Pine64 starts sales developer version of PineNote e-reader with E Ink screen

Pine64 has started selling its PineNote e-reader with E Ink display. It already delivered a limited number of PineNotes to developers in December, but the e-reader is now on sale without an invitation for $399. It is still experimental, without the included OS.

Pine64 writes in its January update that progress has been made with the PineNote platform in recent weeks. For example, earlier this year support for the used E Ink screen added to the mainline Linux kernel† The PineNote Developer Edition will therefore go on sale for everyone with a suggested retail price of USD 399, without the need for a ‘coupon’.

Image via Pine64

The company also warns that the PineNote software is still in its infancy and that the device is therefore only intended for very experienced developers. This means that the e-reader is not yet suitable for many users. Currently, no standard operating system is pre-installed on the e-reader; the PineNote only comes with a bootloader. Pine64 writes that users therefore have to install a Linux distribution themselves and possibly even develop it from scratch.

At the same time, the company writes that developers have had access to the e-reader since December and that some developers are already running their own versions of Alpine Linux and Debian on it. According to the manufacturer, there will also be a NixOS port for the PineNote in the long term and more distributions would follow, although no time frame is mentioned.

Pine64 announced the PineNote last summer. It is an e-reader with a 10.1″ screen from E Ink. That screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a resolution of 1404×1872 pixels. The processor is a Rockchip RK3566 with four Cortex A55 cores and a Mali G52 GPU from Arm, in addition to 4GB Lpddr4 memory and 128GB eMMC storage.The company ships a stylus, a charging cable and a case.