PineNote Fedi Q&A
Thanks for the interest. There were some overlapping questions, I'm reviewing by category. I don't have answers for every question but I'll do my best and some of it will have to come later out of necessity. I'll be adding a link to a full blog post here soon™: (PineNote - Day One).
Linux Experience
This is a first-class Linux device, full on Debian Trixie with a full Gnome desktop with Pine specific packages that are pinned so they're not overridden by generic packages. The on-screen keyboard has been the only source of frustration. The display runs at 200% and the keyboard isn't optimized for that.
Display Rendering Modes
There's a handy widget to change the current display rendering modes based on what you're doing.
- Grayscale: 16 levels of gray for best quality, slowest refresh, good for graphics.
- DU4: 4 levels of grey, great for reading (text is very crisp).
- B&W + Dither: best for fast refresh needs, writing, terminal, etc. still easy to read but display will feel lower res.
B&W and B&W invert: these exist but I haven't found them to be that useful for me yet.
Backlight
Wonderfully configurable from very dim to burn your retina. The white and the warm backlights can be controlled individually from the quick access, so you can create your own perfect color temperature. Genuinely delighted by this!
Applications
- Terminal: Gnome Terminal, everything works great, touch typing hampered by on-screen keyboard but entirely good experience as a terminal with B&W + Dither mode.
- Browser: Firefox, full install, works with plugins (only tried uBlock Origin).
- Reader: KO Reader (more utilitarian) and Foliate (more UX polish) but both work great with epub and mobi, didn't try pdf much but it works. I will test annotation, marking, etc. later. It's a good eBook experience, I'm happy to say but as long you realize that it's not that small but definitely not heavy for its size and build quality.
- Note-taking: Xournal++, works fine out of the box but can be improved with some community config. Haven't used the writing much, more on that in the future. Without config, totally usable but not a dream.
- App Sources: Anything available in Debian Trixie and Flatpaks cab be enabled. I plan to test and use Flatpaks, will report back.
- Sync: Syncthing built-in but I read people are also using NextCloud with it. Will test both in the future, might need a test NextCloud instance (if you want answers sooner).
Battery
Definitely not enough data to say. I've been poking and prodding the device most of the day and it has used about 30% of charge so that is very encouraging. Closing the folio case and opening it up again is almost instant response, which I love (was a big fear).
Speculation: The device must be doing some good battery management it seems since first launch of app after inactivity takes a bit to startup but is responsive after launch.
Peripherals
I have not connected Bluetooth devices yet, I plan to test it with Bluetooth mouse, keyboard, and headphones and report back in the utnext couple days.
Disclaimer based on very quick research: There's no USB-C dock functionality, the chip supports USB 3 PCIe,but the actual circuit out to USB-C connector is USB 2.0. There is no physical way for display mirroring (as in act as a external display) or multi-monitor support (as in extend/duplicate screen). But there are Gnome tools to achieve this, I'll play with them at some point.
Resources
Thanks for asking
@MrMozz, @chris, @tdback
@PINE64 I haven't tagged you on every single reply/post but I did want to make you aware in case I misrepresented anything, I'd be happy to correct any factual errors.
, the plastic back feels good but it's a fingerprint magnet but the folio cover is very nice.
