this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Pine64

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Pine64 is an organization that designs, manufactures, and sells single-board computers, notebook computers, a smartwatch, and smartphones.

https://www.pine64.org/

founded 4 years ago
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Sharing how I use my Pinetab 2 as a daily device. Honestly, it's a bit of a pain. Since the same vulkan is not supported by gpu, even though I took it mainly for ebook and coding. Of all the browsers I tried, the most productive was qutebrowser, and I noticed that it is the only one where multithreading works properly. But at the maximum loaded sites the browser starts to lag a lot

Battery life I didn't really pay much attention to, but it feels like the tablet can last +/- 4-6 hours. The speakers in the tablet really suck, I haven't heard such a deafening sound in a long time. Keyboard turned out to be quite convenient in typing. Why did I choose sway? Well first of all I just know it, secondly it works much more responsive than the same plasma or gnome, but it's obvious why. What I didn't really like is the protective cover, which opens endlessly in the same backpack, but it is fixed with a regular extra case or a narrow space. Well and still no drivers for the wifi module and camera, which is a little sad, but I will look forward to it. I apologize for the crooked spelling, This is my first time trying to express in English.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks. This is one of the projects i'm interested in, but I know I won't have time to work on so i'm waiting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks for taking the time to put together this review! Pine products tend to require some user-effort. My PBP also struggles a bit when loading some sites javascript. I added these lines to config.py on my PBP to help qutebrowser feel more responsive:

$ cat .config/qutebrowser/config.py 
config.load_autoconfig(False)

config.bind(',v', 'spawn mpv {url}')
config.bind(',j', 'config-cycle content.javascript.enabled true false;; reload')

c.content.javascript.enabled = False
c.url.start_pages = ['https://start.duckduckgo.com/lite/']
c.url.searchengines = {"DEFAULT": "https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q={}"}

Essentially, javascript is off by default but can be turned on with ,j if I'm on a page that requires it. Then, all videos are watched in mpv because watching in browser doesn't feel good.

What would you say about the overall quality of assembly of the device? Are there gaps at seems? Do the ports on the board align with the openings in the case? etc?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh yeah, I was just about to run the website videos through mpv, but for customizing the javascript hotkeys I didn't know, thanks.

About the build quality, I liked everything, but the front camera cutout is somehow crookedly placed. It's a bit pointing to the upper left side of the camera cutout, but it's hard to notice at first view. But I think it's a small thing.

I have not checked the hdmi connector, I don't have the ability to do so. But all connectors are well made and also work well.