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

[sarmad]

Looks like a lot of people have gotten used to getting cheaper products in return for giving up their privacy that they forgot how pricing used to be back in the days.

[andyprough]

Sorry, but are you deluded somehow? They've been keeping everyone in the dark about progress with hardware development for a long time. Even now, they provide very little details. How is that transparency?

Gladly, there's another company that *actually* not only preaches transparency, but also practices it - Pine.

I'm as excited about the PinePhone as anyone, but they are doing the same thing as Librem if you look at Pine's blog today - they are sending out a series of batches of not-quite-complete phones starting in October to developers only. Without a final OS. They are hoping to ship to consumers in March. Pine is simply doing it for less money.

[andyprough]

The Pine phone and the Librem5 both have the same problem: Not enough RAM. I had a Motorola Atrix phone back in 2011/2012. 1gb of ram was pathetic on a phone back then. Just as 2-3gb is pathetic now. These open source phones really need to lift the amount of RAM to 4-6GB. Especially if people want to use them as a laptop replacement. The killer app for a modern Linux phone should be to plug it into a screen/keyboard/mouse and be able to use it for programming/network engineering replacing a laptop. The problem is none of these phones have enough RAM to do that. Storage is no longer an issue. 400-500GB SDCards are cheap. The lack of RAM is a real problem. The other main use of these phones is adblock on internet connections.

Yeah, the videos I've seen of the PinePhone in action make it look pretty slow. Both Ram and cpu are underpowered compared to modern phones. I'm excited about having a phone that is more protective of privacy and more able to work with free software, but it's a good idea to lower the expectations for how much it can replace your current higher powered phone.

[brent]

I'm as excited about the PinePhone as anyone, but they are doing the same thing as Librem if you look at Pine's blog today - they are sending out a series of batches of not-quite-complete phones starting in October to developers only. Without a final OS. They are hoping to ship to consumers in March. Pine is simply doing it for less money.

No, this isn't at all comparable. Purism is sending out prototypes, but treating it as shipment of the final and ready phone. Pine is saying it clear and loud that these are prototypes and designed for developers. That is a *huge* difference. The Pine blog post is also good example of how real transparency looks like.

[wizard69]

That isn’t the way I read this article. Frankly this news has killed any desire to dig deeper.

From software point of view, all of those batches (maybe except the last one) are esentially the same device.

[wizard69]

brent Purism is a social purpose company. And you hate them for doing what NO ONE ELSE have done before.

You are the choosing beggar+600USD.

It has nothing to do with hate, rather it is hard for us to trust the company anymore. Beyond that what social purpose does this company support? I’d strongly suggest you open your eyes instead of blindly accepting anything the company shoved down your throat.

[intelfx]

You are absolutely wrong. HE cares!

And, for your information, 'Freedom' and 'Privacy' is also paid for with a $160.00 payment to the Pine Group, for the PinePhone.

I'm really starting to suspect that you are a PINE64's shill.

[Toggleton]

. Oh wait, pureOS is based on Gnome, then 3 Gigs might not be enough

It is based on Wlroots(Phoc&Phosh) with Gnome apps

[wizard69]

There is a very good chance they will not recover. Frankly this sort of behavior in business turns people off. Even for individuals this is rather pathetic behavior.


As others have have pointed out, at least Pine calls their product a developers model and that is apparently farther along than Purisms. Maybe they should change their name to Osborne 2!!!

I don't hate them, but they are quite frankly doing a bad job. They've been overpromising and underdelivering from the very start of the Librem 5 project. The marketing is dishonest ("shipping adjustments", this paper launch, etc.) and they have very little else to show. Apart from a few tinkerer nerds, most people that preordered actually expect a working phone. And they won't get it, at least not any time soon. This will unfortunately all get back to Purism and it will be hard for them to recover.

[danmcgrew]

I'm really starting to suspect that you are a PINE64's shill.

Nope; no such luck.

Now if they'd just send money...or a free PinePhone.