Pinebook – A $100 14" ARM laptop | Hacker News Reader

Pinebook – A $100 14" ARM laptop

pine64.org

60 pointsj_s71 comments

I am an early adopter of a Pine product. I purchased the Pine64, a case, and some accessories. When I had problems with the product, the folks at Pine64 were completely silent and refused to communicate with me. It is possible that their customer service has improved since I last made a purchase. I will not test it and cannot recommend the Pine products. However, the idea of a $100 computer is tantalizing and I really hope they get their act together.

My board from them failed to arrive, and customer service never replied to a thing I said, but I did eventually get a refund... Without a reply.

I think it is quite often the case that some startup promises something for very cheap. Until they discover that support processes etc cost money too, and then the service pretty quickly goes bad, and maybe even the product doesn't launch.

Could you share what distro to you put on your Pine? Any recommendations or tips? Cheers.

It sounds like they actually spent significant time helping which IMO is above and beyond on a 100$ product. If you want significant support, don't buy cheapest in it's category things as support is one of the things that must be cut to dramatically reduce prices.

I've gotten reasonable support on $100 2-in-1s, $100 appliances, and <$100 pieces of software.

It being cheap isn't an excuse to ship a defective product.

A 100$ toaster is not a cheap in the way a 100$ laptop is. Basically, if your buying a 1,000$ laptop and they reserve 5% of the price for support that's 50$. If your buying a 100$ laptop don't expect the same 50$ be set aside unless your actually willing to spend 150$ on 100$ of components and 50$ of support.

That is a reasonable analysis. I kinda agree that a computer cannot be treated the same way as a home appliance (well not right now anyways, this made me wonder how support for some of the smart appliances will pan out in the future). There are exponentially more things that can go wrong, whereas with, e.g. a Washer, there are a reasonably finite number of problems which can be fixed by a mechanic.

That being said though, radio silence is NOT the way you treat your customers. If they don't offer support, then simply state that in an email, or better yet, state that explicitly on the website. But if you have a customer support email and don't honor it, it feels pretty scummy IMO.

Your comment is non-constructive: you assumed I meant a cheap appliance (eg, toaster) rather than one for which $100 would be cheap to moderate (eg, fridge or AC), you ignored that the first item on the list was literally a laptop, and similarly ignored the software one (where 5% of the cost is $0.25).

Plenty of companies manage to warranty and support cheap products -- this one failed to do so.

I bought a Pine 64 also after someone mentioned it on HN and I failed to look at reviews for it. After it arrived when I was going to get started with it I read about how difficult it was so I didn't bother to even try to boot it, I just put it aside. Someone else ITT did mention that OpenBSD supports the Pine64 so maybe I'll try and boot my Pine64 with that.

Here's a review of it by Hackaday: http://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/

You can’t give this to your kid that’s heading off to college — or even high school — and expect them to manage. It’s also not really a replacement for a low-end Chromebook, the desktop is sufficiently sluggish that I’d be wary of recommending it as a cheap web browsing laptop for the sofa.

Okay, well, that's not great. I guess...

On the other hand, I must admit, I rather like it. It’s a lot better put together than a $89 laptop has any right to be, and despite the battery there’s a lot of space inside for adding things. Quite what things I’m not entirely clear on, in the same way I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with it quite yet. But I’ll figure something out.

Okay, now I'm confused... he likes it, but doesn't know why, and doesn't know what he'd do with it because it's unsuitable for the things he'd normally use a laptop for.

So, like a raspberry Pi? It's a computer, but it's quite crappy at being a "normal computer", but it is flexible, so you'll come up with something cool that you couldn't do otherwise?

A Pi is a flexible, small form factor kit computer that has a very clear set of use cases in home automation, robotics, and other embedded applications, among many other things.

The author couldn't come up with a use case for this contraption.

Quite honestly, what would you do with it? Back in the day I might've said thinclient X terminal but those days are long gone, and besides, I could buy a far more powerful used laptop at the same price for that purpose, so... I'm at a loss.

What would you do with this that you wouldn't just do with a Pi or similar?

Okay, now I'm confused

If you're the sort of person who needs a laptop to do the sort of things most normal people use a laptop for then this probably isn't for you. If you're the sort of person who might consider taking a laptop apart and trying to make it do weird and wonderful things the creators had never thought of and realize there is a good chance you'll end up bricking it in the process (and thus don't want to spend too much money on it) then this might just be the laptop you've been looking for

Exactly. For instance at work (robotics) we tend to use little netbooks as data loggers. This would be awesome for that.

>Quite what things [will be added inside] I’m not entirely clear on.

That's Hackaday. The fact this laptop is seemingly an answer to a question we didn't need asked, doesn't mean the hardware hacking community won't find a killer use for it.

I'd use it as a thin client.

My core i5 8GB laptop is slower when surfing the web in a local web browser than using it to remote-desktop to my workstation over wifi (all thanks to the power of javascript!).

I doubt the Pinebook would be as good for that purpose but it might work decently, and for terminal use it will of course be just fine.

This is all excellent when you want to travel and have the option to do light remote work but not the bulk or risk damaging a real laptop (or maybe you just want to travel to the US but still want some digital privacy).

But you could do the same thing at the same price point with a second-hand laptop, and end up with something significantly more powerful and capable.

Not sure about that, you might get a bulky big thing without any battery left. Two deal-breakers right there.

A second hand $100 laptop will weigh like brick and have terrible battery life. If weighing less than 3 lbs and having more than 4 hour battery life is important then you probably won't find anything on the second hand marked at this price point.

That was rather unflattering.

Pine still have software issues:

* Audio out doesn't work

* Video out doesn't work

* 11" screen flickers

* Reduced battery life

Yeah, and all of those issues except for HDMI-out have been fixed by the community already.

HN hug of death... For now, here's the cached version (text only): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:M-Pti8N...

    $99.99
    CPU: 1.2GHz 64-Bit Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53
    RAM: 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM Memory
    Flash: 16 GB eMMC 5.0 (upgradable up to 64GB)
    Wireless: WiFi 802.11bgn + Bluetooth 4.0
    USB 2.0 Port: 2
    MicroSD Card Slot: 1
    Mini HDMI: 1
    Headphone Jack: 1
    Microphone: Built-in
    Keyboard: Full Size Keyboard
    Touch-pad: Large Multi-Touch Touchpad
    Power: Input: 100~240V, Output: 5V3A
    Battery: Lithium Polymer Battery (10000mAH)
    Display: 14″ TN LCD (1366 x 768)
    Front Camera: 0.3 Megapixels
    Dimension: 329mm x 220mm x 12mm (WxDxH)
    Weight: 1.26 kg (2.78 lbs)
    Warranty: 30 days

The pictures may load faster individually: https://www.pine64.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pinebook_1... https://www.pine64.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pinebook_1...

Slightly better archive https://web.archive.org/web/20170516135311/https://www.pine6...

> Warranty: 30 days

I've been using Pine products since their Kickstarter, and received my 11'' Pinebook about two weeks ago. I currently use it for quick, on-the-go dev work.

Mine is set so that it boots from the internal 16gb eMMC into Ubuntu Xenial w/ i3wm. Then, I can either extend the storage or have it boot into Android, or any other distro, if I have an SD card inserted.

The Android build is well-refined with very few issues; just like the Pine64 SoC, Android is best for media-related use. The linux builds were rough at first, but most of the major issues have been fixed already by the community devs. They're also working on getting Linux on the mainline kernel, and to get 3D acceleration working.

It'll be a huge step for ARM if this device works out.

> They're also working on getting Linux on the mainline kernel...

This was my first question, and there's no answer in their FAQ. Thank you for answering it.

I used a Samsung ARM Chromebook as my main laptop for many years, running Ubuntu. I only stopped two weeks ago when the keyboard finally broke (it did very well for how much it cost).

The biggest problem I had was that driver support didn't appear in the mainline kernel for years. When it finally did all work, it regressed regularly. I gave up bisecting the regressions to keep my own laptop running; I seemed to be the only one doing it.

Now I won't touch any ARM hardware (or any hardware, for that matter) that apparently supports Linux unless everything I need is already in mainline. Otherwise, by the time it lands (if it lands), it seems to be that there won't be enough of a user community left to keep it from regressing.

Yeah, that's the biggest issue with ARM. It doesn't matter what the specs are if the driver's don't work. The reason Raspberry Pi is so great is because of its huge community support to iron out all of its issues. There are plenty of SoC's out there with a lot of wasted potential because of their lack of support, and the fact that vendors only give you binary blobs for critical system drivers...

Thankfully, Pine64 has had a decent community these past two years so I'm not terribly afraid of the Pinebook getting left in the dust. But it's still a gamble.

What's your experience with i3 on it? Is it lightweight enough to be usable as an Internet device?

Yep! It's a decent web browsing experience with Chromium once you configure some of the settings, and use at least uMatrix to block some of the heftier Javascript. And you can use SMTube to play Youtube videos.

I'm currently running Chromium with a few open tabs, SMTube, VS Code, and Hexchat without any problems.

And the pine64 is one of the arm64 boards supported by OpenBSD: https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html

Whoa, that page lists Raspberry Pi 3 as supported also.

Every time I've searched for OpenBSD for Raspberry Pi in the past, all I got was people saying that it would never happen due to the reliance on proprietary blobs.

I was an early adopter of the pine64s. I was going to use them for ARM builds at work. I had the most difficult time trying to install a Linux distro that I could trust. Everything came in the form of binary blobs or pre-installed SD cards.

In the end, a farm of 12 of them lay to waste. I hope I can find a reliable way to install an OS with some semblance of trustworthiness. But the odds don't seem so good after a year of their existence.

ALMOST awesome.

I'd like this but:

1) Keep it thin, however

2) cram all that extra space full of battery, damn the weight, and

3) make the case solid metal. Steel if you must. I want it to feel like a contiguous block of metal with no give (doesn't necessarily mean you have to make it impossible to open, but if that's what it takes, go for it), plus

4) some fast wired interface. Gigabit ethernet or (better) USB3.

Oh, and a screen that isn't awful (approaching MacBook territory, if not matching it) would be nice.

And yeah, I'm aware that exact thing probably can't be delivered for $100. $200-300, though (I know, the nice screen bumps the price up)?

I'd love an absolute brick of a thin, battery-filled laptop driven by something just a bit heftier (mostly on I/O) than the Rpi3. Tech old/open enough that there are no wrinkles to iron out, solid enough case to defend yourself with it then flip it open and deploy to production, small enough to pack well, old-school IBM tank-like longevity. Perfect for a lightweight tiling WM and some terminals, and the occasional light open-source or emulated game.

I know, the nice screen bumps the price up

Making the case out of solid metal rather than plastic is what will bump the price up. Making custom plastic cases is really cheap. Doing basically anything custom of of metal is much more expensive, doing a single pieces of metal with a complex shape doubly so.

It's just got to feel like one solid piece of metal, not actually be solid. Like how iPhones give that glass-and-metal-slab vibe, or (to a lesser extent) MacBook Pros before they thinned the body out (back when they could fit an optical drive), not flexing like the newer ones do when you press lightly on them. I want it to feel like something that could sit in an auto garage seeing daily use and still work after 10 years, but not be giant (possible because the mainboard would be tiny and power-sipping). Sturdy in feel and in fact, though not giant and bulky, and with all-day-plus battery life is what I'm looking for, and I'd trade raw computing power for it. A shopworn socket set of a laptop.

Since the number of pixels is the same, I think the 11" is a nicer deal - smaller, lighter and probably with a better battery life

Seems like the different screen size doesn't totally translate into a proportionally smaller device: the 11 inch is 30mm smaller in width and 20mm in depth, that's 36mm diagonal, when the screen is 2.4 inches, or about 61mm smaller. So around 1.4 inches of additional bezel with the smaller form factor.

Can I please have a $1000 ARM laptop? Or at least something that feels like a $1000 ARM laptop. Make it good enough and I'm not actually too fussed if it costs 500 or 1500.

Try a chromebook -- I'm typing this on a Acer Chromebook R13. Has a nice, bright, Full HD IPS touch screen, 4 GB of memory, and a 4-core ARM64 cpu (2 A72, 2 A53). I'm got a terminal window open running rust builds locally in an Ubuntu installation via crouton. I picked this one up refurb for $320.

why not something like this https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-pocket-7-0-umpc-lapto...

those 14" would be better served with a better cpu

While those look interesting, they seem to be in a completely different market. 14" vs 7" and $100 vs $459, not really comparable.

Wow, I've been pondering gutting a Toshiba Libretto and putting a Raspberry Pi inside so I can have a modern(ish) hardware in that form factor. I am so the target market for this!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of faith in crowdfunded hardware projects.. :/

How about something mote established then, like the Pocket CHIP[0]?

[0] https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip

I do like the chip's game library

I have the same misgivings with crowdfunding hardware, but I ended up backing this project. The same group has shipped two other similar portables in the past, and have some working prototypes. Seems like they know what they're doing.

Edit: I think a big part of it is that they've had prototypes since the campaign launched, but filled the promo page with mostly renders for some reason. If you look at the Updates section, you can see some photos and videos of it in action.

It's an established manufacturer, but they seem to use indiegogo for some reason as a launch platform.

they are in china so maybe that the best way they do it, create a few prototypes and then have the assembly lines to allocate later.

That's also 4.5x as expensive.

I wouldn't mind something like the original 1999(?) Sony Viao which had a really awesome half-width form factor: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CPmuEiWzAXOiJxBRD98rJ_86x1Y...

This design actually continued for quite a while. The last model came out around 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series

Unfortunately, it's saddled with probably the worst series of atom intel made, the original Z(with the awful powerVR gpu).

They still go for quite a bit on ebay, because people love the 1600x768 form factor. I had one for a while, but ended up selling it because i couldn't get over how bad the performance was(720p youtube was a no go, for example). The GPD is sort of a replacement in spirit, but i liked that form factor a lot.

Yeah - I don't get that. People are still reselling your computers on ebay for far more than they should and no one at Sony / any other computer company thinks that maybe it might be a good idea to investigate why.

What I particularly remember about that computer was that it slipped perfectly into the inside pocket of my jacket (remember this is a full featured circa-1999 laptop running Linux!)

> GamePad Digital introduces our 7-inch PC that fits in your pocket! 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM

...doesn't ROM stand for "Read-Only Memory"?

A throwback from the old Pocket PC days. This seems to be written by a nostalgic.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/2005/08/19/ra...

This is an interesting product. I like the form factor, but it would be tough to get used to the keyboard. Reaching over the pointing stick/mouse buttons for the space bar could be doable--I managed to type on a Toshiba Libretto which had a similar problem because the case was higher than the keyboard so I had to hold my thumb sideways. I also use Dvorak so the small ,.? keys would be wvz instead. The touch screen looks way nicer than the mouse.

And what exactly is wrong with a second-hand ThinkPad for the same money?

Nothing wrong, but some people prefer buying new stuff. I'd buy a used thinkpad over a cheap ARM laptop any day.

x230 for example? its too quick with 4x 2.6-3GHz cores (about 4-6 times faster than Pine). Too much ram and disk space, who needs 8-16GB of ram and 256GB of 600MB/s SSD anyway? USB 3.0? Did I mention non flickering not TN screen? all for ~$150

I could see something like this being an everyday machine if it had a decent display (even at a few times the cost). Am I the only one who wants a super cheap SOC with a nice screen, keyboard and trackpad (and long battery life with no fans, since the SOC draws << 10W...)

Page doesn't load for me...

same here

Hugged to death or just poorly managed. Doesn't bode well for a company trying to peddle its wares.

It really, really doesn't, but thanks for the downvotes folks.

The performance of a website during high-stress load really, really does not have much to do with anything else a company does.

Can anyone find the option to add intel AMT to the bios? I can't see it anywhere on the page and I also searched with ctrl+F.

It has an ARM CPU. Intel AMT is an x86(-64) technology. ARM and x86 are two different CPU architectures with incompatible instruction sets. AMT isn't available on an ARM chip.

The comment you are responding to is a joke. It is referring to recently discovered AMT security vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs. The joke is that it is asking how AMT can be added to an ARM CPU, when in reality nobody would actually want to do that.

This has been another episode of the Hacker News Joke Explainer™

Tell that to the guys who developed TrustZone technology.

Trustzone isn't AMT; it's borderline orthogonal. Trustzone is just an extra address bit that's only set in higher privileged modes (the "secure" modes in ARM). Most boards like this boot into end user controlled code while in system monitor mode, or a mode that allows you access to it trivially.

> This has been another episode of the Hacker News Joke Explainer™

Tune in again next time and remember, if you we have to explain you, you just aren't funny.

At least this one appears real, compared to the noteslate many moons ago!

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