Pine64 gave us the PinePhone last year, which ran Linux as an alternative to Android and iOS. Now pre-orders are about to go live for the follow-up to that smartphone: the PinePhone Pro.
A developer version of the phone launched in October last year for $399, but it wasn’t suitable for everyone due to limited app compatibility. However, from 2pm ET today, the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition can be pre-ordered for the same $399 (plus shipping and taxes) and it’s suitable for all users.
The pre-order window will remain open until Jan. 17 and Pine64 states it’s, “a large production run and we don’t expect it to sell out quickly.” As long as you order one before Jan. 17, you’re going to have a PinePhone Pro shipped to you by the end of January. Pine64 also requests that people don’t spam the F5 key refreshing the page if the Pine Store becomes slow or unresponsive.
The PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition isn’t a high-end smartphone, but it’s on a par with mid-range Android handsets. You’ll get a phone with a 6-inch (1,440-by-720) in-cell IPS display protected by Gorilla Glass 4. It’s powered by a six-core Rockchip RK3399S 64bit SoC running at 1.5GHz and a four-core ARM Mali T860 GPU running at 500MHz. That’s complimented by 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB of eMMC flash storage. If you’d like one, head on over to the Pine Store after 2pm ET today and secure yourself a new Linux smartphone.
