So I think there were a few issues.

• the original pinephone was basically too slow to be usable
• there were a few hardware quirks that had to be fixed in software but made mainlining drivers for it difficult
• the lack of community updates (and you could argue overall community management) caused some developers to move away while also impeded pine64s ability to attract new developers
• the lack of any sort of funding for developers made it difficult for people to work on as any more than a hobby (not necessarily pine64’s fault, but it’s the reality)
• poor battery life (better idle and sleep support would have been software issues but the hardware was designed to be cheap instead of really useful)
• daily driving Linux on a phone is a poor experience - not pine64s fault but there’s a bunch of support missing in Linux that needs to be developed before early adopters can really use Linux phones. Modem power management, audio switching between Bluetooth and speaker, MMS support, camera support, etc.

I have a minisforum v3 that I’m not using - just don’t love the surface style form factor. I’m willing to sell it for a good price if anyone is interested. Based in USA. Feel free to DM me

Avoid lenovo. Their build quality went to crap and they’re easily the least repairable laptop on the market these days.

I’ve had to repair 4 lenovos within the last few years. Cheap parts and the laptops all had their keyboards plastic rivited to the top shell of the chassis, making it impossible to replace without buying a new chassis. One of the laptops had to have two motherboard replacements before it was usable.

Their all-in-one doesn’t have a frame around the LCD panel, and they didn’t put access doors in the back panel. So if you want to upgrade the ram or ssd you have a 70% chance of breaking the screen.

If you’re only doing a VM or two, I’d get rid of proxmox and run truenas directly. It’s gotten better for VMs.

Also make sure you read up on the ecc requirements for truenas if you’re not using ecc ram