I remember an entire shipment of phones went to Australia instead of its proper destinations and then it was stuck there too expensive to send again
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Holy shit, I didn't even know about that. Damn...
I'd say it didn't fail. It was never really a consumer phone. It was an attempt to get hardware in the hands of developers, and it achieved that.
Other posts here discuss why it didn't receive wider adoption.
I daily drove my PinePhone until I could no longer receive MMS messages, since my service provider has a different APN for the internet and MMS. That, and the modem became more unreliable over time. I like my PinePhone, but an average user would never adopt it as it is.
Except it absolutely did. Sure, it got hardware in the hands of developers, but that effort didn't amount to anything. Pinebook paved the way for Pinebook Pro, which made good on company's promise of an open, affordable, low power laptop for Linux enthusiasts.
This never materialized with Pinephone, it didn't even mature enough to satisfy most of the early adopters, who for the most part only wanted reliable calling and texting.
I have both the PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro, IMHO :
- lack of Android apps (yes, I know, weird to open with that but for a lot of people, that's the 1 thing, not actual calls or SMS) despite Waydroid because it didn't exist initially then requires higher specs
- bad power management : the battery is small so without spot on power management one ends up with less than a day of normal usage, that's a show stopper for most
- lack of updates : the PinePhone Pro was available without camera support, no big deal, most were expecting based on the initial pace of updates that it would eventually come but even today checking https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro it's either
Not implementedorNot working
... so with all that very very few people used either as a daily driver and thus even less probably invested time to make it actually usable.
It's amazing as a tinkering device with connectivity... but in practice I went instead to a deGoogle Android phone (with /e/OS by Murena). I still have other hardware by Pine, e.g. PineNote or PineTab2, so I do enjoy they provide a very valuable service to the community and I'll keep on, probably, getting more from them but one has to be pragmatic about the software limitations coming from a company that basically does not provide software for the hardware they sell.
So I think there were a few issues.
- the original pinephone was basically too slow to be usable
- there were a few hardware quirks that had to be fixed in software but made mainlining drivers for it difficult
- the lack of community updates (and you could argue overall community management) caused some developers to move away while also impeded pine64s ability to attract new developers
- the lack of any sort of funding for developers made it difficult for people to work on as any more than a hobby (not necessarily pine64's fault, but it's the reality)
- poor battery life (better idle and sleep support would have been software issues but the hardware was designed to be cheap instead of really useful)
- daily driving Linux on a phone is a poor experience - not pine64s fault but there's a bunch of support missing in Linux that needs to be developed before early adopters can really use Linux phones. Modem power management, audio switching between Bluetooth and speaker, MMS support, camera support, etc.
The only reason why consumers like you and me get to enjoy free software on modern PC hardware is because of the expectation of open standards and interoperability set way back when the industry was still growing and computer users gave a shit (or rather, when only the people who gave a shit owned a computer).
Much to the industry giants' enthusiasm, mobile hardware stacks were developed without this baggage, and so unless something fundamental changes, all mobile devices trying to focus on free software will be doomed to failure by abysmally poor hardware support and aging hand-me-down hardware.
I hope Raptor Computing sticks around. If I manage to get a well paying job I'd love to move on to the POWER ISA on desktop and a Fairphone with Ubuntu Touch.
I know it's exteremely expensive (I mean the POWER desktop) but with the recent Android news I believe the time for compromise has passed. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to do so should adopt fully open hardware whenever possible.
Did it fail? I hate headlines like this. Just because it isn't popular now, doesn't mean it didn't make progress in its space.
Did it fail?
Yes... it did. I have both (details in this post) and I'd love to use either daily yet I don't do it. I also don't know anybody who does.
Was it useful? Absolutely but IMHO the fact that the 2nd version is not fully usable (camera, power usage, etc) without active progress despite being a 4 years old specifically targeting tinkers is not a success. I'm genuinely wondering who would want a PinePhone 2. I'd love to but based on what happened with the Pro, I'm not sure I would despite using my other Pine64 on a daily basis.
It absolutely failed. Pinebook succeeded, they wanted to build a cheap Chromebook alternative for Linux enthusiasts and they did it. Pinebook Pro was a functional product and it was well received.
Pinephone failed, it made some progress but it never reached a point where a Linux user with basic needs could daily drive it. It seems like Linux phone space moved on to Halium at this point.
I own the original PinePhone, and it's nice to tinker with, but honestly it's far too slow to be usable on a regular basis. Perhaps the PinePhone Pro is slightly better, but most likely still not good enough.
Couple that with the other issues described by @carzian@lemmy.ml , and it's pretty clear why it failed.
Made with low end hardware
I don't think this is it, a lot of people were ok with that. The problem is drivers, they seemingly never matured enough to get the device to a usable state. Why?
if you've ever used one then you know that that is indeed it
it is unusable
its so slow that it feels worse than a gen 1 iphone. even with a super stripped down alpine based os it's unbearable even just making calls or text and not using any software beyond basic phone apps.
Tbh, AOSP is good enough of a basis. GrapheneOS thrives on it.