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Comment by belval | Hacker News Reader

I curious about the opinion of HN on the absence of 1080p (it's still 720p). Specially this part of the blog post:

> The decision to maintain the original PinePhone’s screen resolution of 1440×720 was made early on; higher resolution panels consume more power and increase SoC’s load, resulting in shorter battery life and higher average thermals. A few extra pixels aren’t worth it.[1]

While I understand the point they are making, the PinePhone's screen is almost 6" and pixel density is probably the first thing that I notice on a new smartphone. It just seems very low?

For context I am fully aware of the project, its goals and that it's not trying to take over the global smartphone market, but for some reason 1080p feels like the baseline in 2021.

[1] https://pine64.org/2021/10/15/october-update-introducing-the...

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As a new PinePhone owner this month, screen res is a non-issue. No one is buying this phone as a daily driver right now. There's very few apps available. GPS was 50 miles off when I tried it. For devs interested in a new project, PinePhone needs your help!

MVP = Linux on a smartphone

That said, I haven't read the announcement closely but wonder why they used the "Pro" moniker. Just say it's the new version of the PinePhone? What problem does naming it "Pro" solve?

> That said, I haven't read the announcement closely but wonder why they used the "Pro" moniker. Just say it's the new version of the PinePhone? What problem does naming it "Pro" solve?

I think they wanted to avoid (unsuccessfully, it seems) people thinking it's the "new" Pinephone. Rather, as I understand it both will be sold at the same time, and one is just more powerful than the other.

Appreciate your response!

"Both will be sold at the same time" -- ah now I see what they're going for. Does this mean further fragmentation of their limited dev resources?

No, because any pretty much any work done for one device will help the other since they are mainline devices.

I've been daily driving a Pinephone since 2020. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't work, when it's bad enough I deal with it.

I think modern phones have gotten absurd with their resolutions and that 1440x720 is plenty for a 6 inch screen. That's 268ppi, which is denser than most non-phone screens.

I want more devices to use sane resolutions so I'm not burning through battery for little benefit. One of the reasons that my laptop is a MacBook Pro 16" is because I think 1080p is too low at that size and 4K is too high. Apple is one of the few companies that uses a screen resolution in between those.

I've got both a pinephone and a 1080p android phone. Compared to a laptop/desktop everything is already scaled to 2x or more, so while I can tell them apart I can't say I'm actually losing anything from the 720p display. The only exception I've found is content consumption, but if I care enough I've got plenty better, larger screens to use.

I own an original PinePhone. Most people are aware of its issues by now, but I always found the screen (and by and large, the general build quality) to be oddly sufficient. It isn’t overkill, but I don’t think it is terribly limiting either. I suppose a higher DPI screen would be a nice luxury, but it can definitely wait for the SoC to catch up.

> While I understand the point they are making, the PinePhone's screen is almost 6" and pixel density is probably the first thing that I notice on a new smartphone. It just seems very low?

With convergence, its HDMI out.

Didn't think of that one, that would make sense.

>1080p feels like the baseline in 2021.

The lower end Android market is still dominated by 720p(ish) phones. Especially the sub $150 market. Having used a few of them I don't think its an issue. Especially when you get a phone with a 720 screen, a modern low end efficient octo-core SoC, and a 4000mAh battery. The 3-4 days of battery life feel like you've gone back in time 15 years to cellphones lasting most of the week again.

Yeah, but... the Pro is not in a low-end sub $150 market. The Pro is twice as expensive as the normal Pinephone: 400 USD + taxes. I don't see how its worth the money if it still isn't gonna be usable as daily driver.

Steam Deck only supports 1280 x 800, and that's gonna be OK for handheld gaming. I rather have 120 Hz and OLED but it ain't gonna happen for now.

I really doubt you get 3-4 days on a Pinephone once you start using sync services (for photo's, e-mail, IM, etc). Or use the screen extensively (browsing, video, etc). Of course the device lasts long if you don't use it for much.

While a Pinephone would be good for watching video's, it isn't because no Widevine, and that's what people need. Without Android emulation, it ain't gonna be popular. Microsoft knows this. Its why they're going for rolling out WSLg's successor on Windows 11, targeting Android GUI apps.

I wasn't really trying to compare it to the low end android market, just saying that there are benefits to lower spec parts.

The Pinephone doesn't meet the needs of the smart phone market at this time, and probably not ever. In my opinion that market will never be friendly to Linux phones because of how much of it is based in proprietary control of the ecosystem. It feels wildly more toxic towards FOSS ideology than even the desktop ecosystem in 2021.

As someone who hasn't fully bought into any ecosystem yet it would be easier for me to transition to using a Pinephone. It will be inconvenient all the time, but at least I'm in control.

I think the performance loss for a higher resolution screen would not be worthwhile here. The GPU in the Pinephone Pro is a lot faster than the original but it's a 6 year old design that is not exactly great by modern standards. And a lot of the existing software stack is not even GPU accelerated yet. 1080p would probably give quite noticably worse performance.

Pinebook Pro (same SoC) has 1080p panel.

It works fine and SoC is fast enough to drive it. Even A64 will drive 1080p external monitor just fine (if you turn off the GPU and use older software made for it, like Xorg, and i3wm).

I believe the power efficiency argument, though. Pinephone pro needs every bit of power savings it can get, because RK3399 is not exactly a phone SoC.

> the PinePhone's screen is almost 6" and pixel density is probably the first thing that I notice on a new smartphone. It just seems very low?

I don't think it is as big an issue. I have an old 1st Gen Nexus 7, it has 720p resolution on a 7" screen, it is perfectly readable and a generally nice screen to use (I would still be using the device frequently if it wasn't painfully slow due to degrading flash). The difference to a super-high resolution modern device is obvious on a side by side comparison, but not on its own. When I'm just using the device I don't even notice the lower resolution.

Depends on how good user's eyesight is. Many are just not able to tell the difference between 5-6" 720 and 1080 lines.

Not without reading glasses, at least.

But people that need glasses keep them on

People with presbyopia [0] rarely do. This is a pretty common condition with older folks.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia

Pretty common is an understatement. Everyone I have met over 50 used reading glasses. It starts somewhere between 40 and 45, but the number of people without presbyopia over 50 must be minuscule.

I used reading glasses, for years. I don't need them anymore.

Sometime last year I started drinking kombucha, a pint most days. That is the only thing I can think of to credit the change to. My diastolic blood pressure also went down, from 90 to 70.

That is remarkable because, as I understand it, presbyopia is simply a consequence of the proteins in the eye hardening over time, and hence everyone is expected to get it around the same age. I struggle to see how kombucha would help them soften.

https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-condition...

http://www.carolinaeyemd.com/eye-conditions-hendersonville/p...

Well, me too. Struggling to see is the problem we face.

I had no reason to believe anything could improve it, but I cannot argue with the fact that I do not need the reading glasses anymore. Similarly, I had never heard of anything that would lower diastolic blood pressure, which as I understand it rises as arteries become less elastic. But in both cases, the evidence is objectively unavoidable. (Unavoidable for me, anyway. Others may pretend I made it up.)

It is also easy and tasty to try out yourself. I make my own kombucha for <$.20 / pint. Anybody can do that, too.

If my objectively improved accommodation and blood pressure are the result of some other process, or processes, the kombucha is at worst harmless, and has, anyway, lots of B and C vitamins.

I have one and I'm using it right now. It is more than fine. My eyes aren't perfect so maybe others would care more but the image is super crisp and looks really good.

The screen outclasses the rest of the hardware.

There's more to screen quality than just pixels.

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