Thoughts after a year with the PBP

[ksosn]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to the community here, as I received my first and, so far, only Pine64 product roughly a year ago, even though I've been reading the blog for much longer.

It's the PBP, and I've been using it as my only laptop.

It's really good for what it is: being small, light, having a long battery life (for light tasks), it is entirely silent, it looks and feels like a premium product.
The RAM capacity and CPU performance are limited, but it's good enough. All demanding tasks I want to do can wait for the moment when I get to my desk and boot up my desktop PC.
My laptop's role is mainly displaying PDFs, static websites, running a text editor, running GIMP, compiling small programs, letting me SSH into other machines.
As for the future: the machine serves its role well, and this isn't going to change, so even though I would like my next laptop to also be a small, light, fanless Pine64 product, I wouldn't want to buy it until 2030. Also, given that performance is not very important, I think that the increase between RK3399 and RK3588 is relatively insignificant, and Pine64 either way should wait for new, more promising hardware to become available before beginning work on a new iteration of the Pinebook.

[mehdy]

Totally agree with your take. I’ve been daily driving the PBP for a while too, and yeah, it’s not a powerhouse, but it nails the basics. Quiet, light, great for travel or casual work. For me, it’s perfect for note-taking, remote work via SSH, and lightweight scripting. I’m also in no rush to upgrade unless there’s a big leap in power efficiency or software support. Pine64 focusing on meaningful improvements rather than yearly refreshes makes total sense.

[Surehand53]

I can only agree. 
I am using the PBP since it is out 5 years ago as my only laptop. I have a company laptop for work though.

For my private use I never felt that the resources are too limited. I could do light programming, even compile the compiler for some newer languages like Odin in the PBP.
The 4GB RAM are not really limiting what I do, like WEB browsing, text writing and light development.

Thinks that  all work:
- Modula3, Oberon, Odin compilers can be build and run.
- Building and running Emacs
- Amiga emulator. No problem.
- Silicone Graphics Indigo2 emulator with MAME. Not quite full speed (at all ;-). Still, an SGI Iris on a PBP :-D

Over the years I had only minor damage on the frame that I could fix and cover up myself.

And it cannot be overstated how great the display is for a device of this class.

[tantamount]

And it cannot be overstated how great the display is for a device of this class.

Can you elaborate? Is there not any PWM flickering or limited color range?

---

I think it would be wise for Pine64 to upgrade the CPU and RAM on the Pinebook Pro. But they will do whatever they want.

Realistically there is also the Argon One coming soon which will take a Raspberry Pi 5 compute module, which is fast and has up to 16GB RAM. The screen will probably be junk though.

[Frank23t]

Very impressed with your experience with the PBP – small, long battery life, and completely silent, ideal for light work. Do you find the current Pinebook to be smooth enough for running GIMP and compiling small programs, or is it still a bit slow at times?

[anoduck]

It is nice to hear everyone share their thoughts on the pinebook pro. I am currently in the market for an inexpensive, yet portable, laptop that really only needs to run Emacs for managing my org files, and allow browsing the internet. The pinebook pro seems like it would have been a perfect fit for this application, especially the swanky dock that is available. It is a shame they are out of stock, and I am uncertain if they will be restocking them again.

So, I am looking at the pinetab as well, but am not nearly as excited since it is not a true laptop. Although there might be some benefit gained by trying out the Risc-V architecture.