Last Updated on December 31, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org
There are tons of videos on YouTube about the Pinephone, but we do not know of any non-coders who use it on a daily basis, report about it, or stores which re-sell the Pinephone. Also no one seem to report about using a Linux phone for word processing.
There are delivery problems with the Raspberri PI CM4 that we ordered from Digitec, the CM4 for 50 SFR may not come for a year, we suppose because of Corona. The 2 GB version allows installation of Ubuntu desktop and LibreOffice. But user report that for instance the Pinephone screen is too small for LibreOffice, why should then the 5 inch screen of the Raspberri Pi Pad 5 be large enough?
Many users have high expectations in Linux phones, devices which can do anything, since they are Linux phones. All the same, we have product needs that hasn’t been satisfied for several years. We plan to test PostmarketOS, the true Linux distribution for phones, on a Fairphone. Fairphones sell well, but we do not know how good the Pinephone sells.
We also have bought a Pinephone keyboard, it is very robust and made for someone who uses as a daily tool to work on it. But shipping costs incl. taxes for it are expensive to Switzerland. We where using a Bluetooth mini keyboard for many years which is very good and should be good for a Linux phones too. It is so good, that we can work on it the whole day long:
We have a high demand for devices, phones break easily, and we are looking for low-cost high quality devices. Is the Pinephone a low-cost high quality device? A PostmarketOS device should be sufficient for our needs, and fast enough for word processing, if we manage to find a suitable office suite which runs on Linux phones. If we can find an office suite which runs satisfyingly on Linux phones, there are tons of PostmarketOS Linux phones available, which have enough power for our needs.