Recently, the "Community Pine64", dedicated to the creation of open devices, presented the PinePhone Pro , whose preparation took into account the experience of the production of the first PinePhone model and the feedback of customers.
The main objective of the project has not changed, and the PinePhone Pro continues to position itself as a device for enthusiasts who are tired of Android and iOS and want a fully controlled and secure environment based on alternative open Linux platforms.
PinePhone Pro Features
The PinePhone Pro is based on the Rockchip RK3399S SoC with two ARM Cortex-A72 cores and four ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1,5 GHz, as well as a quad-core ARM Mali T860 GPU (500 MHz). Notably, a new version of the RK3399 chip, the RK3399S, was developed specifically for the PinePhone Pro in collaboration with Rockchip engineers. This new version implements additional power-saving techniques and a special sleep mode that allows users to receive calls and SMS messages.
The device is equipped with 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB eMMC (internal) and two cameras (5 MP OmniVision OV5640 and 13 MP Sony IMX258).
For comparison, the first PinePhone came with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of eMMC storage, and 2MP and 5MP cameras . Like the previous model, it used a 6-inch IPS display with a 1440x720 resolution, but it's better protected thanks to the use of Gorilla Glass 4. The PinePhone Pro is fully compatible with add-ons instead of the back cover previously released for the first model (making the PinePhone Pro and PinePhone almost indistinguishable).
The PinePhone Pro also features a Micro SD card slot (with support for charging from an SD card), a USB-C port with USB 3.0 and a combined video output for connecting a monitor, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS, UART (via headphone jack), and a 3000 mAh battery (15W fast charging). As with the first model, the new device allows the hardware to disable LTE/GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cameras, and microphone.
The PinePhone Pro's performance is comparable to other current mid-range Android devices and is approximately 20% slower than the Pinebook Pro laptop. With a keyboard, mouse, and monitor connected, the PinePhone Pro can be used as a portable workstation suitable for watching 1080p videos and performing tasks such as photo editing and using office suites.
By default , the PinePhone Pro will come with a Manjaro Linux distribution with a customized KDE Plasma Mobile environment, but the developers are also working on creating alternative builds with firmware based on platforms such as postmarketOS, UBports, Maemo Leste, Manjaro, LuneOS, Nemo Mobile, Sailfish, OpenMandriva, Mobian, and DanctNIX, which can be installed or downloaded from an SD card. The firmware uses the standard Linux kernel (with patches planned for inclusion in the main kernel) and open-source drivers.
The Manjaro distribution is based on the Arch Linux package base and uses its own BoxIt toolkit, modeled after Git.
The repository is supported on an ongoing basis, but new versions go through an additional stabilization stage. The KDE Plasma Mobile user environment is based on the Plasma 5 mobile desktop, the KDE Frameworks 5 libraries, the Ofono phone stack, and the Telepathy communications framework. To create the application interface, Qt, a set of Mauikit components, and the Kirigami framework are used. The kwin_wayland composite server is used to display graphics. PulseAudio is used for sound processing.
The device will cost $399 , which is more than double the price of PinePhone's first model, but the price increase is justified by a major hardware upgrade.
The pre-order reception is now open and mass production is scheduled to start in November with the first deliveries expected in December. Production of the first $ 150 PinePhone will continue unchanged.
Finally, if you want to know more about it , you can check the details at the following link.