Librem 5 Will Begin Shipping In The Weeks Ahead, But Varying Quality Over Months Ahead

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS owner here.

The more likely SoC vendor to be useful for a higher end phone would be Qualcomm (Snapdragon). They intend to support linux with a graphics driver but I have no idea how things are going.

Freedreno works on Adreno 630 just fine.

Buying a Windows ARM laptop to run Linux would seem weird since there's worry of Microsoft completely locking them

Wired BIOS update could indeed break something, but BIOS updates delivered only via Windows Update to these laptops, so as soon as you installed Linux you can no longer worry about this.

and no shortage of x86 laptops.

There is exactly zero x86 laptops that can survive for 15 hours with ~50% brightness and active LTE connection. I don't need exactly 15 hours, but 5 hours that best x86 laptops can provide (medium to high brightness and active LTE, remember) is not enough for sure. If that would be desktop, server, nettop, SBC or something else, then it would be different conversation, but if we talking about laptops - then we talking about battery life, and x86 laptops loose this particular battle.

Very few people ever ran real linux on an ARM (or MIPS) desktop or laptop

True, but with availability of projects such as Armbian and Panfrost and fast boards like ROCKPro64 and ODROID-N2 more and more people use ARM-based SBC as desktop. I currently testing Panfrost on NanoPC-T4, and you know how I get Panforst up and running? Just installed Linux 5.3 from Armbian repo and updated Mesa from Oibaf PPA - things get much easier this days on ARM.

[oiaohm]

Wired BIOS update could indeed break something, but BIOS updates delivered only via Windows Update to these laptops, so as soon as you installed Linux you can no longer worry about this.

Unfortunately by those who cracked the Qualcomm chips with integrated cellular modem its possible for BIOS updates to be delivered due to application in sim if carrier decided to go this route. Proper separation between wifi and cellular modem parts to application cpu are kind of important.

active LTE connection<< That a problem. There is not proper separation on hardware access around that modem. Hopefully next generation snapdragon deal with this.

[intelfx]

There is exactly zero x86 laptops that can survive for 15 hours with ~50% brightness and active LTE connection. I don't need exactly 15 hours, but 5 hours that best x86 laptops can provide (medium to high brightness and active LTE, remember) is not enough for sure.

I think I can push my X1C6 to 7 hours under these conditions. That's while actively using Firefox, even (which is not exactly known for conserving CPU time). Full idle under these conditions is 10 hours.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

I think I can push my X1C6 to 7 hours under these conditions. That's while actively using Firefox, even (which is not exactly known for conserving CPU time). Full idle under these conditions is 10 hours.

Just in case "Under these conditions" include specifically LTE, not WiFi.
Just in case 15 hours is not idle too (idle is 24 hours). It include activities such as watching a couple of webinars 1.5 hours each via LTE, like I did last time. Try it and see how much battery will left on your X1C6 after that.

Anyway, 7 hours is still two times less hours for two times more USD (8GB RAM C630 cost 660 USD, 8GB RAM X1C6 cost 1400 USD, prices for on sale models from lenovo.com; it's even if we put aside the fact that there is no LTE version X1C6 on sale on lenovo.com right now, that usually 150-200 USD on top of regular price).

So where you can push your X1C6 from 7 to 10, I can push my C630 from 15 to 24. So what's your point? x86 battery life is still not even in the same league.

[intelfx]

Just in case "Under these conditions" include specifically LTE, not WiFi.

Sure.

It include activities such as watching a couple of webinars 1.5 hours each

We both know full well that video playback in web browsers in modern GNU/Linux is all kinds of fucked. Replacing webinars with Youtube via mpv (again via LTE) it'll be 8W avg / 7 hours, again.

So what's your point?

My point was to disprove your claim as stated.

[danmcgrew]

Ars Technica
"iFixit tears down the newest Fairphone—how repairable is it?"
"The Fairphone 3 gets the full iFixit treatment and a 10/10 score."
Jim Salter - 9/11/2019, 1:14 PM; reader comments--132

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019...it/?comments=1