We don’t know much about the Pine64 phones but units are getting upgraded hardware starting August. The team behind it is offering a new “convergence package” that offers more RAM and storage. The package also includes a USB-C dock. Pine64 made it known that the PinePhone UBPorts Community Edition campaign is ending. It’s not the end of the world as the postmarketOS Community Edition campaign has just begun. The Convergence Package we’re mentioning here is the upgraded version of the regular PinePhone. It’s a bit pricier though at $199 compared to the $149 regular price.
Do note these are beta devices. They are best for developers and tinkerers who like to experiment. They are not fully functional smartphones. They are under development so you can’t expect much from them if you’re looking for real smartphone functions and features. Some of the basic apps don’t even work like making calls. Battery life isn’t good as well.
The Convergence Package is more like an upgraded version. The PhonePhone goes from 2GB RAM to 3GB RAM while storage is now 32GB from 16GB eMMC. A USB-C dock has been added. It can charge the smartphone and adds two USB2 ports, an HDMI port, and a 100Mbps Ethernet port.
The dock works like any other phone dock. It offers an Ethernet port that connects with a speed of 100Mbps. The USB type-A ports are only USB2. These features bring a desktop-level experience with only a single connection available.
Watch a demo below:
The PinePhone with a Convergence Package is a step above from the original developer edition and the Community Edition previously released. Not many people know about such developer phones but there are communities that work on such. They mainly use them for experimentation and development.
As for the postmarketOS Community Edition, this one offers pre-flashed postmarketOS. It’s close to a real Linux distribution. The module design actually helps in development and improvement as it mainly uses a universal operating system image instead of separate monolithic images.
