Pine64 is a tech company that has been selling Linux-powered hardware for years, including the entry-level PinePhone and upcoming PinePhone Pro. Pine64 has been working with the PinePhone community for months to create an official keyboard attachment, and two months after the design was finalized, you can finally buy one to create the fun-sized pocket Linux PC of your dreams.
The new keyboard case is compatible with both the PinePhone and upcoming PinePhone Pro, and takes the place of the original back casing. Since the PinePhone already has internal pogo pins designed for accessories, there’s no added bulk or fiddling with Bluetooth connections. It looks more like a tiny laptop than a phone with a keyboard.
Pine64 wrote in its latest blog post, “the hinge features a 180° design, which not only allows for two-hand typing on a surface but also for comfortable thumb-typing when fully extended. The etched keycaps can be easily relocated for alternate layouts such as AZERTY or QWERTZ. The keyboard case runs an open firmware, which means that anyone with the know-how can alter existing functions or add new ones.”
The case is more than just a keyboard, though — it has its own 6,000mAh battery and USB Type-C port. You can charge the keyboard’s battery and the phone’s battery simultaneously through the keyboard’s USB port, or if you don’t want to deal with two batteries, the keyboard is still fully functional when drawing power from the phone. Both battery levels can be checked through software, but it’s up to the maintainers of each PinePhone operating system to add the required support code.
In addition to the keyboard case, Pine64 is also now selling three other alternative back casings for the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro. The ‘PineDio LoRa’ case is a replacement for the original rear casing (minus any branding) with the addition of a LoRa module for I/O projects. There’s also a case that adds wireless charging, and another that adds a fingerprint sensor. All three options are easy to disassemble, with plenty of documentation available from Pine64.
The new cases are available from the Pine64 online store. The wireless charging case is $9.99, the PineDio LoRa case is $19.99, the fingerprint reader case is $24.99, and the keyboard case is $49.99.
The post PinePhone official keyboard case is finally available to purchase appeared first on xda-developers.
source https://www.xda-developers.com/pinephone-keyboard-case/
