PINE64Reviews of pine64.org

I was looking forward to trying out a Linux Phone but my experience has left me with an aweful taste in my mouth. For history I am an IT Professional who has been using Linux/UNIX/VMS/Solaris since the 1990's and know my way around reasonably well. Firstly the Hardware looks reasonable and I had high hopes for it, but there appears to be only one person developing for it so the amount of bugs are huge and delays are long. I was also hoping to add my coding skills to help the cause, but alas this is not to be. The Keyboard does not charge or work as expected, it drains the phone battery completely and then the troubles begin with the Pine Phone Pro, where it no longer charges without going into "Safe Mode" (open lid and hold reset button while powering on) this works about 1/3 of the time and takes 2 nights to charge the current draw starts at ~2.5A and stays there for a while and you know it is finally charged when it drops to around 0.4A (they suggested my charger was at fault I have tried 4 different ones each capable of delivering more that the required 5V 3A) but only holds charge for about 2 hours. The default response from them is did you read such and such a KB article here, even if you have stated that you have tried the fixes mentioned. They try to hide behind a ludicrous RMA process that has a 15% restocking fee (even for faulty items). Unfortunately as I had high hopes, my suggestion for anyone thinking about trying them out is not to use any Pine products ever. EDIT: I finally managed to return the items after a fight to get a physical address as the customs agent could not send to the PO Box they gave. After the return they raised a dispute and they managed to delay the refund and claim I did not send everything back. Really glad to see the back end of this as it has wasted my time, and $150AUD in shipping to send it all back, I might decide that they can keep the $7USD for the cable that they claimed was not returned, but we will see in the next few weeks how I feel.

Received an order that had been opened by US border and customs. Board and aluminum case were poorly repacked and delivered damaged. It was incredibly difficult to get Pine64 to send out replacement parts. Emails went ignored for almost weeks until when I had to eventually file a PayPal claim. Pine64 customer service absolutely sucks.

I've had no problems that weren't caused by me with my two PinePhones, beyond what's expected from an experimental device. I really appreciate that even if Pine64 goes out of business, the community can keep releasing software updates for the PinePhone. The PinePhone isn't ready for most users yet, but for people familiar with Linux and willing to work around a few software bugs (which should be fixed at some point), it's a great device.

I have purchased over a $1000 in products from PINE64 over the past few years, a Pinebook Pro, 2x PinePhones, 3x Cluster boards, 10x SoPine Modues, 16x SoEdge Moudes, a PineTab, a PineTime, 4x RockPro64, 2x Quarts64, etc. I have been now however Blacklisted from Pine64 b/c I requested action on a package gone missing on there end!

I bought my family 6 pinetime watches for Christmas. 5 of 6 stopped working, and when I reset them according to instructions they bricked themselves. Dozens of emails later the company STILL couldn't bother to read what I wrote but kept asking me the same (already answered) questions over and over. I give up. They obviously either can't or don't want to provide any kind of quality customer support. It just sucks and it so frustrating and INSULTING and I just cannot support this company. BEWARE! SPEND YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE.

This is a company meant for experimental hardware, and that's what you should expect. But with such low expectations, they still manage to disappoint. I bought a Pinephone Pro in january, got it in february, and it was broken in march, because the sim card reader was faulty and its pins broke. I can deal with that, I'm waiting for component to be identified and will solder a replacement one when it is. But not everyone can do that. And when an user asked for feedback on the Pinephone Pro on their forum, I mentioned the problem with the sim card reader, advising to wait for it to be solved. A moderator answered saying there is no such problem, and that only dumb users have any problem. So I replied with more details. My post was deleted, and I was banned as I reposted it. This is typical scammer behavior, trying to hide problems to keep the money flowing, too bad for those who get products with defects and can't solve them. I won't buy again from them, and you shouldn't either.

No response after buying, even after I emailed them. No tracking info, nothing.

Item (pine64 pinecil) arrived after long long waiting. Although europe delivery, had to pay double/additional taxes. Item worked, but no longer after 2nd use. Support traject was disaster. Kept me a month busy with non related suggestions, and obvious not wanting to resolve the issue. Then finally pointing me to forum, left alone, still not resolving the issue. Did i notice the 30 days warranty? Make sure test device before that well. Only positive is, open design/schema, so might be able to repair myself. Until then waste of money and time.