PinePhone KDE Community Edition is up for pre-order for $150 and up

As promised, the PinePhone KDE Plasma Mobile Community Edition is now available for pre-order from the Pine64 store.

Expected to ship in January 2021, the phone will be the first smartphone to ship with the KDE Plasma Mobile user interface out of the box. But like all PinePhones, users will be free to run different operating systems either by booting from a microSD card or by replacing the software that comes pre-installed.

The basic PinePhone KDE Community Edition smartphone is priced at $150, but customers can also pre-order a Convergence Package version that has extra RAM and storage and comes bundled with a USB-C dock that lets you connect an external display, keyboard, mouse, and other accessories.

While the new phone will have the Plasma Mobile user interface, the operating system is actually Manjaro ARM — the same OS that shipped with the previous community edition PinePhone.

That’s because Plasma Mobile is a UI rather than a full-fledged operating system. There are official builds available for several operating systems including postmarketOS, KDE Neon, and Manjaro. And while KDE Neon was previously the “recommended” option for folks that wanted to try out Plasma Mobile, the developers have decided to use Manjaro for the PinePhone KDE Community Edition since the Manjaro team already has experience optimizing their OS for Pine64’s smartphone.

That means the user interface (including the home screen, notifications, gesture controls, and app launcher) will look very similar to KDE Neon, but some of the core apps and features may be different since the base operating system is the Arch-based Manjaro rather than the Ubuntu-based KDE Neon.

Here’s a video I shot a few weeks ago that shows off a recent nightly build of KDE Neon with Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone:

Aside from the KDE logo on the back of the phone and the pre-installed software, the only other thing setting the new phone apart from other recent PinePhone versions will be the artwork on the box that the phone ships in and the fact that Pine64 will donate $10 per device sold to KDE e.V.

In terms of hardware, here’s what you get from the standard PinePhone and the Convergence Pack version.

One other thing worth pointing out? For the first time Pine64 has updated its store pricing.

The two versions of the PinePhone KDE Plasma Mobile Community Edition are still priced at $150 and $200, respectively. But those prices are now described as a “community price” that represents a $100 discount off the eventual “retail price,” suggesting that folks who wait too long to buy a Pinephone may end up paying $250 to $300.

Update: Pine64 explains that it will continue offering community pricing for enthusiasts, but starting next year there will also be Pine64 online regional retail stores that will allow customers to pay higher prices to receive a priority support experience. Devices will ship within days of an order being placed. There will be more of an infrastructure for returns, replacement parts, and tracking of lost packages. And software troubleshooting support will be provided.