smartphone based on a pine64

[Little_Johnny]

I want to build a smartphone based on a pine64 with android and a c4labs style case,
but i got some questions

is there a smaller lcd screen and touch pannel available for the pine64, about the same size as the pine board ?
is there a way to make it read a sim card and get a signal for calls and data ?
is it possible to put the phone and messaging apps in the pine android image ?


soz for the dumb questions im still a bit of a noob

[Little_Johnny]

would this device be able to be used in the pine64 for cellular network siginal ?  https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2833873/p...erview.pdf

[dkryder]

i have a couple 1st gen electrons which this board is an offshoot of and getting the thing to do messages [MMS/SMS] over cellular is a big chore. i have not read any successful projects so my guess would be that getting voice is very close to impossible. i'd suggest visiting particle website forum for better idea of the hurdles one would have to clear to mate a pine64 to the particle E series board. btw, an E series breakout is $100 and a electron is $65.

[Little_Johnny]

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-fona...le/pinouts

do u think this might do the trick? would it work with the pine is the question?

[dkryder]

it's similar to the electron but not as many options. the best way i can think of to make the rock64 a cellphone is to buy a real cheap cellphone and reverse engineer adding the rock64 to it to have cellphone capabilities and whatever you think the rock64 can add to the mix. personally, i think the rock64 as cellphone is a waste of time but it would be your time so do with it what you want.

[dahni]

it really isn't so miraculous to "build" a cellphone.
various gsm cards/chips exist, the rest is software.
what is hard is to build a usable "smartphone".

i don't know if the above chip is compatible with pine64.
probably not.
looks like it doesn't require a motherboard at all:
https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/17732

but, like i said, various GSM cards/chips are available for all sorts of architectures.
i guess even a usb dongle could be made to work.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

it really isn't so miraculous to "build" a cellphone ... <snip>
what is hard is to build a usable "smartphone".

That really is the krux of the discussion.  You might be able to build a "play-box" with the standard 7" screen, which does in fact have 'phone' parts inside...  but I'm not sure you'd really want to carry it around.  I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 ( which is slim, lite, and looks great ) but I don't really 'like' to carry it around either !   If it were any larger I wouldn't carry it around. 

With all of the relatively inexpensive smart-phones available on the market world-wide,  it just doesn't make sense to build one of your own except just for the academic purpose of the exercise. 

[Little_Johnny]

it really isn't so miraculous to "build" a cellphone ... <snip>
what is hard is to build a usable "smartphone".

That really is the krux of the discussion.  You might be able to build a "play-box" with the standard 7" screen, which does in fact have 'phone' parts inside...  but I'm not sure you'd really want to carry it around.  I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 ( which is slim, lite, and looks great ) but I don't really 'like' to carry it around either !   If it were any larger I wouldn't carry it around. 

With all of the relatively inexpensive smart-phones available on the market world-wide,  it just doesn't make sense to build one of your own except just for the academic purpose of the exercise. 

im still hoping pine will make a 5"screen for the plne64

cellular capibalilitys would be useful for iot and home automation dev and why not learn to build your own phone with usb, hdmi, changable os and possibily solar charge, it all depends on programing and a smallar screen

[MarkHaysHarris777]

it really isn't so miraculous to "build" a cellphone ... <snip>
what is hard is to build a usable "smartphone".

That really is the krux of the discussion.  You might be able to build a "play-box" with the standard 7" screen, which does in fact have 'phone' parts inside...  but I'm not sure you'd really want to carry it around.  I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 ( which is slim, lite, and looks great ) but I don't really 'like' to carry it around either !   If it were any larger I wouldn't carry it around. 

With all of the relatively inexpensive smart-phones available on the market world-wide,  it just doesn't make sense to build one of your own except just for the academic purpose of the exercise. 

im still hoping pine will make a 5"screen for the plne64

cellular capibalilitys would be useful for iot and home automation dev and why not learn to build your own phone with usb, hdmi, changable os and possibily solar charge, it all depends on programing and a smallar screen

Typically Pine doesn't make components like the 7" screen;  consequently they aren't going to make a 5" screen either.  Pine typically finds products on the market which are compatible with their design goals for the boards they do produce.  Perhaps a 5" compatible LCD will come to market in the future.

[Little_Johnny]

the idea is more for acdiemic purposes and bragging rights with my mates 

i want to use a pineA64 and c4labs zebra case with a 4.5''-5'' lcd touchscreen to build a dumb smartphone

i have a c4labs screen case with 7" screen, mine is about 4mm thicker and another few custom plates for battery, amp and tablet speakers but its a tad big to carry around with its 7" screen 

with a smaller screen the battery would last longer 

its a bummer the pine doesent have the case and screen options of the rpi3b and the module options of the arduino 

ill need to make sure i get a 3-4G cellullar module because Australia gov is shutting down the 2G network here

FONA will work here but its made for arduino so im not sure about the pine

i seen some modules theat use i2c, is i2c plug and play?