New Pine64 phones with upgraded hardware begin shipping in August

Enlarge / This is a Pinephone with the back removed—note the replaceable battery and the privacy kill-switches for modem, Wi-Fi, mic, and cameras. (credit: Pine64)

Yesterday, Pine64 announced the end of the PinePhone UBPorts Community Edition campaign—but more importantly, the company declared the beginning of the postmarketOS Community Edition campaign. The base version of the new run of PinePhones shares the same $149 price point and the same basic technical specs as the original developer edition—but there's also a new, upgraded "Convergence Package" available at $199.

Before anyone gets too excited, we need to make something clear—these devices, while attractively priced, should be considered beta gadgets for tinkerers to experiment and play with. They are not yet fully functional phones, and in their current development status, they are unlikely to be anyone's full-time daily-usage smartphone. The apps don't all work yet—including making calls—and battery life still leaves a lot to be desired.

Convergence package

In June, postmarketOS' Martijn Braam demonstrated the new PinePhone dock.

The Convergence Package ups the specs of the PinePhone from 2GiB RAM to 3GIB while the internal storage jumps from 16GB eMMC to 32GB eMMC. The package also adds a USB-C dock for the phone; the dock can charge the phone as well as offering two USB2 ports, a 100Mbps Ethernet port, and an HDMI port.

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