Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

It’s only $99! The 11" is also still a 1366x768 resolution, which is good-ish.

https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707

Two things:

  1. Mastodon archives are weak sauce at the moment
  2. @trashHeap, do you recall the highlights of our discussion about the Pinebook? :slight_smile:

Usual caveats apply. Some non-free drivers needed. The SoC their using has no 3d or WiFi without some non-free stuffs. Bootloader isn’t locked though and it’s getting a lot of mainline kernel attention in both Linux and BSD land. 2gb of Ram looks increasingly slim to me and if I recall correctly ram is soldered, not upgrade-able, but without an x86 proccessor it’s not like anyone was planning on playing high end games on the thing anyway.

Very similar if not near identical in terms of hardware with the Teres-A64, which is more expensive but has no wait list ( some assembly required. ) TERES-A64-BLACK - Open Source Hardware Board

That being said the waitlist is long enough im pretty sure I must have been contacted for one, missed the email in a spam filter; and then never found it; OR its unreasonably long. I am pretty confident I signed up on the waitlist back in October…

…so either it’s LONG or you need to do a better job than I did of looking out for their BTO email.

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This just popped up on some mailing lists im on: $99 Pinebook Gets KDE Neon Port | Hackaday

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FYI the email address you need to whitelist in your spam filter is: pinebook@pine64.org ; if you signup for the waitlist.

Actually does anyone want one? I think im going to pass for now, but I’ve got a link for the october batch.

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Oohh my gosh, seriously thinking about it! Give me a couple hrs to think… :slight_smile:

UPDATE: going to pass. I’d love one to tinker with, but if I buy anything it needs to be a small server.

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My take on the Pinebook is: a very nice toy if you have the extra cash, which in these uncertain times…

I don’t think any of us think that is going to be our workhorse, and I doubt any of us can consider lappies that won’t be.

I can volunteer at https://www.techexchange.org/volunteer.html:

Through Tech Exchange’s volunteer rewards program we award a desktop computer after 10 hours of volunteering. We award a laptop after 20 volunteer hours.

Short of constructing it myself, I couldn’t think of a better way to set up Clover’s first computer. I want a Pinebook, but I want C to have more or less the same experience I have with x86.

I’ve been trying to get @susan to use GNOME so I don’t have to deal with the app store weirdness of elementaryOS, but I don’t know for sure the Pinebook would provide a decent enough experience.

So we’re all tapped out over here for reasons to get this particular cheap laptop. Still looking for affordable laptops, all the time. :slight_smile: