Last Updated on August 17, 2025 by pg@petergamma.org
Four years ago, there was a huge hipe about the Pinephone, which can do anything:
But this hipe lasted only a short period of time. Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org who was looking for an alternative for his Samsung Galaxy S5 with Android 4.4, the last smartphone which he was happy with. Since after Google made smartphones unusable for instance for writers who do not want to sync all their data to Google Inc. he was looking for an alternative.
So Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org bought a Pinephone and installed LibreOffice on it:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16614
It was quiet tricky to install LibreOffice on the Pinephone, and took a lot of time. And to use it as a daily driver for writers, it would need further customization. So we have let go of the Pinephone to use it to write on it.
And who really uses the Pinephone as a daily driver?
Chris Titus Tech said in his review, he can t showcase anything on the Pinephone:
Does this mean that the availability of software for the Pinephone is very limited?
Then, the Pinephone keyboard became unavailable, and now also the Pinephone Pro. And also Rob Braxman who promoted the Pinephone promotes now iodéOS instead.
This is an Android custom build from which we think it is superior to the Pinephone for people who are looking for a privacy phone.
I use now a Google Pixel 6 with an adapter, which allows:
- to write on an SD card
- has an ethernet adapter
- and charging also works with it.
But I am unhappy to go back to an Android phone, especially one that is from Google Inc. We are expecting that Google Inc. sooner or later will limit again for instance the possibility to flash custom ROMs on their Pixel phones, and then we are there where we started. There is no new Pinephone announced. It get s even worth:
No new PinePhone (Yet), future with RISC-V
This we can read at Pine 64 news. But are these Risc devices not even worse than the Pinephone, since almost nothing runs on those? Some Pinephone developers stated, they where beginners, and too enthusiastic. We think this is true. If we look for instance at Raspberry Pi OS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_OS
It has been developed over the last 10 years. And it is much better developed than the Pinephone distros, which are basically at release one.
For instance the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w is not far from being interesting for us personally, to use it as a building block to build a mobile Linux computer from it.
We only miss an option with for instance about 2 MB Ram for the zero 2 w, so that it is possible to install Leepspsvideo KDE built 4 on it, which makes it much more comfortable to use. And with a little bit more processor power, with similar processor power as the Rasberry Pi 4, we should be able to run LibreOffice on it in a satisfying way. And with a mobile device which is custom built, we can for instance add a 7 inch screen. And starting from around 7 inch, LibreOffice should run without much customization.
We can argue that Raspberry Pi s aren t single board computers on which private users should trust on, after the last chip crisis which lasted for several years.
But we learned during this in this chip crisis, that there are alternatives to the Raspberry Pi s, if we need one. For instance the Orange Pi 3 is not far from being an interesting for us personally as well:
Also if we look at the Pine64 forum, is it not basically dead? If we compare it to the Raspberry Pi forum, do not much more users use products from Rasbperry Pi than from Pine 64? But if we look for a forum or a support for the Orange Pi s, it is difficult to find one. And does this not mean that Orange Pi s are alternatives for Rasbperry Pi s, but they are hardly used?
And when Raspberry Pi s where n t on stock for several years in many shops, Raspberry Pi s are always on stock on eBay and Ricardo Switzerland, if we do not need the latest model. For instance during the chip crisis, the Raspberry Pi 3 was available in Switzerland for around 120 USD, as well as the Rasberry Pi zero 2 w. And in times of crisis, theses prices where still not as high as the price for the Raspberry Pi 4, which went up to around 400 USD, which this SBC is not worth it. And as Jeff Geerling said, nobody even needs Raspberry Pi s. But if we need one all the same, used devices can be found on eBay and are an interesting option for us personally, we who are non-coders and non-developers.
The Raspberry Pi 5 is available since almost two years now. If you want to develop a single board computer for a company in U.K. who sells single board computers which will eventually cost 400 USD sooner or later, go for it. The alternative is a Orange Pi 5, which is stable in price and we think it is worth to buy one and to test one as an alternative.