we're looking at the pine Book Pro and
I've got the ANSI Edition that means
that it has a u.s. keyboard layout and
there is also the ISO Edition available
for you at Pine 64 org so make sure as
you're checking out that you that you
select the one that is the keyboard
layout that you want if you're in Canada
in the US
you probably want the u.s. keyboard
layout and that is called ANSI ans I so
I want to take a quick boo before we get
into the news tonight at the actual
interface the emmc comes with debian
stretch pre-installed and now while I'm
not booting from the MFC because I
wanted to really experience kind of
different distros and things so I
installed that same distro downloadable
off of their website onto a micro SD
card and here we go so this is what it
looks like so what I'm gonna do I just
want to make sure I'm actually I'm gonna
share the same I'm gonna set the same
screen so that you guys can see what I
see it's on dual screen so I'm gonna
instead set this to mirror so what I'm
seeing on my screen is I'm gonna drag
this over for you so that you can see
because it's actually operating as two
monitors okay
so on my screen here I'm gonna check
that checkbox that's it and so this is
over USB see so it actually has a video
output and I've selected to show the
same thing on both screens so presumably
if I hit apply this is really awkward
because that screen is actually not a
real screen there we go okay so keep
this configuration and now we can both
see the exact same screen so you and I
are looking at the same screen here so
that's USB C output and that's important
to note and I wanted you to see that
because if you plug that USB C into like
the HDMI of your TV you'll be like well
why is it not showing the same thing you
need to bring up the display the monitor
preferences and select that you want it
to be the same to have dual screen it
will put it on two different screens
those dual so it is a dual screen setup
yeah cool so all I've done is I've
bought for six bucks off of Amazon
just a USBC to HDMI adapter it's just a
cable it's really really cheap cheerful
and it makes it work so as you can see
I'm able to stream live the the screen
just as I see it and it's working
absolutely flawlessly so this is the
default de facto distro and this is
debbie and stretch and has basically
everything that you need to get up and
going so let's see what we've got so
under accessories I've got leafpad text
editor them tax in text editor for you
hackers out there graphics it comes with
not a whole lot actually we probably
want to install the GNU image
manipulation program we've talked about
that on the show Internet we've got
chromium and Firefox because apparently
you need both hex chat will get you into
IRC office let's see what we have
LibreOffice so you've got your yeah
that's like writer and so Microsoft
Office equivalent for Linux sound and
video we've got oh now I installed
cheese because I wanted to point out
that we actually have a built-in webcam
on this system so this is a 1080p webcam
and even though with cheese booted here
so this is gonna presumably there we go
you can see that the the framerate is
really really poor right right there I
am but but it does work really quite
well and the picture looks pretty good
let's take a quick is not just a setting
as to why it's so low well I don't know
yeah I think what we're gonna find is
that with something like the pine Book
Pro and I think this is important to
note and maybe this is something I
should have mentioned right off the top
what it is this is let's consider it
experimental let's consider this
something that is bleeding edge and
mind-blowing yeah let's say if you are a
Linux lover if you love to tinker this
might be a notebook for you yeah because
you're probably gonna run into little
issues like that did you see the
countdown 1 2 3 2 1 and it was like all
gibberish
there's something wrong there and I'm
gonna probably have to figure that out
if I if I care I kind of thought it was
a cool feature it looks like a flash
it's like three two one to prepare this
like screen flash it's like okay but it
didn't really look like a three did it
it was like gibberish
but reminds me of like the first ever
episode thanks Asha that's exactly what
this looks like but I mean there is a
webcam yes big deal so there's there's a
community that is involved in all Pine
64 products and that's a big part of
this is that you can get into the
community and say hey my webcam seems a
little bit choppy or maybe the cheese is
having some weird issues well you can
get into the the chat the and that's on
IRC through hex chat or you can get into
the forums and talk to them about that
and get some help we've got media
players we've got your standard kind of
Linux system tools speaking of let's
bring up like system monitor and let's
just kind of see what this looks like
hold on for a second so this is a two
hundred dollar Linux notebook computer
that's this thin that's a that has no
moving parts so if I can I don't know if
you can really get your head around that
at home but when this is sitting on my
lap there's no fan noise yep there's
very little heat and a little bit of
heat off of the one side where the SOC
is that's the system-on-chip to see what
we would call a CPU yeah there's a
little bit of heat there but it's
dissipated quite well but really like
there's no noise coming off so you don't
have any of those moving parts that you
do on a normal traditional laptop so
what have I been using this for well
it's not a super powerful laptop but
it's quite good as far as getting on the
Internet it's a it's a single board
computer built into a laptop chassis
essentially but it's got a great
keyboard now it's got a nice touchpad
you've got to update the touchpad
firmware make sure you do that right out
the gate there's some updates that you
need to install you'll find out more
about that in the pine 64 forums very
very important for for the sensitivity
and accuracy of that but we've got or
gigs of RAM and what I've been using
this for is I use it as a terminal
for my main computers so if you
understand that's already how I work I
don't like to carry a big workstation of
a laptop they call it a portable
workstation I used to do that I used to
buy the the $1700 portable workstation
that I would do my video production on
and it was this thick and it had big
honkin fans in it or you might have like
one of those big república gamer laptops
that are like this you know the same
thing because you want all that power
the way I work now as a video producer
is I have a honkin server that honkin
server has all the power in the world
that I'll ever need and then I use any
terminal to be able to connect into it
and bring up its screen so on this $200
notebook computer that weighs a feather
weight I'm sitting in a coffee shop on
their Wi-Fi VPN into my studio and I'm
doing video editing on my screen on a
seven thousand dollar production system
oh you know what I mean yeah okay so
this becomes a terminal so it's
brilliant for that it's proven itself to
be brilliant for that but at the same
time it's also great without that
capability to just use it as web surfing
use it for for your standard like
everything's online these days if you're
using Google Drive you probably have a
lot of your stuff just right in there so
let's get a quick boo at this system
itself because I mean though the real
question is okay if I'm not using it
connected to a big powerful system is it
still gonna work as a pretty decent
computer one of the things that you're
going to notice is down here at the
bottom right it's jumping around between
four hundred and eight megahertz to one
point four two gigahertz and so on it's
jumping all over the place because it's
selecting the processor frequency based
on my usage so it's getting faster and
is giving more power taking more juice
from the 10,000 milliamp hour battery
and based on my requirements right but
if I'm not really doing much if it's
idling it'll just clock itself down to
408 megahertz which is going to use very
very little power presume
all right so I'm just gonna cancel out
of that guy and let's jump onto YouTube
because that's probably you know I don't
know about you but if things are not
playing well on YouTube then that's a
real that's a write-off for me I want
videos on YouTube to work really really
well right that's a key thing so fairly
quick yeah loads okay so I mean
everything looks good and I'm just doing
this with the touchpad so I'm doing
multi-touch right now so as I scroll I'm
using two fingers to scroll that's how I
do it so and you can if you want you can
go over to this scroll bar and click and
pull down but I like to just use
multi-touch it's just a little bit
quicker so if I wanted to click on any
of these videos so let's go to something
that's fairly current let's go to our
ESET video here and there's an ad that's
playing so it jumped up real quick looks
really good real smooth and skip the ads
it switched to eighteen over nine how do
you like that oh it looks like I've
already clicked on this video so let's
reverse again using multi-touch to
rewind there I double tapped on the
scroll bar and then can scroll there you
go look so yeah let's fullscreen it see
if it cats out no looks good everything
is looking pretty good there so sound is
a little bit tinny as you can expect
from a lap like a low-priced
laptop but I want to be clear when I
when I say that that it it has bluetooth
five okay think about that for a second
so you got a Bluetooth speaker
externally and you can you can connect
this to your Bluetooth speaker phones
yeah yeah absolutely so so those
speakers that are a little bit tinny you
saw them when I unbox or when I opened
it up just a little little tiny speakers
you can either use the headphone jack
there is that over here or you can use
bluetooth headphones bluetooth speakers
and you're gonna get much better sound
as well cool so that's really really
nice neat I have to say 200 bucks it's
oh it's been a dream like just like I've
been using
I've been using a Lenovo ThinkPad and
it's beautiful but it is it's big and
heavy clunky and it's a nice notebook
but it feels heavy on my lap and this
thing just feels like a feather like
it's just there's nothing to it it's so
thin it's so lightweight and just and
the battery lasts it seems forever and I
just love using it it's not so expensive
that you would be like so anxious if you
take it somewhere you know I mean I I'm
looking at this I'm going you know what
our oldest son is going into high school
next year
oh yes this would be a great computer
for him really
for schooling sure yeah if he can see
the thing with education and it's a sad
place right now in the Canadian
education system is that they don't
teach skills they teach software that's
true and so when you go to school when
you pay to go to college you're paying
to learn Microsoft Office that is not
the skill sets that so so to translate
that from Microsoft office - LibreOffice
can be a challenge so I'll give you that
one little caveat and it's and that is a
problem but that's a problem in the
education sector that's not a problem
with this device and I think if we have
a good troubleshooting mind and and
maybe a father who is willing to take
the time to to help their son and and
show them okay well yeah in in Microsoft
Word it's like that but in libreoffice
it's like this it's similar it's very
very close but it's a little bit
different but see we have a dual boot
system yeah both Linux and Windows yeah
and all windows I also have Microsoft
Office and Libre okay so they use both
but for a lot of their school it's all
on Google Docs that's really so this is
like so consider this like so you say
200 bucks oh well that's about the price
of a good high-end Chromebook yeah right
but this is full Linux yeah I installed
Debian Linux on this you can install
Manjaro or a boon
and it's the full operating system
anything that's in synaptic package
manager I installed cheese
I mentioned wanting to install the GNU
image manipulation program right so what
am I gonna do it's just like you would
on your on your Linux machine bring up
synaptic package manager that's where I
am on Debian anyways and do a search and
type in and guess what we're gonna
find no guesses there it is right
so I can just install it just because
it's Linux it's not a Chromebook right
so it's like the price of a Chromebook a
good high-end one but it's full Linux I
love that but do keep in mind there are
some like development caveat so you've
got to be willing to work those out yep
right now there are a little bit of
things that are like for a novice user
might drive them nuts for someone like
myself I love it and I can forgive those
things things like if I close the lid
right now when it goes to sleep and I
open it and push the power button it
won't wake up well that's a problem
they're working on it it'll be fixed but
right now I just know don't close the
lid boots
it boots so darn fast that if I shut it
down and turn it back on again I don't I
don't care it doesn't affect me but you
so you learn these little quirks about
it because it is a very new system and
it's a very new it's an entirely new
realm for Linux notebooks I mean this is
an SOC a single-board computer built
into a beautiful laptop chassis and
you've got access to a full Debian or
any compatible Linux distro on that
system how cool is that
no for somebody who's going hey I'd be
open to this yeah but what happens if I
just mess something up
well then just wipe your SD card and
read and leave flash like Joe that's the
great part I mean if you're doing
something on your Windows machine and
you mess it up it's like oh my goodness
no yeah no because this has the extra
Mike microSD for booting yeah could you
put say like retropie on that Mike rusty
and boot up on a micro SD well you'd
have to have a rock 64 pine book 64
compatible version of retropie so yeah
what you would need to do I think would
be instead to take the approach of
installing Debian and then installing
retropie on top of that a little bit
different I don't think there's anyone
doing a retro PI gaming system for the
rock for the pine book pro yet took it
but I'm not entirely certain of that
it's just a distro it's a it's a Debian
based or a boon to based distro so it
could be done yeah it's just I don't
know if anyone's doing every marriage
right said that there is an update PvP
was updated so that when he closes his
lid wait a bit reopen it yeah the power
button and it works fine yeah probably
as I say people are like folks in the
community or working on it and you can
jump into the chat the the forum and
they'll tell you all about where where
it's at
I've had a strange thing where it
reboots once in a while but I found if I
if I hard set the frequency of the CPU
it doesn't do it anymore
ah and we've seen tonight that it didn't
do it as well and I didn't change that
setting so I think one of the updates
have just simply fixed that no you know
would be interesting and let me know if
this is slightly off base okay to take
the rock pro 64 that's the single board
computer version of this yeah
and run a giggle score against this and
see if this compares they should be
there the same SOC either the same Ram
right but just because there's a few
other components at it and I'd be
interested to see how it plays out mmm
right yeah we could do that sure I think
that'd be interesting yeah anybody in
the community want to do that give it a
go run a give a score on a pine Book Pro
we are this week we've looked at the
ANSI keyboard edition and while the ISO
version came out late 2019 the ANSI
version just came out in early 2020 and
so this is like the brand-new creme de
la creme for American and Canadian users
and I'm very very pleased with it very
impressed and this could be a daily
driver absolutely especially because the
video production I can do with a remote
connection to my main server which has
Windows 10 and and my video production
suite which is DaVinci Resolve so so
this is like this is a brilliant little
terminal for me yeah so check it out
pine sixty-four dot
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