KDE and Pine64 have announced the availability of the new PinePhone – KDE Community edition. The idea of having mobile devices that can display a full workstation desktop when connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, has been around for years and both the KDE Community and Pine64 have been working to make it a reality.

The PinePhone – KDE Community edition runs neither Android nor iOS, but instead an entirely free and open source system: KDE Community’s Plasma Mobile.

Plasma Mobile is a direct derivation from KDE’s Plasma desktop and offers total privacy, user control and the promise of convergent environment and applications.

The PinePhone handset itself is also ready for convergence. You can use any USB-C dock to connect it to extra USB devices (mouse, keyboard, storage), external monitors or even to a wired network.

In fact, the 3GB version of the PinePhone already comes with such a dock that provides two extra USB ports, a full-sized HD video port and an RJ45 port.

Talking of hardware, the PinePhone’s kill switches, located under the back cover and above the removable battery, allow you to deactivate the modem, WiFi/Bluetooth, microphone and cameras, and are especially designed to help preserve your privacy.

The PinePhone – KDE Community edition is also reasonably priced, allowing you to enjoy a device on which you can run Plasma Mobile during the next years. Pre-orders open December 2020.