Pine64 begins public sale of PinePhone Pro

Pine64′ PinePhone Pro is now available for public purchase via a web shop. In recent months, the Linux smartphone was only for sale to certain developers. The manufacturer warns that this Explorer Edition is specifically intended for developers and early adopters.

The PinePhone Pro is for sale since Tuesday evening, deliveries will start at the end of January. Initially, Pine64 wanted to start pre-orders of the phone earlier in January, but the factory faced “minor problems” that had to be solved first. It is not clear what the problems are. The maker also warns that due to Chinese New Year, orders placed after January 17 will be delivered later.

The company also says it will not sell more than one device per buyer. Pine64 also promises to make many Explorer Edition devices and therefore do not expect it to sell out quickly, without sharing numbers. With the Explorer Edition name, the maker indicates that the smartphone is specifically intended for developers and early adopters. This version comes with ‘pre-beta’ versions of Manjaro Arm and Plasma Mobile. Ultimately, the intention is that the PinePhone Pro can function as a daily driver, although the company does not indicate when that will be.

Pine64 showed the Pro variant of the PinePhone last October. The appearance has largely remained the same, the smartphone also has the same 3000mAh battery. New is the Rockchip RK3399S-soc with two A72 cores and four A53 cores, a Mali T860 GPU and 4G lpddr4 memory. Storage is 128GB emmc memory and the cameras have been upgraded to a 13-megapixel sensor at the rear and a 5-megapixel sensor at the front. Previously, the phone was only available to developers who contribute a lot to the Pine64 community. The device costs $399 excluding shipping and import duties.