Pine64, makers of PinePhone, the Linux powered, completely open mobile device, has joined forces with software community KDE for a special edition. The PinePhone KDE Community Edition will run Plasma Mobile, the mobile version of KDE’s Plasma graphical workspace environment. KDE says that Plasma Mobile “includes most of the essential features a smartphone user would expect and its functionalities increase day by day.”
Plasma Mobile has been designed to allow developers to write for Plasma Desktop and Mobile simultaneously, with the mobile OS taking care of formatting, even where the phone screen is connected to a monitor in other words. All apps for Plasma work on all form factors, meaning that it’s easy to hook your PinePhone up to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and use it as a workstation, similar to Ubuntu Touch and Samsung DeX. Users of the desktop OS will also be able to link their PinePhone KDE-CE to their desktop. There is a 2GB and 3GB variant, with the latter bundling in a hub offering with two USB, video, and ethernet ports.
The specs for the Pinephone KDE-CE are identical to the standard Pinephone, including six kill-switches to deactivate modules such as GPS, microphone, or the modem, for added privacy. As ever, PinePhone is open, so you can dual-boot one of the many other GNU/Linux distros that it supports if you so wish.
A gallery of Plasma Mobile's UI and apps.
Pre-orders for the PinePhone KDE Community Edition will begin in December on the Pine64 website. Unlike the standard PinePhone which runs Linux Manjaro out-of-the-box, this one will be sold at a $10 markup, but Pine64 has already announced that this will be passed on to KDE to support the development of Plasma. Based on that, we expect it to be sold at around the $160/$210 mark depending on RAM size. Both Pine64 and KDE are committed to open technology, so this seems like an excellent partnership as well as a chance for you to be on the bleeding edge of not one but two exciting projects as they continue to evolve.