Check out their philosophy[0]. They aren't exactly a company targeting end user consumers. They want to put affordable hardware in the hands of a community of tinkerers.

[0]https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/

Well, as both an end-user and tinkerer, I'd rather not have to own two devices when I can go out and get one that will cover all my bases.

Sounds like Purism Librem5 is more for you then?

Possibly. Their laptop devices look excellent. On the list when my current device gives up the ghost.

Good luck with that. See how long that last, if the current trend continues. Soon you might have to aquire a certified developerversion to unlock your device to tinker with it.

Regardless, Pine does not look like a product I'd put my faith in. Perhaps someone else, sure, but Pine inspires no trust from me.

This warning is present, albeit in much smaller print, on all devices with a screen that you buy. The unofficial apple policy appears to be "repair starting from 1 dead pixel on iphone, 3 on ipad". Samsung has a policy which depends on the screen type: 1 for normal LCD, 3 for Super AMOLED, 4 for WVGA-resolution LCD. Every single manufacturer has this kind of clause, you cannot fault pine64 for this.

Though of course as it is a much smaller venture, you can’t hound a sales rep until they accept to repair it nonetheless.

That warning is designed to scare away 'regular' consumers, so it's doing its job. If the prospect of a couple dead pixels scares someone, they are not the target customer for a PinePhone. It is absolutely not a device for the average consumer.

How do you know if you're the target customer for a PinePhone? You read the 'dead pixels' warning and think 'I don't care... I want a Linux phone'. People who would find a couple dead pixels unacceptable would also likely find the features and functionality of it unacceptable as well. For months it couldn't take pictures or (reliably) make phone calls/text.[1] Now we can take poor quality pictures and have marginal phone functionality and think life is good! It's not that we're nuts (ok, maybe a little ;-) but rather that we accept this a long term process/effort and not something that will be even remotely perfect anytime soon.

[1] Hell, mine will never be able to reliably work with most USB-C chargers due to a hardware bug in the first iteration. Didn't care... I want a Linux phone! (and I'm too cheap to replace the board, I'll wait for a v2 to fix that and other issues)

They're selling at near-cost for developers. The pinephone is not ready for end users.