Librem 5 is fatter and heavier, PinePhone is slimmer but with a smaller battery. You can buy, what, 3 PPs for the price of a Librem 5, with enough left over for 3 or 4 backup batteries, or one PP and dozens.
I can't tell you what the Librem 5 is really like, because they haven't shipped mine yet, but the PP is very, very nice.
>I can't tell you what the Librem 5 is really like, because they haven't shipped mine yet, but the PP is very, very nice.
I guess my question is: can you use the PinePhone (or Librem 5) as a phone? Can you reliably make and receive calls? Can you reliably send/receive SMS and MMS? Does it have error recovery if for some reason you don't get a message? Does the battery last for a reasonable day (>= 16 hours)? What networks are compatible, and do they work with MVNOs and not just the big boys?
I've used SailfishOS in the past and enjoyed it—and would've continued using it, but my phone died and I bought a KaiOS burner and never updated. I've toyed with the idea of picking up a PinePhone because it's more within my budget; but I want my phone to, you know, be a phone—not (just) a miniature computer that fits in my pocket. I have a fairly high pain tolerance (Sailfish wasn't exactly polished the way I wanted), but if I can't make or receive calls or SMS/MMS, that's a serious problem whether I can run Blender on it or not.
1) You can (mostly) reliably make and receive calls
2) SMS but no MMS. IIRC, if someone sends you an MMS it will jam up the SMS app (not sure if it is/was a modem firmware or app issue or if it's been resolved yet or not)
3) Error recovery... hahahaha. Umm, no. I still see a fair number of messages re: people needing to tweak the modem due to text messaging issues.
4) Battery life is far better than it was but not as good as it needs to be. If you use the phone moderately, it should make it through the day. Heavy usage can kill it in a couple of hours.
5) Other than possibly Verizon, I think it's been confirmed working on all the major carriers and MVNOs. I only single out Verizon because IIRC they have/had a policy of needing to whitelist devices so I'm not sure if there's an issue there or not.
Basically you're asking if it's 'daily driver' ready. My opinion is not currently, but opinions vary on this point. That said, if you're a heavy Linux user with an interest in mobile you might want to pick one up... it really is a fantastic little portable Linux device.
> Basically you're asking if it's 'daily driver' ready. My opinion is not currently, but opinions vary on this point. That said, if you're a heavy Linux user with an interest in mobile you might want to pick one up... it really is a fantastic little portable Linux device.
Thanks! That's really helpful. I'm really optimistic about the device since Pine64 does other (hopefully brisk) business, too. I'm not necessarily opposed to modifying scripts and working through issues (Sailfish wasn't really working all that well on my Moto G Falcon, to be honest), but my family will get annoyed if I can't participate in group messaging.
looking at the PinePhone today, I've seen a few reviews and the subreddit
the impression I'm getting is that it's pretty buggy right now, although I'm okay with some hiccups. I wonder what's the best way to go around it, best practices etc, how to go about troubleshooting as well...
despite these problems, I'm tempted
EDIT: I do think though that having a totally open platform without a reference OS image is too ambitious. Even with flagship hardware, companies prepare images with hundreds of little workarounds and stability-related choices. This makes mobile hardware look a lot more polished and solid than it really is... those components are being shipped with a tonne of bugs generally as the cycles are so short and unforgiving, anything that can be patched up at the OEM level, pretty much is
I can't tell you what the Librem 5 is really like, because they haven't shipped mine yet, but the PP is very, very nice.