The manufacturer PineMicrosystems presents another Community Edition of the PinePhone. The “PinePhone Community Edition: Mobian” can since 16. January can be pre-ordered in the Pine Shop and is available in two different hardware versions, one of which is also suitable for desktop use.

In a blog post Pine 64 gives an overview of the hardware specifications of the new PinePhone variant. In the basic version for 149 US dollars, 2 GB of RAM and a 16 GByte small eMMC module installed. The convergence package costs 199 US dollars, but comes with 3 GB of RAM, 32 GByte eMMC module and also contains a USB-C dock for the eponymous convergence mode. The dock has a Fast Ethernet port (10 / 100 Mbit / s), two USB ports (type A), an HDMI output and a USB-C port for power supply – the manufacturer does not specify version numbers.

Linux in small format Pine 64 delivers the new variant of the PinePhone with pre-installed Mobian. The operating system, designed for mobile devices, uses a patched mainline Linux kernel and uses Phosh as its user interface. Phosh is based on GTK program libraries and was originally developed by Purism for the Linux mobile phone Librem 5. The Mobian Community Edition follows the “UBports” -, “postmarketOS” -, “Manjaro” – and “KDE Community Edition”. Per unit sold there are 10 US dollars to the Mobian project to promote the development of mobile Linux systems.

Community who love to do handicrafts According to Pine 64 and the Mobian project, the core functions, such as telephony, SMS, 4G LTE, WLAN, Bluetooth, idle mode, run before and Rear camera and GPS. The Mobian installer allows you to set a username and password, as well as to configure encryption of the Mobian installation. Pine 64 advises buyers to use the Receipt of the phone to bring the system directly up to date. The delivered Mobian contains outdated software with known errors. A page in the Mobian Wiki provides an overview of the compatibility of various applications. The target group of the PinePhone Community Editions are primarily Hobbyist and Developer.

(ndi)