Overheating is the major issue overall I'd say. From time to time I'd get random freezes during load, but it became unbearable recently when ambient temperature started to hit 28C during summer. I've bought one of those nonsense "laptop cooling pad" to see if it makes any difference and boy it does. No freezes ever since, I can video call on web skype for hours (almost 100% freeze reproducer before) with battery charge not falling below 88%. Mind that I'm running stock CPU frequencies by now (stock as in RK3399 stock: 1.8GHz).
Makes me wonder if rk3399 is suitable for passive cooling.
The second major issue -- not enough power for all the peripherals but more power likely means more heat. Personally I'd prefer thicker laptop but with active cooling.
(07-14-2021, 05:17 AM)jpalus Wrote: Overheating is the major issue overall I'd say. From time to time I'd get random freezes during load, but it became unbearable recently when ambient temperature started to hit 28C during summer. I've bought one of those nonsense "laptop cooling pad" to see if it makes any difference and boy it does. No freezes ever since, I can video call on web skype for hours (almost 100% freeze reproducer before) with battery charge not falling below 88%. Mind that I'm running stock CPU frequencies by now (stock as in RK3399 stock: 1.8GHz).
Makes me wonder if rk3399 is suitable for passive cooling.
The second major issue -- not enough power for all the peripherals but more power likely means more heat. Personally I'd prefer thicker laptop but with active cooling.
1.8 GHz might be a bit too much for the RK3399, but in my Samsung Chromebook Plus (also with RK3399 and passively cooled) I only noticed a lot of heat when running Rosetta@Home. When playing the Android game Riptide GP, there's hardly any heat.
Once we get more ARM based laptops (and who knows what will happen with RISC-V), it's highly likely passively cooled will become more mainstream.
I think the next Pinebook needs better controller chips, so we get quick charging and proper power to the USB3 port.
That should be easily achievable with a revised power circuitry, so no need for active cooling.
Minor but super annoying:
The charger's plug has the same outer diameter as a standard headphone jack, which means it's possible to plug it into the headphone socket and not notice. Nothing bad happens if you do this, except that the laptop doesn't get charged, but I'd still really like to see the plug changed to something that wouldn't fit into any other socket on the laptop.
I never use the keyboard-controller kill switches for the WiFi, camera, etc. because you can't see whether they are on or off by looking at the laptop. I'd like physical switches just for this reason.
Relatedly, does the camera not have a recording light at all or is it software-controlled and the driver doesn't turn it on? Regardless, hardware recording light in the next rev please.
Can we have a keyboard with keycaps that are easier to move around without breaking tiny but critical plastic bits?
(07-10-2021, 06:58 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: That button should be a switch, and all the switches should be accessible without removing the bottom cover.
I'd just add this... When my PineBook Pro is somewhere outside my home, I wouldn't like all the switches to be available with the back cover in place, because that would allow anyone to mess with those if I leave the laptop unattended. Thus, it would be the best to have two variants of the back cover available: end-user variant (with no access holes) and developer variant (with the required openings to access the switches).
(07-14-2021, 05:17 AM)jpalus Wrote: Overheating is the major issue overall I'd say. From time to time I'd get random freezes during load, but it became unbearable recently when ambient temperature started to hit 28C during summer. I've bought one of those nonsense "laptop cooling pad" to see if it makes any difference and boy it does. No freezes ever since, I can video call on web skype for hours (almost 100% freeze reproducer before) with battery charge not falling below 88%. Mind that I'm running stock CPU frequencies by now (stock as in RK3399 stock: 1.8GHz).
The back cover of the PineBook Pro is made of rather thin metal, to save weight, but that creates an undesirable hot spot where the RK3399 touches the back cover and makes cooling worse. Thus, it should be possible to improve the passive cooling in the PineBook Pro by affixing a piece of 2-3 mm thick aluminum sheetmetal to the inside of the back cover, which has already been demonstrated by one of the forum members. That should eliminate the hot spot, turning a much larger area of the back cover into a passive heatsink and improving the cooling.
This cooling improvement is one of my future projects. 
(07-14-2021, 11:26 AM)jiyong Wrote: 1.8 GHz might be a bit too much for the RK3399, but in my Samsung Chromebook Plus (also with RK3399 and passively cooled) I only noticed a lot of heat when running Rosetta@Home. When playing the Android game Riptide GP, there's hardly any heat.
You can always apply CPU thermal throttling, which I always keep configured. It would be interesting to see what CPU frequencies end up being used in the RK3399-based Samsung Chromebook Plus under light and heavy load.
I'd use copper in stead of aluminium. Far better heat conductivity.
I agree, but copper is much more expensive, and I also happen to have a lot of 3 mm aluminum sheetmetal already. 
I probably have as much 16ga copper as you have 6ga aluminium
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If you are taking suggestions / requests, I would like the following please:
- A 2nd SD card port that is accessible from the outside (and if possible a hardware toggle switch for boot between them)
- GPIO
- I2C accessible pins
- Some clip locations for building 3D printed hardware extensions that can house new hardware connected via either USB or GPIO/I2C
- Touchscreen / or even better 1024+ Level Stylus
- 9 DOF Gyroscope (6DOF is insufficient for Yaw, and most just have Accelerometers anyway)
- HDMI-in to connect it has a screen
I'm surprised I didn't see this feature request listed: Hardware dip switch to cut the power for WIFI, video camera and microphone. This is fundamental for any secure use.
(07-28-2021, 05:46 AM)dsimic Wrote: (07-10-2021, 06:58 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: That button should be a switch, and all the switches should be accessible without removing the bottom cover.
I'd just add this... When my PineBook Pro is somewhere outside my home, I wouldn't like all the switches to be available with the back cover in place, because that would allow anyone to mess with those if I leave the laptop unattended. Thus, it would be the best to have two variants of the back cover available: end-user variant (with no access holes) and developer variant (with the required openings to access the switches).
(07-14-2021, 05:17 AM)jpalus Wrote: Overheating is the major issue overall I'd say. From time to time I'd get random freezes during load, but it became unbearable recently when ambient temperature started to hit 28C during summer. I've bought one of those nonsense "laptop cooling pad" to see if it makes any difference and boy it does. No freezes ever since, I can video call on web skype for hours (almost 100% freeze reproducer before) with battery charge not falling below 88%. Mind that I'm running stock CPU frequencies by now (stock as in RK3399 stock: 1.8GHz).
The back cover of the PineBook Pro is made of rather thin metal, to save weight, but that creates an undesirable hot spot where the RK3399 touches the back cover and makes cooling worse. Thus, it should be possible to improve the passive cooling in the PineBook Pro by affixing a piece of 2-3 mm thick aluminum sheetmetal to the inside of the back cover, which has already been demonstrated by one of the forum members. That should eliminate the hot spot, turning a much larger area of the back cover into a passive heatsink and improving the cooling.
This cooling improvement is one of my future projects.
(07-14-2021, 11:26 AM)jiyong Wrote: 1.8 GHz might be a bit too much for the RK3399, but in my Samsung Chromebook Plus (also with RK3399 and passively cooled) I only noticed a lot of heat when running Rosetta@Home. When playing the Android game Riptide GP, there's hardly any heat.
You can always apply CPU thermal throttling, which I always keep configured. It would be interesting to see what CPU frequencies end up being used in the RK3399-based Samsung Chromebook Plus under light and heavy load.
The heat problems of Raspberry4 have also been solved by adding a big metal sheet within the Raspberry400.
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