Used Pinephone exclusively for 3 days on US Mobile

Just wanted to let everyone know my experience so far using my PinePhone daily.

I was able to get my PinePhone running Manjaro Phosh to connect with US Mobile’s GSM 4G network but had an issue where the phone would randomly disconnect, and wouldn’t reconnect to the network without rebooting, or waiting 10min. I found a helpful tip while googling the firmware version number:

It was found that removing gsm.network-id using nmcli helped the issue. I found that it did help significantly, although I still have connection drop issues, where the phone will still say it’s connected to 4G… I can make calls, and receive text, but there is no data connection.

When the phone is in this strange state, I can toggle airplane mode, go to mobile settings toggle the device off and on, then count 10 seconds, and toggle Data Roaming to officially resolve the problem.

I can then go back to Wi-Fi settings, and turn back on my hot-spot.

What I love, is the fact that I can receive a call, answer it, and continue using the hotspot on my desktop without interruption. (something my android phone can’t do).

I also enjoy that I do not need a cellphone plan with hotspot included. I purposely picked a phone plan without hotspot, just to verify… and it works! On my old phone (Boost Mobile / Android), I had to use PdaNet, which was unreliable, and hide my connection with an obfuscated vpn. Currently, the hotspot option in manjaro is actually more reliable than using PdaNet, and I don’t have to use a vpn.

To be my daily use phone, I need Hotspot, texting, and calling. My biggest complaint is the cellular data dropping, once that is fixed, I am a happy camper! Right now, it’s workable, I CAN use this phone for daily use.

To be honest, I love the phone, and love the idea of having a real true Linux kernel and a bash shell to mess with. I hope to see more applications working soon, as well as some fixes with UI clipping.

Good job Manjaro team! Can’t wait to see Manjaro rock solid and stable!

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