Success!

[Zebulon Walton]

After replacing the screen that I managed to crack on my new Pinephone (an interesting experience), I finally installed a Tracfone SIM for the AT&T network and activated it using a pre-paid Tracfone card. OS is the latest nightly build of Mobian as of this writing.

After activating the SIM and rebooting I found that basic voice calling and SMS both worked immediately. Pretty impressive for alpha software! Voice quality is not the greatest but is usable and will no doubt improve with updates. (People on the other end say it sounds muffled but they can understand me.) Interestingly at first the phone connected via 3G, then it switched to 4G.

So in theory when I'm ready to use this as my daily driver, a SIM for my regular AT&T account should work. Thanks and a tip o' the hat to the Pinephone and Mobian teams! (And to the guys on the hardware board that helped me get through the screen replacement!)

[ryo]

A little question: how hard is it to replace the screen?
I'm having the image of having to be very delicate with that, and especially be careful of the ribbon cable and a few others.

Because yesterday my phone was dropped while riding a bicycle.
The screen is still completely fine, but one edge has a very ugly damage that I'm pretty NG with.

[Zebulon Walton]

A little question: how hard is it to replace the screen?
I'm having the image of having to be very delicate with that, and especially be careful of the ribbon cable and a few others.

Because yesterday my phone was dropped while riding a bicycle.
The screen is still completely fine, but one edge has a very ugly damage that I'm pretty NG with.

Sorry to hear about that! A good protective case is really needed for these, and I'd really like one that could clip to a belt. I don't know if there's anything available for the leading brands that would fit the Pinephone.

Replacing the screen is certainly doable but there are some gotchas there. You might want to look at my thread in the hardware board with the title "How hard to replace screen?" to see some of the things I ran into. A few tips:

* Make sure you have a precision screwdriver set that has the correct size Philips tip. The screws are very small and you could easily strip the heads if the screwdriver is not the correct fit. A magnetized screwdriver will help in not losing screws, as will a magnetic parts holder to keep them in.

* Watch the videos on replacing the motherboard. That gets you most of the way there, showing you things like how to remove the midframe and release ribbon cables from the motherboard:

  https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh...d_revision

* There are a number of components and cables as well as the insulator sheet under the battery that are glued in place. A hair dryer will loosen the glue and make them much easier to remove.

* I found out the hard way that the vibrator, which is part of the USB-C board assembly and glued into place, will come apart easily and be damaged if you pry it up in the wrong place. Make sure you pry from underneath the complete part, not midway on its housing. The ribbon cable attaching this to the USB-C board is small, thin, and fragile so be careful with that as well.

* The new screen is actually the complete front of the Pinephone. It comes with new side switches and insulator sheet but there are a number of parts that need to be transferred from the old screen, like the thin coax cable running up the side, the phone ear speaker, proximity sensor gasket, and a gold-colored mesh glued in place that needs to be transferred to a flexible circuit included on the new screen. (There are photos in the hardware thread mentioned.) I missed the proximity sensor gasket which resulted in the screen immediately turning off after logging in. Be careful when routing the coax cable that it goes around the screw holes.

* You might want to order some extra cables with the screen just in case, maybe some extra screws. Since I damaged the vibrator on my phone I'll be ordering a new USB-C board assembly when they become available.

Take your time, use the right tools, be careful and you should be rewarded with success.

ADDENDUM: I found the plastic box with hinged cover that the replacement screen comes in makes a nifty travel box for the Pinephone. The phone with soft case fits inside just about perfectly.

[Zebulon Walton]

Another update, today I put in the APN settings for Tracfone and cellular internet access is now working.

[Zebulon Walton]

Yet another success, I finally received my SIM cutter so I was able to install the SIM for my regular AT&T account into the Pinephone and it works fine. Now that SIM can be moved between my flip phone and the Pinephone as needed and the Tracfone service I used for initial testing can just be left to expire.

The SIM cutter was well worth the approximately $10 (US) that it cost, it cut the SIM down in about two seconds flat rather than messing around with templates and razor blades. It cuts down to nano size and appropriate adapters are used to fit micro-SIM and standard-SIM phones.