PinePhone

The PinePhone is a smartphone created by Pine64, capable of running mainline Linux and supported by many partner projects. The "BraveHeart" edition was the first publicly-available version of the phone, though it came without a fully functional OS (factory test image) and was geared specifically towards tinkerers and hackers. People looking for a stable consumer-grade phone should wait for the final release, which is expected to occur in March 2020 and will be available for at least five years.

"BraveHeart" PinePhone Unboxing and First Time Preparation Guide

Note: Please remember to pill off the battery tab when unboxing.

Excellent first time guide video from Rob Braxman Tech

Flash an OS to microSD card video from Rob Braxman Tech

Specifications

Dimensions: 160.5 x 76.6 x 9.2mm
Weight: Between 180-200 grams
SIM Card: Micro-SIM
Display:

Size: 5.95 inches (151mm) diagonal

Type: HD IPS capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

Resolution: 1440x720, 18:9 ratio

System on Chip: Allwinner A64
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3 SDRAM
Internal Storage: 16GB eMMC, extendable up to 2TB via microSD, supports SDHC and SDXC
Back Camera: Single 5MP, 1/4", LED Flash
Selfie Camera: Single 2MP, f/2.8, 1/5"
Sound: Loudspeaker, 3.5mm jack & mic (jack doubles as hardware UART if killswitch 6 is deactivated)
Communication: EG25-G

LTE: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B12, B13, B18, B19, B20, B25, B26, B28, B38, B39, B40, B41

WCDMA: B1, B2, B4, B5, B6, B8, B19

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 (MHz)

WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, single-band, hotspot

Bluetooth: 4.0, A2DP

GNSS: GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou/Galileo/QZSS, with A-GPS

Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, ambient light, compass
Killswitches: Modem, Wifi & Bluetooth, Microphone, Cameras
Battery: 2750-3000 mAh Lithium ion (nominally replaceable with any Samsung J7 form-factor battery)
I/O: USB Type-C (SlimPort), USB Host, DisplayPort Alternate Mode output, 15W 5V 3A Quick Charge, follows USB PD specification

Developer works

Megous

Getting start with PinePhone Hardware

State of development progress

Hardware Revisions

1. "Project Don't Be Evil" devkit
2. PinePhone v1.0 - Developer batch
3. PinePhone v1.1 - Braveheart

Hardware Addons

PinePhone Hardware Accessory Compatibility list

List of devices working with the PinePhone (depending on OS support)

Pogo Pins

The PinePhone has 6 "pogo pins" on the back allowing for custom hardware extensions such as wireless charging or an IR blaster. The pogo pins provide access to an interrupt line, power input to charge the battery, 3.3v power source, and an I2C interface.

A step/stl/stp (3D model) file for the back cover is freely available for creating custom cases that interface with the pogo pins.

Serial console

UART serial connector for PineBook and PinePhone

The PinePhone has a serial port in the headphone connector, it's activated by the 6th contact on the dipswitch. If the switch is on then the headphone connector is in audio mode, if it's off then it's in UART mode.

The uart is 115200n8

The pinout for the serial connector on the tablet side is:

• Tip: RX
• Ring: TX
• Sleeve: GND

The serial connection is 3.3V

You can also buy the debug cable from PINE64 Store The store cable uses a 4 ring plug, as seen in the PDF, but a 3 ring plug works just as well. That cable uses a CH340 chipset based serial to USB converter, but any 3.3v serial connection can be used.

Killswitch configuration

The PinePhone features six switches that can be used to configure its hardware. They are numbered 1-6, with switch 1 located nearest to the modem. Their on position is toward the top of the phone.

Photo of Brave Heart switches from OSAKANA TARO on Twitter

1. Modem: On enables 2G/3G/4G communication and GNSS hardware, off disables.
2. WiFi/BT: On enables Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication hardware, off disables.
3. Microphone: On enables audio input from on-board microphones (not 3.5mm jack), off disables.
4. Rear camera: On enables the rear camera, off disables.
5. Front camera: On enables the front camera, off disables.
6. Headphone: On enables audio input and output via the 3.5mm audio jack, off switches the jack to hardware UART mode.

Battery

The supplied battery is meant to be compatible with Samsung part number EB-BJ700BBC / BBE / CBE from the 2015 J7 phone. There is a report that the EB-BJ700CBE isn't quite the same size, causing the back not to fit properly.

The battery terminals, in order from nearest the edge to nearest the middle, are:

1. +ve
2. thermistor
3. -ve
4. not connected

The battery includes a protection circuit that isolates it in a number of fault conditions, including if it is discharged too far. The fully discharged battery can be recharged by connecting the phone to a charger. Once it has charged sufficiently you will be able to boot the phone.

If your battery is hard to remove from the phone, try loosening the screws around it. Possibly cutting up a piece of plastic and sliding it under the battery as a pull tab can work too.

When you first receive your Pinephone you will need to remove the plastic tab under the battery terminals to boot it. This is to protect it from turning on during shipping.

It's also important to note that the EG25 modem and RTL8723CS wifi/bluetooth do not work without the battery plugged in, even if you are supplying enough power to the Pinephone with USB-C

Modem and Carrier Support

To check if the PinePhone is supported on your carrier:

Search for your carrier on frequencycheck.com and compare the carrier's LTE/GSM/WCDMA frequencies to the PinePhone's supported frequencies (listed under the specifications section).

It is likely that there will be a few frequencies that your carrier uses which are not supported by the PinePhone. Not all of the carrier's frequencies need to be supported by the PinePhone for it to work - as long as most of them are supported, you will still get good coverage.

Factory Test Requirements

Most of the self tests should just work, but a couple of them will fail unless certain requirements are met.

RTL8723CS - WiFi

• The self test needs a visible access point nearby so it can discover an SSID.
• The self test may fail if the battery charge is too low.

EG25 - Modem

• A working micro-SIM that doesn't require a PIN to unlock
• Enough battery charge

Operating Systems

The PinePhone will automatically boot from microSD if a bootable card is inserted. Although it is technically possible to use any ARM distro (because the PinePhone uses the mainline kernel), there are a few that are designed specifically for phones:

• postmarketOS
• Ubuntu Touch
• Sailfish OS
• Maemo Leste
• LuneOS
• Manjaro
• Neon
• Aurora

For an exhaustive list of information about the different OSs, see PinePhone Software Release.

postmarketOS

postmarketOS is a preconfigured version of Alpine Linux for mobile devices. The latest builds can be downloaded from the images page to be flashed to the PinePhone.

More information is available at postmarketos.org and on their dedicated PinePhone wiki page.

Ubuntu Touch

Ubuntu touch is a mobile version of Ubuntu developed by the UBports community. Images can be downloaded from here. The default password is phablet. In the future, Ubuntu Touch will be able to be installed onto the PinePhone with the UBports installer GUI tool.

Sailfish OS

The latest Sailfish OS image can be installed using the flashing script.

The script downloads the image and bootloader, extracts everything and burns it onto the SD card. Note: The script will format and erase the SD card!

Instructions:

1. Download the flashing script
2. Insert a microSD card in your device
3. Make the script executable: chmod +x flash-it.sh
4. Execute it: ./flash-it.sh
5. Follow the instructions. Some commands in the script require root permissions.

Note that after baking µSD card and booting phone, as per Reddit comment you have to adjust autobrightness settings in order to actually see interface.

Nemo Mobile

Nemo Mobile is the open source build of Sailfish OS. The latest images for the PinePhone are released here.

Maemo Leste

Maemo Leste images can be downloaded here. The default username is root and the password is toor

LuneOS

LuneOS downloads are available here.

Manjaro

Manjaro downloads are available here.

Neon

Neon images A changelog (for the postmarketOS version) can be found here username: phablet pw: 1234

Aurora

Available soon.