[29083011397778]

The USB-C port doesn't provide enough power for the Wi-Fi radio to work, but ethernet (via USB-C hub) would work fine. Excluding that (major) use-case, the Pinephone works just fine using external power instead of the battery. Hell, for that matter, I'm tempted to find out if an external Wi-Fi dongle would work...

[seba_dos1]

The cellular modem also doesn't work without battery on the PinePhone (it does on the Librem 5 though). It's not a matter of providing enough power - on the PinePhone (and many other phones as well) those things are powered straight from the battery, because to make it work otherwise you have to provide enough capacitance to handle big power spikes (which the Librem 5 does, as it's not meant to optimize for low price or thickness).