Linux vendor
PINE64 for Linux: an ARM hobby project, not a daily driver
Set expectations before anything else: PINE64 is not a Linux laptop vendor in the sense Tuxedo or System76 are. It is a community-driven hardware project that sells low-cost Arm devices, and the laptop in the lineup, the Pinebook Pro, is a tinkering machine, not a working laptop you buy to get a job done. If you want a Linux laptop that just works, this is the wrong page and the best Linux laptop guide is the right one. If you want to understand what PINE64 actually is, read on.
Who they are
PINE64 is a community-oriented hardware company that makes inexpensive Arm single-board computers and devices: the Pine A64 boards, the PinePhone, the PineTab, and the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro laptops. The model is open hardware, low margins, community-supported software, and very little hand-holding. They are upfront that the software is a community effort. Treat that as a feature for hackers and a warning for everyone else.
What they actually ship
One laptop worth tracking: the Pinebook Pro. It is a Rockchip RK3399 Arm SoC (two Cortex-A72 plus four Cortex-A53) in a 14-inch shell, 4 GB of soldered RAM, 64 GB of eMMC storage, a 1080p panel, and hardware privacy switches for the camera, microphone and Wi-Fi. It ships Manjaro ARM with KDE, and Debian and Armbian builds also boot. It is around 220 dollars. Note the year on it: this is an older board, not a 2025 release, and PINE64’s laptop has not had a mainstream successor.
The good part is real. The RK3399 is well supported in the mainline kernel, the Mali GPU runs on the open panfrost Mesa driver with no blobs, and the hardware kill switches are a genuine privacy feature you cannot get on a mainstream laptop. For a particular kind of buyer, the one who wants to own and modify every layer of the stack, that is the entire appeal.
The catches the store page underplays
It is an Arm SBC in a laptop shell, not a PC. This is the framing that matters. x86 software does not run natively. You live in the Arm Linux ecosystem, and anything that assumes x86 is out.
It is slow. The RK3399 is an entry-class mobile SoC from years ago. Browser GPU acceleration is patchy, heavy web pages struggle, and there is no version of this that competes with a modern x86 ultrabook. We graded performance 2 out of 10 and that is accurate, not harsh.
4 GB soldered RAM caps it. There is no upgrade, and 4 GB is tight for a modern browser session in 2026. The ceiling is the ceiling for the life of the machine.
Suspend has always been the weak spot. On this board, across distros, suspend is a known soft point and has been for years. If you want a laptop you close and reopen reliably, this is not it.
Software is community-sourced and lightly verified. We have not run a current build long-term, and the hardware report is community-sourced rather than bench-tested by us. Review confidence is low and we are saying so on purpose.
Who should buy
People who want a cheap, open, hackable Arm laptop as a project: a portable target for Arm Linux work, a privacy-switch-laden secondary device, a tinkering machine where the point is the hacking, not the productivity. At 220 dollars it is fair value for that and only that.
Who should not buy: anyone who needs a working daily laptop. If the laptop has to reliably suspend, run a heavy browser, or replace a normal machine, buy from Tuxedo, System76 or a clean mainstream option like the ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 (AMD) instead. Buying a Pinebook Pro expecting a work machine ends in disappointment, and that is the honest warning this page exists to give.
FAQ
Is the PINE64 Pinebook Pro a good daily laptop? No. It is a slow Arm hobby machine with 4 GB soldered RAM and weak suspend. It is a good tinkering project at 220 dollars and a bad primary laptop. For a daily Linux machine see the best Linux laptop guide.
Can I run normal x86 Linux software on it? No. It is an Arm RK3399 device, so you run Arm builds of Linux software. Anything x86-only does not run natively. This is the single most important thing to understand before buying.
How is PINE64 different from Tuxedo or System76? Tuxedo and System76 sell supported x86 Linux laptops meant as daily drivers. PINE64 sells cheap open Arm hardware as a community project. Different category, different expectations, different buyer.
Does the Pinebook Pro suspend reliably on Linux? No. Suspend has been the documented weak spot on this board across distros for years, and no build fully solves it. If reliable lid-close suspend matters, this is the wrong machine.
Are the privacy switches real? Yes. The Pinebook Pro has genuine hardware kill switches for camera, microphone and Wi-Fi, which is a real privacy feature no mainstream laptop offers. For some buyers that is the only reason to consider it, accepting everything else it gives up.