Pinebook prototype appears in photos online

We’ve seen initial renders of the Pinebook, the cheap notebook that runs on a single board computer similar to the Raspberry PI. Pine64, the group behind the laptop, was hoping to release working models running Linux and Android last month. Unfortunately, they did not meet that goal. But it looks like they did get a few devices out to developers.

Photos have recently surfaced online from a Pinebook owner. The pictures show off both the exterior and interior of the device. The Pinebook looks much like early renders, save for the Pine64 sticker on the bottom bezel of the display. The device is an admittedly low-spec affair, featuring two USB 2.0 ports, a microSD card slot, a mini HDMI port, and a 3.5 mm headphone joke. Inside the chassis lies Pine64’s own A64 chip, which is essentially a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex A53 clocked at about 1.2 GHz. This SoC is coupled with 16 GB of eMMC storage, 2 GB of RAM, 802.11n WiFi, However, for $99, this may be just enough laptop for most people. The Pinebook was made to run Linux (specifically Ubuntu and Debian. The lightweight OS is certainly powerful enough for casual users that spend most of their time browsing the web and doing office tasks.

The pictures are of the 11-inch model that was sent to developers. We haven’t heard anything else from Pine64, so there’s no word on when retail units will appear, if ever. That said, it’s good to see a Pinebook in the wild. We might yet see the birth of an ultra-affordable, but still capable, notebook.

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