PINE64 PinePhone Pro (pine64-pinephonepro)

From postmarketOS
Icon WARNING: At present the PinePhone Pro should be considered a development platform. Don't get one unless you intend to contribute to development!


PINE64 PinePhone Pro
A PinePhone Pro running Plasma Mobile
A PinePhone Pro running Plasma Mobile
Manufacturer PINE64
Name PinePhone Pro
Codename pine64-pinephonepro
Released 2021
Category community
Pre-built images yes
Original software postmarketOS
postmarketOS kernel 5.17.9
Hardware
Chipset Rockchip RK3399S
CPU 4x 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & 2x 2Ghz Cortex-A72
GPU Mali-T860 MP4
Display 720x1440 IPS
Storage 128 GB
Memory 4 GB
Architecture AArch64
Type handset
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score 2304.8
Features
USB Networking
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Display
Works
WiFi
Works
FDE
Works
Mainline
Works
Battery
Partial
3D Acceleration
Works
Audio
Works
Bluetooth
Works
Camera
Partial
GPS
Works
Mobile data
Works
Internal storage
SMS
Works
Calls
Works
USB OTG
Broken
Sensors
Accelerometer
Works
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Barometer
Power Sensor
Misc
Built-in DVB
Camera Flash
Keyboard
Touchpad
USB-A
HDMI/DP
Ir TX
Ir RX
Stylus
Memory Card
Haptics
Ethernet
FOSS bootloader


The PinePhone Pro is the second version of the PinePhone, adding in an rk3399 SoC just like the other Pro-series products from PINE64. If you have a Developer Edition, make sure to read PINE64 PinePhone Pro Development.

Contributors

Users owning this device


Installing Tow-Boot on the SPI

Since 2022-03, the supported way to run postmarketOS on the PinePhone Pro is with Tow-Boot flashed to the SPI. See this post for reasoning. Once installed, the plan is to upgrade Tow-Boot from within postmarketOS (and other distributions) through fwupd, though that is not yet implemented.

Explorer Edition / Development Edition

While we expect that future revisions of the PinePhone Pro will come with Tow-Boot pre-installed, you will need to install it yourself for the Explorer Edition and Development Edition.

Download the latest Tow-Boot release for the PinePhone Pro from the releases page, then follow the "Installing to SPI" instructions in the official manual.

If you have the Developer Edition, one way to get it to boot from SD card in order to install Tow-Boot is nuking the factory AOSP installation.

Installing postmarketOS

Icon WARNING: No matter which installation method you pick below, you must install Tow-Boot to the SPI first! Otherwise you may render your phone unbootable.
Note Releases before v23.12 had installer images. We plan to bring them back with ondev2.
Note Installing pmOS to eMMC and SD at the same time is currently not supported, see pmaports#1531.

Without encryption

External storage (microSD card)

To quickly try out postmarketOS, download an image and flash it onto an SD card.

After that, unplug the microSD card from your PC, put it in your PinePhone Pro. Turn it on, and wait until Tow-Boot lets the phone vibrate for the first time. Press the volume down button, until shortly after it vibrated for the second time. The LED color will change to aqua, and stay in this color for a few more seconds with a black screen. Then the postmarketOS loading screen should boot up. If the LED is blinking, then boot from SD failed.

Internal storage (eMMC)

Run lsblk on your PC to see available storage devices. Connect your PinePhone Pro to your PC with an USB cable. Turn it on, and wait until Tow-Boot lets the phone vibrate for the first time. Press the volume up button, until shortly after it vibrated for the second time. The LED color will change to blue, indicating that it is now in USB Mass Storage mode.

Run lsblk again and note which device appeared, this is the eMMC of your PinePhone Pro. Now perform the same installation steps as for SD card below, but specify the path to your PinePhone's eMMC as target device (for dd or pmbootstrap install --fde --sdcard=). When done, hold the power button for 5 seconds. The PinePhone Pro should reboot into the postmarketOS installation (without pressing a volume button during boot, eMMC is default).

With full disk encryption

Note FDE might be broken currently with the PinePhone Pro, see pmaports#1477 for discussion and workarounds. Further investigation and help with fixing welcome.

Build a custom image with pmbootstrap, using pmbootstrap install --fde.

Serial console

The PinePhone Pro has the standard PINE64 serial port in the headphone connector, it's activated by the 6th contact on the DIP switch. If the switch is on then the headphone connector is in audio mode, if it's off then it's in UART mode.

The uart is 1500000n8

The pinout for the serial connector on the headphone jack is:

  • Tip: RX
  • Ring: TX
  • Sleeve: GND

The serial connection is 3.3V

You can also buy the debug cable from PINE64 Store. The store cable uses a 4 ring plug, as seen in the PDF, but a 3 ring plug works just as well.

Hardware switches

There's a 6 contact DIP switch on the back of the phone underneath the back cover. The 6 switches are for enabling/disabling hardware components. The switch has tiny numbers 1-6 beneath the contacts, moving the contact up sets that contact on.

# Off On
1 Modem disabled Modem enabled
2 Wifi/BT disabled Wifi/BT enabled
3 Microphone disabled Microphone enabled
4 Rear camera disabled Rear camera enabled
5 Front camera disabled Front camera enabled
6 Headphone UART mode Headphone audio mode

Expansion port

There is a 2x3 grid of pogo pins on the back of the PinePhone for connecting a back cover with extra hardware like an extended battery case or a keyboard case. The pinout for this connector:

Interrupt SDA SCL
5V / VBUS VBAT GND

The VBUS pin is powered by USB and is 5V. The second power pin is VBAT, which connects to the battery voltage. The I2C and interrupt lines have pull-ups on the phone side. The I2C lines are pulled up to 3V3 by the phone.

Components

Component Model Driver
Touchscreen Goodix GT917S TOUCHSCREEN_GOODIX
Rear camera IMX 258 CONFIG_VIDEO_IMX258
Camera flash Awinic AW3641EDNR ?
Front camera OmniVision OV8858 ?
LCD Himax HX8394 compatible CONFIG_DRM_PANEL_SITRONIX_ST7703
WiFi Ampak AP6335 CONFIG_B43_SDIO
Bluetooth Ampak AP6335 ?
Modem Quectel EC25-G USB_NET_QMI_WWAN
GNSS/GPS Quectel EC25-G CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_OPTION
Notification LED LED0603RGB LEDS_GPIO

Battery fully drained bootloop

When the pinephone pro's battery is fully drained, it will go into a boot loop. If you have not installed tow-boot, follow the instructions on the Pine64 wiki to recover from this battery drained state:

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro#The_battery_is_fully_drained

If tow-boot is installed, follow the following procedure to recover from a battery fully drained bootloop:

  1. Remove any microSD card from the phone
  2. Remove the battery
  3. Reinsert the battery
  4. Plug the phone into power charger while holding volume up

The phone will have a blue led lit and is charging. Leave the phone charging overnight.

Camera

Both cameras work with Snapshot/GNOME Camera (packaged in Alpine). Unfortunately, the back camera stops working after first suspend currently.

See also