They're not. Anybody that has a soldering iron warm and that doesn't shy away from hacking on a board populated with SMD components and that makes it past the 'do this only if you feel confident with the procedure' warning is well above beginner level.

PinePhone's likely are mostly in the hands of people who have significant overlap with those in that group mentioned above rather than your average grandmother, unless she takes after Grace Hopper.

Finally, this is hacker news, which once upon a time meant that people who frequent this site knew how to make things, and there are still a few of us left. So bring on the soldering required articles.

See also the recent thread on headphones where people are complaining about non-replaceable batteries and longevity, but a minority are digging out soldering irons and replacing batteries and fixes broken devices.

It's a phone, not a pacemaker. Contributions to the sum of human knowledge should be welcomed even if the person isn't "qualified", those with more to add should do so if they feel inclined.

Hard disagree. No one should do anything if they don't understand the consequences. It's no one's job to baby proof the world. If someone hasn't learnt that lesson yet they might be paying looks up PinePhone price $399 to learn it.

A lot of people write SW without underestanding the consequences. See recent NPM disaster for one example. Or Firefox (UI, "features") for another example. Ok, and Solar Winds for the best example.

I wrote software without understanding the consequences. That's how I learned.

Nobody paid me to do it, sure, but I did anyway.

The PinePhone is $150 with the convergence model being $200. The unreleased Pro model is $400, but this hack presumably wouldn't apply to that one.

The pro an rk3399 which deals with the MMC supplies itself so it can actually switch the voltage in software

What are you talking about? It’s a cell phone. And besides the world does not need to hand hold every singe scenario in case someone not smart enough comes along. Ya working with electrical mains should put out a strong warning but this is nothing. If people can not evaluate the skill level required before they do something that is on them. If someone needs to tell you taking the exposed electronics of your phone and taking a several hundred degree hot soldering iron to those electronics and then also removing parts that there is a risk you could damage something then you have a lot more to worry about then ruining a phone.

Yeah, all those absolute beginners with PinePhones and soldering skills. Or, maybe it isn't a problem because almost anyone who can read and understand the instructions let alone casually follow them is probably going to be OK.

If the article instead purported to show you where on the Switch you could attach a car battery using jumper cables and spit to unlock Yoshi's Island then I could see you having a point.

> If the article instead purported to show you where on the Switch you could attach a car battery using jumper cables and spit to unlock Yoshi's Island then I could see you having a point

Wait do you have a YouTube video on how I can do this?

If I did then I would be too busy recuperating to respond.

Who's opening their phones and soldering them without a basic understanding of electronics?