Most modern smartphones ship with Android or iOS, but there’s also a small, but growing number of phones designed to run Linux-based operating systems. And it’s likely that no phone has been more successful in spurring the development of mobile Linux distributions than the PinePhone, an inexpensive phone that’s made mobile Linux accessible.
But while the PinePhone’s US$ 150 starting
price makes the device attractive, it’s only possible because the phone’s
hardware is not great. So now the folks at Pine64 have introduced a new phone
for folks that want to run mainline Linux on a phone with more powerful
hardware. Meet the PinePhone Pro.
The PinePhone Pro looks virtually
identical to the original PinePhone, but under the hood it’s powered by a
Rockchip RK399S hexa-core processor which should bring a significant
performance boost. It also brings more RAM and storage, better cameras, and
faster WiFi. It’s still a phone aimed at tech-savvy early adopters rather than
the general public. But with significant hardware upgrades, it’s capable of
delivering a better user experience for folks interested in running
work-in-progress mainline Linux-based software on a phone.
The new model also keeps some of the
features that made the original PinePhone special, including a removable,
replaceable battery, hardware kill switches for the cameras, microphones, and
wireless features, pogo pins for optional add-ons, and the same 4G LTE modem
that hackers have already developed open source firmware for.
