The PinePhone Pro leapfrogs the Librem 5... for less than half the price
$399 for a Linux-powered flagship phone? Yes, please.
Pine64, the crew behind the PinePhone and Pinebook laptops, has announced their new flagship, Linux-powered phone… the PinePhone Pro.
And… it looks kinda fantastic.
4 GB of RAM. 6 core 1.5 GHz CPU. 13 Megapixel camera. 128 GB of built in storage. 6 inch, 1440 x 720 resolution screen with Gorilla Glass.
Spec-wise, it’s not the fastest phone around. But it’s not too darn shabby, either. According to Pine64, they estimate the performance to be 20% slower than the PineBook Pro laptop. Which is a completely capable, ARM-powered laptop. So, not bad!
Runs Manjaro Linux by default, but it is a fair assumption that most (if not all) of the current Linux distributions that already support the original PinePhone will work on the Pro with a little tweaking. Fedora, Arch, Ubuntu Touch… the works.
Plus it has “privacy switches” to hardware disable the following:
Cameras
Microphone
WiFi and Bluetooth
LTE modem
All for $399 USD.
Here’s the thing… that’s less than half the current price of Purism’s Librem 5 smartphone from Purism. Which, realistically, is the other primary competitor in the “Linux Smartphone” market.
And the Librem 5 has significantly lower specs. Less RAM. Slower CPU. A quarter of the storage.
Full disclosure: Once upon a time, I was the Director of Marketing for Purism. I haven’t been for quite some time, and have absolutely no current connection to the company whatsoever. But figured it’s worth noting.
Librem 5 is currently selling for $899 USD. With an estimated lead time for shipping new orders of 52 weeks (with a track record of missing past shipping targets). If you order a Librem 5 now, for $899, you won’t get it for a year.
By comparison, this is what Pine64 says about PinePhone Pro shipping:
We have started taking PinePhone Pro pre-orders from developers on October 15, 2021, and expect to have them delivered by December this year.
We have also secured the necessary components and factory floor-time to produce a large production run of the PinePhone Pro in November; we’re calling it the Explorer Edition. If everything goes according to plan, early adopters will have their Explorer Edition units delivered in early 2022.
Given the track record of both Purism (with the regular Librem 5 delays) and Pine64… You’d both get more “bang for your Linux-powered buck” with a PinePhone Pro, and you’d probably get it delivered sooner. Possibly a lot sooner.
In fact. You could order two PinePhone Pro’s plus an original PinePhone for roughly the cost of a single Librem 5.
I mean. Yikes. Going to be interesting to see how the team at Purism responds with the Librem 5. Can Purism afford to cut costs? Can Purism ramp up production to match Pine64’s shipping schedule? Can Purism beef up their hardware specifications to better compete with the PinePhone Pro?
Feels… unlikely.
Regardless, it’s nice to see serious competition in the Linux-powered smartphone space. Means good things for all of us who don’t like using Android or iOS phones.