PineNote E Ink tablet and PinePhone Pro developer versions now shipping | Hacker News Reader

PineNote E Ink tablet and PinePhone Pro developer versions now shipping

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I'm so phenomenally excited by this.

I bought a ReMarkable 2 excited about the screen, without fully understanding the degree to which the general-purpose-device functionality had been hobbled. (No amount of we-let-you-ssh-into-it will get you bluetooth keyboard support when the wifi+bt chip has bluetooth hardware-disabled in solder. Caveat emptor.)

Of course it's early days yet for the PineNote, but it's moving in the direction of more general-purpose functionality, not less. And that can only be a good thing.

Much of the Remarkable 2's design shows this level of suspicious hardware design choices that cripple extra functionality, functionality that wasn't advertised, but would have been possible had work not been done to prevent it. Beyond just bluetooth keyboards, while USB keyboards work on the Remarkable 1, support was apparently intentionally broken on the Remarkable 2. While otherwise completely supporting USB OTG, the USB port has been modified, apparently at a hardware level, to not provide power to devices. This appears to be related to the addition on the Remarkable 2 of an additional, physically-adjacent USB-protocol interface with a proprietary connector, for potential future accessories, which does provide power. For those who have made adapters, this proprietary interface supports USB keyboards quite readily: apparently, the possibility of developing a keyboard accessory in the future was sufficient motivation for the company to break standard keyboard support at a hardware level.

While I have found the Remarkable enormously useful, that has largely been in spite of the company. Had I researched it more closely before purchasing it, I would have realized that the seeming openness (SSH access, Linux, a development community and unofficial third-party software repository) appears to have been forced on an otherwise hostile company by the GPLv3. So it is promising to see the same style of device with a manufacturer that actually supports it being open and adaptable.

> functionality that wasn't advertised, but would have been possible had work not been done to prevent it

Not to defend them (I would choose the PineNote anyway) but I think the practice is common: crippling something that is very easy to get working in a current version of a product is how they can later use it as a bullet point to advertise the sale of the next version that contains the "latest development", "much wanted feature", etc.

If we don't see the practice employed often, it's likely because most products are tight closed and the turned off features aren't easy to spot.

> the wifi+bt chip has bluetooth hardware-disabled in solder

Just... why??

Potentially certification. Or it's just missing support components that would be needed for BT to work, but weren't put in because BT wasn't part of the design, and thus disabled since it wouldn't work either way.

Attack surface reduction, maybe? Bluetooth vulnerabilities at really low levels in the stack aren't that uncommon. And if it's just disabled in solder and not on the silicon die, wouldn't it be practical to re-enable it by taking it apart if you really wanted?

Attack surface reduction? On a device with unencrypted storage, the root password displayed in the about screens, no verified boot, no password by default (with password protection that amounts to a lock screen), and unprotected USB access to all user files by default? Where there are four exposed pins on the exterior that allow mounting of the root filesystem as USB mass storage regardless of password protection (https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-recovery), and the root password is stored in plain text?

Doesn't everything you listed require physical possession of the device to do anything with, whereas Bluetooth can be exploited just by walking near a malicious device?

RCEs in your kernel mean verified boot is a baseline desire.

I guess they just didn't hook up the uart connection for the bluetooth side of wifi/bt chip since they were not using it?

If you want to order a PineNote Developer Edition, for $399+shipping, the correct link seems to be: https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/

And you'll need some kind of "coupon code", which I didn't search for. But in the past they've been pretty inclusive about developers (for the PinePhone, which definitely was for developers only, and hopefully didn't result in returns).

(Incorrect links: The Preorder button on https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ goes to https://preorder.pine64.org/ , which says "There are not any on-going pre-order at this moment." And https://www.pine64.org/availability-and-shipping-status/ shows they have stock of the PineNote Developer Edition, and are also shipping it, but no links to get to where you could order it.)

This is the first edition soley for developers, and you had to specifically apply for a coupon code about a month ago to be able to buy one. I do not know if they have any left over ones, but I sincerely doubt it, as they said they got a lot of interested parties for it.

If you are looking to get one now, you will have to wait for the "Explorer Edition", which I think will come out in a couple of months?

My personal opinion, Pine64 has had to work out a few "kinks" in the hardware (if you look at the Pinephone Braveheart, 1.1, 1.2a, 1.2b). I would not be surprised if similar kinks appear in the PP Pro.

I recently got a Quartz64, it has the same SoC as the PineNote. I took the view that there was plenty of development to do before working out how to drive the e-ink display.

> And you'll need some kind of "coupon code"

Which you would have been given if you had registered as a qualified developer earlier on.

For the rest of us, we just have to wait it out until these developers have proven the hardware somewhat.

Pine64 is in the business of selling hardware, not software nor bundled HW+SW appliances after all.

I've heard multiple firsthand reports that the Pinebook Pro is unreliable in the areas of booting and suspend/resume.

Given that the Pinephone Pro is basically the Pinebook Pro packaged in a phone, should one expect the same problems?

Can anyone here comment from firsthand experience with the Pinebook Pro? (or Pinephone Pro prototypes in developer hands, if any such thing exists?)

I don't think the pinephone pro and pinebook pro are very similar.

"We worked closely with Rockchip’s engineering team to fine-tune the SoC’s performance so that it meets the necessary thermal and battery-consumption envelopes. The result of this cooperation is the RK3399S – a RK3399 variant made specifically for the PinePhone Pro."

Presumably it's a hell of a lot more similar than the Allwinner A64 in a regular Pinephone is.

The RK3399S being a new and even less mature variant of the RK3399 found in the Pinebook Pro doesn't encourage me to expect better results.

Again, honest firsthand accounts welcome.

From the pine note order page: > Most of the device’s functionality, including the e-paper display, do not work at this time….

At this stage it is very much for developers looking to contribute.

"At this stage it is very much for developers looking to contribute."

Pretty much like anything from pine at this point?

All of their SBCs, with the new Quartz64 being an exception, work flawlessly. Also, mainline and blobless.

Maybe we have different definitions of flawless and I do not own a pine device, but I follow the channels and groups around pine - and everytime I look into that channel, I read about how to get basic stuff running, how to troubleshoot, what went wrong this time etc.

huh, then how do they test it?

there's a working Android version for the device - the work is in building a FLOSS set of drivers for the display etc.

Is there a video so I can get an idea about speed of refreshing/tracking the pen?

Pine64 offering are very interesting. They offer some powerful SBC's on a raspi which makes them compatible with many available cases. This also puts them on a position to release a very unique product: a notebook case for arm SBC. Something like a non-toy crowpi2. The pinebook pro is interesting but non-upgradeable, a arm sbc case in a notebook form would be the ultimate upgradeable obsolescence free cheap laptop.

It's too bad the ~10.5" e-ink display doesn't come in a higher resolution version. They all seem to be the same 1872×1404 227 PPI panel. In comparison an iPad is around 267 PPI and you can get 8" eink ones at 300ppi. My 6.8" kindle at 300ppi seems not quite big enough for comics yet.

IMHO, comics can't be reasonably read at a screen size less than 25cm (10") or so. The pages are laid out for about that size, the letters are scaled for that... Leaning in closer doesn't improve the experience much.

The Amazon Kindle Fire HD10 is cheap (less than $100 on sale, which happens every few months), has a 10.1" color LCD screen, and enough CPU and RAM to make it painless for reading comics. I recommend it for that purpose alone... and not really for anything else.

Many manga are made for the smaller tankobon format, but reading it on a printed page is nicer than an e-ink I've found.

Also there are many options for LCD readers, it's more about how there is only one option for the eink type.

True but eink pixels are not delineated by a grid and aren't exactly square so the effect presents itself as a kind of natural anti aliasing. I haven't seen this display but I think it will look similar to the iPad in question.

Also you'll probably view it at a bit higher distance than a 6" Kindle meant for reading only. Because this one is meant to write on.

Why do I see squares when I draw a 45 degree line on Remarkable 2 if the pixels are not exactly square on an eink?

I ordered a Pinephone Pro dev edition, and my shipping notice has yet to arrive. I am wondering if they are waiting until Monday to ship it? Or if the shipping is still winding through DHL and I will get a shipping notice "soon".

As a follow up, I got the shipping notification this morning.

I haven't gotten my shiping notice either. I order mid November. Just got some new spam from DHL addressed to my pine64 email address on Friday so I'm hopeful that's a sign.

In general Pine64 seems really terrible when it comes to providing shipping notifications and tracking.

I have no idea why that is, or why they won’t try to fix it up to at least meet what I consider the general industry minimum-standard, really.

That said: So far all my orders with Pine64 have come through none the less. There’s probably no reason to be worried.

Yup! Not worried. Just... you know, eager.

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