01-14-2020, 09:29 PM
ANSI PBP arrived on Monday evening, and was out of the packing and booted up within minutes. I ran the MrFixit updates immediately, but didn't have time for much else. I've had a few hours with it today, run the KB/TP firmware update (which was much needed) and overall I'm quite happy with it.
Having a device with no branding other than the small Pine64 logo on the super key is very nice. I didn't realize how much I would appreciate it until I actually saw it with my own eyes.
The build quality is very good. The metal body is solid. The matte display is quite nice. The keyboard is pretty clicky and responsive, as laptop keyboards go. It's not my favourite layout (I use the home and end keys a lot, so having them relegated to secondary functions of the left and right arrow keys is very annoying) and I've got the same issue with the F9-F12 keys mentioned in this thread, but it's mostly fine.
Other than some quibbles with the keyboard, I am very pleased with both the hardware and software. I'm already learning new things about Linux, which is great fun. I look forward to playing around with other distros in the future but, for now, the default Debian MATE build works very well for my needs (mostly writing, web browsing and video).
Video looks sharp on the matte display and the sound quality is good, if a bit tinny (sounds better with headphones, which is how I would usually be listening while on the laptop anyway, so that's fine). So far, the battery life is impressive; I've mostly just been working in the browser and terminal, so nothing that's very resource intensive, but my ancient Dell running Lubuntu would have died several hours ago from doing the exact same things. It's definitely a step up from the computer I was using as my previous daily driver!
For the price of the device, I'm very impressed and am glad the community is so strong and supportive!
Having a device with no branding other than the small Pine64 logo on the super key is very nice. I didn't realize how much I would appreciate it until I actually saw it with my own eyes.
The build quality is very good. The metal body is solid. The matte display is quite nice. The keyboard is pretty clicky and responsive, as laptop keyboards go. It's not my favourite layout (I use the home and end keys a lot, so having them relegated to secondary functions of the left and right arrow keys is very annoying) and I've got the same issue with the F9-F12 keys mentioned in this thread, but it's mostly fine.
Other than some quibbles with the keyboard, I am very pleased with both the hardware and software. I'm already learning new things about Linux, which is great fun. I look forward to playing around with other distros in the future but, for now, the default Debian MATE build works very well for my needs (mostly writing, web browsing and video).
Video looks sharp on the matte display and the sound quality is good, if a bit tinny (sounds better with headphones, which is how I would usually be listening while on the laptop anyway, so that's fine). So far, the battery life is impressive; I've mostly just been working in the browser and terminal, so nothing that's very resource intensive, but my ancient Dell running Lubuntu would have died several hours ago from doing the exact same things. It's definitely a step up from the computer I was using as my previous daily driver!
For the price of the device, I'm very impressed and am glad the community is so strong and supportive!