The Current Hardware Specifications For Purism's Librem 5 Phone

[caligula]

do they still kill apps on alt-tab?

Don't know. Apparently the multitasking closing background tasks in a more aggressive manner on iOS, but it should have enough memory for multitasking between few apps at least. Recently there was an article about some Android phones also killing background apps like ssh clients to save battery.

[nomadewolf]

Well, they only will take money from me if I decide to buy something from them, isn't it?

Absolutely. The thing is, even if you search 'herpes' on Google for a school assignement, for instance, you'll start getting harassed by herpes meds ads...
Sure you'll never buy any herpes meds, but if a family member or friend catches a glimpse of what your browsing, they might get a wrong impression...
This is just a basic example, but i'm sure you can extrapolate.

I really do not intend to commit any crime.

Me neither. But in China, if you even forget to pay your taxes, there's an app that anyone can download and see if there's anyone who didn't paid their taxes (or whatever other hedious crime the chinese government deems punishable). And when you get a warning in such app, you're encouraged to publicly shame said person...

So what constitutes a 'crime' is very debatable when you have no privacy.
The real problem lies in the abuse and increasingly tightening grip organizations and governments can get on people.

Anyway, I just think people sometimes are a little neurotic about privacy. Well, if they are sensible people, it's ok, but most people are not.

My sincere opinion? People are not nearly neurotic enough about privacy. It's not by accident that it's a right inscribed in nearly every evolved country's constitution...
The question i recomend you ask yourself is: why is Google, Microsoft, Apple, numerous other organizations around the world and even governments want all our data so badly that they even take it without asking, violationg laws, and even invest millions to get? When you think about the answer to that, you realise the true value of your freedom. If it's worth so much to them, shouldn't it be worth even more to you?

[Mateus Felipe]

No one is going to hunt and kill you. I hope...

I'm relieved >D<

The thing is your data gets collected, processed, shared, crossed with other data, and from that they get your habits, tastes and way of life.
That way they can more money out of you.

Well, they only will take money from me if I decide to buy something from them, isn't it?

And if you commit a crime, your government can more easily prove you did it and find you.

I really do not intend to commit any crime.

Anyway, I just think people sometimes are a little neurotic about privacy. Well, if they are sensible people, it's ok, but most people are not.

[nomadewolf]

Of course, I'm going to pay $600 so they don't know my location so they can't hunt me and kill me.

No one is going to hunt and kill you. I hope...
The thing is your data gets collected, processed, shared, crossed with other data, and from that they get your habits, tastes and way of life.
That way they can more money out of you.
And if you commit a crime, your government can more easily prove you did it and find you.

If they hunt and kill you, they cannot extort money out of you, so... yay?...

[nomadewolf]

Oh I see privacy only is for people with enough money.

I hope at that price they also checked the modem firmware doesn't contain any backdoor. That is if they have access to the modem firmware source code, which is unlikely. And even if they have, it likely is under NDA which means *they* would have to check the whole stack by themselves.

Reading their blog they consider the modem as a black box so I guess they don't know what's inside. So much for privacy and security.

And what about what will be on their store? Do they ask devs to provide source? Who will look at the source? Who will guarantee privacy?

Unfotunately, yes: privacy only is for people with enough money.
That's the world we live in.

Is this phone 100% guarantee your privacy? Absolutely not!
Will it do a wayyyyy better job at it than any other phone? Absolutely yes!

This is a first step. If it gets traction, which i hope it does, more privacy at lower prices will follow for sure!

[grok]

I know this is not about shiny specs, but some of these raise an eyebrow in 2019.
My now five, probably by the release date it will be six, years old Nexus 5 was already full HD.

Let's see how the cpu and just 3gb or ram behaves, it may not be that bad. It's not that anyone plans to play Doom 6 on this, right?

To me the biggest question is how long is the battery life, and charging speed. And it won't be answered until we have it.

And it has a jack, that's all that matters today, though...

Good point about worrying about battery and charging.
As the SoC claims native USB-C support, I think charging will be fine even though it's probably not ultra-super-fast charging with a specific powerful charger.

[pal666]

And you can't just look at hardware, one big reason many people buy apple over android is just stupid update support.

android does support updates. some vendors aren't good at it, but it's not a reason to avoid android. just choose responsible vendor

Especially this 120 dollar phones get maybe 1 year support, after 3 years you can flush it down the toilet because it became unusable and extremely unsafe.

on the other hand 120 for 3 years is better than 600 for 15 years

[pal666]

Did you know the latest $529 iPad 2018 128GB cellular+wifi has 2 GB of RAM?

do they still kill apps on alt-tab?

[WorBlux]

Oh I see privacy only is for people with enough money.

I hope at that price they also checked the modem firmware doesn't contain any backdoor. That is if they have access to the modem firmware source code, which is unlikely. And even if they have, it likely is under NDA which means *they* would have to check the whole stack by themselves.

Reading their blog they consider the modem as a black box so I guess they don't know what's inside. So much for privacy and security.

And what about what will be on their store? Do they ask devs to provide source? Who will look at the source? Who will guarantee privacy?

The modem isn't allowed access to main memory and has a hardware kill switch. As for data it's not seeing anything the ISP wouldn't. Yes there are feasible attacks against the modem but if attackers are at that level, every phone could be screwed.

And the store sounds like it is OSS, with payment for the packaging and curation.

[grok]

I don't know how this will run, but my previous tablet (Bq Aquarius M10 with Android flashed over the original Ubuntu) easily ran out of memory with it's meager 2 GB RAM and I didn't even do much on it, just a web browser, Twitter and TV app open and that was already too much. So yeah, Android *does* need more than 2 GB of RAM. Unless your plan is to use Android Go, in which case 2 GB should be plenty.

The worst I've seen is a phone with some ~200MB RAM, a tiny Samsung with Android 2.x physically very nice (but fonts and icons looked dated). Google Play Services was using about two thirds to three quarters of the RAM and killing the basic usability. You can kill it but it might come back, or will come back e.g. at boot.