screen, isn't to of an obtuse idea, and the software can manage that change, it happened with the FairPhone 2.
Either way, I am very impressed with what the PinePhone can do with the hardware power it has, obviously, if you want to play 3d games on this, you might have a hard time, most probably, but for everything else, I think you'd be shocked at how good it is for its price, and the hardware it has in it!
Wait, the PinePhone can run Super Mario 64 PC Port? If it's playable that would be quite interesting. Might try to play games on it but nothing too demanding and that's not very high on my priority list of things for the phone.
Danct12 is the guy who uploaded videos but had to take them down, I'm sure he'd give you some details and information about how it works/worked.
He's @RealDanct12 on twitter, and his twitter gives you more ways to contact him, aka Telegram and Matrix. Is he on the Super Mario 64 PC Port Discord?
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Suggestion: better performing pinephone
