The PinePhone postmarketOS Community Edition is now available to order direct from Pine64 priced at $149 — but I don’t think you should buy it.
Hear me out, hear me out — there is a reason why.
See, Pine64 is now selling a more powerful PinePhone alongside the standard model. It comes with 3GB RAM and double the internal storage — all priced at a very attractive $199.
The new model is exclusive to the PinePhone “convergence pack” (for now). This pack pairs this faster PinePhone with a USB Type-C dock for connecting desktop peripherals, a monitor, etc.
Pine say the USB dock is “…capable of delivering power to the phone via USB-C power-in (3A 5V), outputting digital video via HDMI, 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and two USB 2.0 ports (for e.g. external storage / mouse and keyboard).”
I.e. a pretty solid accessory.
The new PinePhones (both standard and convergence) ship with a minor tweak to their mainboards to enable the new ‘convergence’ capabilities. Earlier revisions of the phone, i.e. as Brave Heart and Ubports Community Edition, don’t support this functionality without hardware modification.
Now, there is nothing wrong with the standard model — I, like many of you, own one — but for the increased memory and accessory for $49 extra is a really sweet deal.
Though if you’re interested in this “limited edition” deal you’ll want to act quick. The recent pre-order window on the PineTab pre-orders sold out, and Pine64 say say they don’t know (for now) if they will keep this higher spec’d model and its companion dock around long term.