The 10.3-inch PineNote e-reader is now available to buy, but this isn’t a device ready to compete with the Kindle just yet.
Last year, Pine64 announced it was developing an e-reader that runs Linux called the PineNote. As Liliputing reports, an experimental version of the PineNote has now gone on sale for $399, but it’s called “experimental” and the Developer Edition for a good reason.
A note on the PineNote product page states, “The PineNote is an experimental device. PineNote software is still in it’s infancy and therefore it is ONLY suitable for experienced developers. At present time, there is no default OS for the PineNote.”
What this mean is, anyone deciding to purchase the PineNote right now will need to figure out how to install Linux on it themselves. It’s possible, as has been demonstrated by Linux developer Danct12 who managed to get Arch Linux ARM edition running on the device. They admit that, “there are still many things that needs to be done,” though. The video above shows the experimental PineNote booting into Arch and clearly demonstrates there’s still work to do before anyone should consider buying one to read ebooks.
The good news for anyone who wants an open e-reader is that the PineNote is clearly a very active project and hardware is being produced. It shouldn’t be too much longer before we get a consumer-ready version available to buy.
