Been waiting to get your paws on the new PinePhone Pro? Well, now’s your chance — pre-orders for the PinePhone Pro ‘Explorer Ddition’ are live on the Pine Store.
PinePhone Pro Specs
| Display: | 6-inch (1440×720) IPS with Gorilla Glass 4 |
|---|---|
| CPU: | Rockchip RK3399S @ 1.5GHz (2x A72, 4x A53) |
| Graphics: | ARM Mali T860 |
| RAM: | 4GB LPDDR4 |
| Storage: | 128GB eMMC |
| Cameras: |
13MP Sony IMX258 (rear) 5MP OmniVision OV5640 (front-facing) |
| Ports: |
microSD card slot USB C (including video) 3.5mm audio Pogo pins |
| Battery: | 3000mAH (replaceable) |
| Price: | $399 |
You’ll need to move moderately quickly if you want the phone in your hands ASAP, as the upcoming Chinese New Year is expected to temporarily interrupt fulfilment.
Pine64 say all orders placed between January 11th and 17th will ship by the end of the month. After that? Well you might be waiting until the end of February at the earliest.
Now that this is the first time people have been able to buy the PinePhone Pro. A ‘developer edition’ went on sale late last year targeted at software enthusiasts wishing to work on bringing up OS support for the device.
The PinePhone Pro ‘Explorer Edition’ is a little further along the refinement process. It ships with a Manjaro-based OS running the Plasma Mobile UI.
That said, this phone is still targeted at FOSS enthusiasts willing to workaround flaws and wait for missing features to be added.
There’s plenty of stock to go around as this is a “large production run” that’s not excepted to sell out in minutes. It is, however, limited to one PinePhone Pro per customer.
You can see an overview of the PinePhone Pro specs in the stat table opposite. This version of the PinePhone is more expensive than the original, but it is also more powerful.
In fact, early reviews suggest the overall performance (in terms of responsiveness, multi-tasking) is far more acceptable in daily or have use.
Like the original, this model ships with as much free and open source software, firmware, and drivers as is technically possible. It also features physical hardware privacy dip switches for the camera, microphone, modem, and so on.
Oh, and that swanky $50 PinePhone keyboard case that recently went on sale? It’s fully compatible with the new PinePhone Pro too, as well as the original PinePhone and PinePhone Convergence Edition.
If you’re interested in acquiring it, head off to the PinePhone Pro page on the Pine Store.