The Pinephone 2 needs these features – urgently: it needs for instance to be based on Raspberry Pi

Last Updated on June 24, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Pinephone reviewer Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org who is not a Linux phone enthusiast but a physiologist suggests the following new features for the Pinephone 2.

The Pinephone 1 only offers OS such as postmarketOS with English and Czech language support. But who buys such as phone? The English and the Czech? So why not to build the Pinephone 2 on Raspberry Pi hardware? There are already prototypes available:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-smartphone-ourphone

Then you can run Raspberry Pi OS on it, which is well established since 10 years with international language support . And you can also run the Leespspvideo KDE Plasma, 64bit Raspberry Pi OS custom build 4 on it to use Raspberry Pi OS without a manual.

Or we can choose a Raspberry Pi 5 with Ubuntu 24.04 and a fast SSD as a SBC for our phone, if we don’t bother to carry around a car battery to power it. But except for the battery, would this not be the best phone in the world? The phone components are already there, it is almost a Pinephone already.

But until Raspberry Pi releases a power efficient Raspberry Pi zero 5 which is as powerful as the Raspberry Pi 5 and uses only a 10 000 mAh battery to run 24 * 7 continuously, Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org can do with a Raspberry Pi zero 2:

And he can live what without phone functionality as well:

Which is currently the most interesting Raspberry Pi for mobile applications – the zero 2 w?

This saves a lot of time to review devices such as the Pinephone from which does not know if he ever will use it in his life.

• But why became a physiologist like Peter Gamma interested in the Pinephone?
• It was because of the many YouTube videos, which argued the Pinephone can do anything, which is not true.
• The Pinephone cannot change the natural laws.
• And a second reason was Corona, and the bad image of the Raspberry Pi’s.
• This bad image is still there, and I do not trust in the latest Raspberry Pi model, which is subject to stock market speculations and sculpting.
• As soon as the Raspberry Pi 5 runs Ubuntu 20.24 nicely, and the Pi 5 can be used as a real Laptop, then I suppose Rasbperry Pi Inc. will go to the stocks.
• And the Raspberry Pi 5 will start at 300 USD, a price the device is not worth it.
• But if you can live with the second last Raspberry Pi, you can always find a used somewhere, even during Corona.
• And the risk is lower with Raspberry Pi keybards, that the same happens as with the Pinephone keyboard.
• And that is that Pine64 has stopped shipping the Pinephone keyboard.
• And a rumor goes around that it will no longer be available.