This is a new product launch, the current users are reporting on the earliest units. The first normal pre-order batch should be shipping this week, and then I believe there are 2 more batches to be shipped until after the Chinese new year. The current preorder is the last for these units for several months.
The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki.
Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project.
This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.
The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki.
Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project.
This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.