To start, a little about me. I'm a nobody. I'm not a programmer nor engineering in any sense. My linux journey started back in 2008 when I came across Ubuntu and found it ran better than windows on my Compaq laptop. This was back in the day when it wasn't so plug and play. I eventually gave that up for a Macbook and would play with Linux in VMs. I love the ideas and community behind FOSS. Then life happened and after a few kids and college I found myself using an Acer C720 chromebook since 2013. I got tired of ChomreOS and went with GalliumOS as my daily driver. GalliumOS was great and despite only a Celeron processor and 2GB of ram it ran great.

In late 2019 I heard about the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro. I lurked around the forums, Reddit, YouTube and Twitter watching the conversation and seeing the progress made. It was truly cool to see what a group of people can accomplish without capitalism being the main driver.

In April I decided to place an order. My C720 still runs, pretty well actually but I was inspired by what I was seeing and wanted to join in. Due to delays attributed to Covid-19 and unrest in Hong Kong I didn't receive my PBP until June. The unboxing experience is great. The computer looks sleek and feels nice.

First boot set-up was straight forward and once you get in you see how nice the screen looks and experience the default OS which in my case was Manjaro KDE. Full disclosure; I tried KDE years back and never liked it but it's been so much time I wanted to give it a fair shake. Long story short and I still didn't care for it and being most of my Linux journey had taken place on Debian or something forked from it I decided to start trying other distros. At first I tried Manjaro XFCE as I was still trying to like Manjaro and while it ran better (why is KDE the default?) Manjaro isn't for me. To be clear my only criticism of the software is the choice in DE being KDE and not XFCE/Mate or another lower resource DE. Other than that it ran OK. From there I went onto the MrFixit version of Debian as I couldn't figure out how to run the build script for the other version of Debian listed on the wiki (now you get an idea of my skill level). Debian/Mate ran better and I felt more at home. Additionally the solution for playing Netflix/Amazon Prime videos was much cleaner on Debian. For example it didn't require launching Chromium with root permissions.

I sampled a few other distros including Armbian, Ubuntu and Fedora. Shout out to Armbian, I feel that could be great option after they refine it a little more.

I wish this was where things ended. For that matter I wish I was typing this on my PBP and not my C720. To be clear I was ready to make compromises. I was disappointed that my C720 with a Celeron and 2GB of ram ran faster than the PBP but the PBP was open, much newer and since I was now not on the go with my laptop the bigger screen was nice. But then again my C720 can play HD video without dropping frames. My first question would be why Pine64 chose the panel they did then the board can't power it? Any attempt I made at playing HD video resulted in dropped frames. It was ugly and disappointing.

Then the screen flickering happened. It first happened in Debian after the screen went idle when I walked away. When I woke it there was a slight but noticeable flicker that restarting didn't fix. I then booted Manjaro XFCE on an SD card to see if that would change anything. It didn't. At this point I reached out to Pine64 on their website. I submitted my issue and offered a video I had taken to show the issue. They asked for the video and after I sent it I waited 4 days with no response. Since I was getting close to the 30 day warranty window I reached out to their sales team asking for a refund as a laptop with a flickering screen is useless. The sales team asked for my support ticket and they were able to get the support team to respond to me. I attempted to load Android twice. First time it loaded the Rockchip Kernel splash screen and after a few minutes power cycled on it's own and loaded to Debian (on the EMMC with the SD card still inserted). I tried a different size Android image in case the first I downloaded was corrupt. This second image loaded the Rockchip Kernel screen as well but stalled there for 30 minutes before I power cycled the unit. The screen flicker persisted and I was asked to send in the board from the PBP (not the whole unit) shipping at my own expense. I made the decision to send the whole PBP along with power cord and the NVME adapter that I hadn't tried yet as the experience was now leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Thankfully I did because their testing concluded the board was fine it was the LCD panel that was the issue. However, given the experience as a whole I opted for a refund because even with a new panel the other issues would still persist.

Unfortunately they are not refunding any shipping. So while I am getting $207 refunded (PBP NVME) I am out the $56 in shipping it took to get the computer and send it in for warranty.

I really wanted to like this project. I may have braved it had there been more than a 30 day warranty but there isn't. I may have braved it had support been a better experience.

All in all I just want people like myself who may be considering the PBP to know that it is NOT ready to be a daily driver. If you are the type of person who is able to drop $200 on something that might not work in a month than go for it but don't expect any more. I don't know what happened after the 30 day warranty (I never got there) but considering all the parts on their website for sale it seems you have to buy replacements after that.

I wish this project all the best because as I said in the beginning I love the FOSS community and in today's day and age we need more user control, not less. I just think Pine64 would benefit to temper their messaging and extend their warranty. The old sales adage of "under promise and over deliver" would serve them well.