For $8, Pine64 sells their similar looking Ox64 -- risc-V core, bluetooth, 64 MB SRAM, wifi, usb, 16 MB flash ...
They also have a $6 model with only 16 MB SRAM version, but that one, unline the 64 MB, can't run linux.
They also have a $6 model with only 16 MB SRAM version, but that one, unline the 64 MB, can't run linux.
The documentation on the CV1800B is still pretty light, but what I've seen suggests it does not suffer from the same issue, so that alone makes this board much more interesting than the Ox64.
I'm not paying that when buying a $9 board.
Considering the volume, shipping by plane from China to Europe to keep minimal stock and using standard mail would be quite effective.
I'm surprised shipping is an issue.
Still, 6 months later they haven't figured it out. From a private conversation with one person "in the know" they claimed its difficult because there are various tax systems in the EU (so what, there are only 27 countries, figure one a month, also it is way more unified now that few years ago when it somehow worked fine for them), that they even have problems shipping to their EU store, that they ship from HongKong and Singapore, despite most of their boards being made in China and that makes it difficult, that their owner "is not China based so they can't use Aliexpress (they could use an intermediary, even with a 20% cut it would still be twice cheaper to ship like this)", that some people in Czech Republic would order cheap boards, then when they were asked to pay few bucks for the lack of EU VAT handling by the seller, declined and Pine had to foot the bill(we're literally talking about $5 bucks), and so and so on.
Eventually I decided I'm 50% convinced they do it on purpose to "help" their EU store, and the other 50% is they simply don't care enough. They just cover the biggest markets and population centers, like shipping to Germany in EU was still available for 12EUR last time I checked. So, no, I'm not buying their risc V board. Id rather get Sipeed's board that I can pay $11 for, but get it shipped for few bucks from China. The whole design is open too.
Mind telling me what shipping method?
Funny story, USPS lost one of my packages (containing a pretty rare device). I filled in the "lost property form" and I supplied lots of pictures, the serial number etc(from the ebay auction). 2 years later it arrives unexpectedly. :-D
So, the morale of this story is: USPS lost package forms are a real thing and there is actually a chance they'll find it!
Second, is there some kind of website you have to determine the cheapest shipping that day?
Thanks much!
And there is, sorta. While our shipping goes through EasyPost, we rarely interact directly with it. Instead our shop uses a web app called Printavo to manage orders. After feeding it the package details it interfaces with EasyPost (very helpfully autofilling the customer's details from the invoice) and displays all available shipping options from USPS, UPS, and FedEx along with prices for all of them. Sometimes the cheapest shipping varies box by box, but in my experience it's always either USPS Priority Mail or (more often) FedEx Ground. And never, ever anything UPS.
Kinda confusingly, I've never seen any of that info on EasyPost itself, just Printavo's wrapper around it.
The EU store has considerably more expensive stock, I assume they have to make sone product guarantees to comply with stricter laws. A Pinecil I bought was almost two times as expensive, though it came without additional shipping costs, from Poland I think.
I have not heard about them in quite some time, but was hoping they eventually reach the point, of offering a usable device. I guess they are still not there?
Pro's hardware is definitely better than the original, but the software part is still very alpha. Many driver is still not mainlined, and are very buggy (especially the 4G modem/GPS...) If you ask me, the main issue is that everyone is trying to create a desktop OS for the devices, with the same flaws. Most applications are simply not optimized for mobile. And of course half of the services are Python - which is fine on desktop and server, but on a battery powered embedded device you want to save those expensive cycles... but I start to rant.
PinePhones are fun (and affordable) toys if this is your thing, but it stops there.
And of course the developer community likes new stuff. Pine64 just released a small mountain of new tablets, everyone is flocking in that direction.
So thanks, you explained very well, that it is still a tinker toy.
I seriously could do with not optimized software, I also don't mind fixing some things. But if the drivers are still buggy, then I still just see no base to consider it as a phone or something that can become a usable phone in the near future. A shame.
Not sure what you mean about 4G modem/GPS - neither does really have a driver on Pinephone. It's just a normal USB modem device you can also buy and use separately in a PC.
GPS just sends some NMEA data over virtual serial port, there's nothing about it that can have a buggy driver. It works just like any other GPS device that can't get assistance data. It's slow to lock on and doesn't work inside.
One thing none of them does is to work reliably for any period of time.
And of course, it gets too hot to touch, sometimes to the point when I rather literally remove the battery for a few minutes in fear of heat damage. I really wonder what was the rationale using the same modem in PPP also...
Then we have the Wifi/BT driver, which actually works once one finds the binary blob required, but they can't be turned on/off independently. But this is the smallest bug. At least tethering works, as long as one turns off all power saving features (and as long the modem doesn't crash).
On a personal level, I wonder if the camera drivers can be even made mainline compatible, with the "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface" solution, which kind of requires a custom tailored application also to work...
I really find Pinephones a lot of fun, but only as a hacking playground. I take one of my Pinephones with me all the time, but I also keep a phone that I know I can rely on.
> "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface"
This is no problem for media API. sun6i-csi driver for the sensor interface just forces the userspace to select only one sensor at a time. The API is made for this. All camera solutions on phone require custom tailored solutions to work. That's just a difference compared to dekstop USB webcam space.
People try to abstract the details in a library (eg. libcamera) or just hardcode it in their app. API for ISP and all required data are just not introspectable, so it has to be hardcoded somewhere in userspace. That's the nature of mainline API.
> WIFI/BT
BT/Wifi should be controllable independently using software, no? Like on other phones. At least I never noticed any issues in this direction.
> Modem crashes.
Sounds terrible. Not sure what's that about. I've never experienced any modem crashes, but I don't have a typical setup. I don't use eg25-manager, but my own kernel driver to manage modem power and my own test software to control the modem over AT interface for SMS/calls. I also don't use mobile data.
Maybe I should try to stress-test the modem a bit more.
Thermal management is lacking, for sure. There are several heat sources in the phone, and there needs to be some software that actively throttles down parts of the phone based on total knowledge of phone activity, and not just simple localized decision-making based on current temperature of individual part. (User on call or using a lot of mobile data, throttle down the main SoC CPU heavily, disable charging or limit severely, etc.)
I know of none. Of course I heard many people online claiming that they do. But I cannot have something as a daily driver, if I cannot reliable know, if I can make a call, or not. (not even speaking about battery life)
But that seems to be referring to XSPI Flash and not RAM.