A new Linux phone is on the market called the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition. It comes with an impressive range of features and a $399 price tag that’s sure to catch anyone’s attention.
The new PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition is set for preorder on January 11, 2022, at 2 pm Eastern. The price is pretty reasonable for what the phone brings to the table.
The default operating system for the PinePhone Pro is Manjaro Linux with KDE Plasma Mobile, but the company has made its phone completely open, which means you can run all different operating systems on it. It just comes down to the community and what kinds of creative stuff they can come up with.
As far as the hardware specs are concerned, it has a Rockchip RK3399S 64bit SoC, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, 128GB eMMC flash storage with support for a micro SD card up to 2TB. It has a modest 6″ 1440 x 720 in-cell IPS display, which won’t rival the latest Android flagships, but you wouldn’t expect it to at this price.
The cameras are a 13MP Sony IMX258 primary lens and a 5MP OmniVision OV5640 front-facing camera. Again, these are relatively modest, but they’ll get the job done.
The real selling point of this phone is how open the software is and repairable the hardware is. On the phone’s FAQ, the company says:
Just as the original PinePhone, the PinePhone Pro is built to be user repairable and we will offer spare parts in the Pine Store. The store’s selection will include all parts that frequently break if the device is dropped (the screen, back case and mid section) as well as all electronic components, including the mainboard.
The PinePhone Pro is held together by standard Phillips screws — all you need to repair it is a suitable screwdriver and some spare time.
All in all, this looks like a solid phone for the Linux crowd. It’s unlikely to make waves big enough to disrupt the mainstream phone market, but that’s okay. It’s all about having choices, and this phone functions in its own space.
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