Hey all I listed my pinetab 2 for sale. I don’t really have a use for it at the moment as I purchased a better linux tablet. So if anyone is interested for the sake of avoiding tariff imports or maybe just wants the second one.
@drascus curious which tablet replaced it. :)
starlabs starlite tablet.
@drascus curious if you find the starlite running hotter with the n200.
yes it definitely can run hot at times but not too bad mostly during media playback. I would say it’s night and day in terms of how much better it is in terms of performance. Also compatibility is much better. I think the pinetab can be okay as a secondary device but it can be aggravating at times to use as a daily driver.
@drascus wondering what you found aggravating and lacking in compatibility on the pinetab. Did you find the pinetab getting as hot? I don’t know how many others have had experience with both the starlite and the pinetab. :)
the pinetab can be fine once it’s actually loaded something like a browser but the loading times are a bit long. I’m not exactly sure as of the moment but last time I checked the cameras still didn’t work. I do a lot of video conferencing so no cameras is sort of not great as I always have to plug in an external. The pinetab is not compatible with pen input which is important for me as I do language learning as a hobby and don’t like to have to print out my worksheets if I can avoid it. Arm compatibility is not a problem until it is. Most of the time you think nothing of it until you run into some sort of software you need that isn’t compatible and then that is frustrating. Another thing no matter what I did I could not get widevine to work. This is not a problem for everyone I imagine but there is no way to stream DRM protected media. Even streaming non-drm media is choppy. If a pinetab is a secondary device with specific use case like e-reader, then it’s perfectly suited. However for me anyway it’s not good enough as a primary computing device. The starlabs starlite is actually functional enough that it’s replaced both my laptop and tablet. This is important for me as I don’t like to have lots of devices if I can avoid it I prefer the “one device to rule them all” sort of thing.
The only place the starlite gets hot is up near the charge ports on the upper right side. This is not a problem for me as I don’t hold it in that area. Also it doesn’t get so hot to be concerning ( I have had devices get hotter than this ).
tldr: Starlite -better compatibilitiy -better screen -more ram -faster processor -pen input -larger and faster storage -cameras that work
What I like about the pinetab -form factor ( very portable and nice to hold ) -keyboard - very pleasant to type on -ports : a great selection or ports but I wish they had display over usb-c -overall design : it looks really nerdy and is built solidly I love that. -battery life: They have really fixed the problems and battery is decent now.
@drascus it sounds like you really put some time in to that pinetab. Appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with the devices. That really sucks if camera support still isn’t there. I thought the Pinetab had been around for quite awhile. I’m wondering which software you ran in to without arm support. Fortunately you found something that sounds more ideal for you’re use case.
The biggest one honestly is the lack of widevine support. you can build it manually from AUR which took me over 6 hours to do but I could never get it to actually work for DRM playback of anything. Not really sure why as I tried just about everything I could think of and followed all the tutorials but it just never worked. Also on arch the bluetooth doesn’t work ( maybe it’s fixed now ) so that was sort of a bummer. Of course all of this can be fixed and might be fixed one day but at the moment definitely more of a tinkering sort of device.
