Librem 5 "Birch" Linux Smartphones Begin Shipping To Consumers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Librem 5 "Birch" Linux Smartphones Begin Shipping To Consumers

While coming a few weeks later and two months after the original "shipping" of Librem 5 smartphones, the Librem 5 Birch batch has begun shipping to actual consumers who pre-ordered the privacy-minded Linux smartphone...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-Birch-Shipping

[shmerl]

The Librem 5 will be the first ever Matrix-powered smartphone, natively using end-to-end encrypted decentralised communication in its dialer and messaging app.

Interesting. How exactly is Matrix used for that?

[Almindor]

After reading about the internal happenings with purism + their constant delays I decided to ask for a refund and not wait for mine. I wanted to support them but some of the stuff makes me be very worried that this will turn to vaporware on the first sign of trouble.

[Nille_kungen]

Interesting. How exactly is Matrix used for that?

The answer depends if you chose the blue or the red pill?

https://matrix.org/

[pemartins]

Nevermind everything else and all the circus around the Librem5, if I understood this correctly:

Currently calling is established (e.g. both sides connect fine) but audio is not routed (no voice heard or sent)...

this 700 usd brick cannot even be used to make a phone call...

- And Bob, now the question for 500 bucks:, what does work?
- I don't know, but:

Besides the power-up handling and call audio routing not working at the moment, there still are thermal and battery life issues they hope to have resolved via software updates. They also seem to confirm the camera for photos/video is not yet functionality.

That's it, I'm done making fun of this 'phone' because it is not even funny anymore. Unfortunately it's just sad.

[danmcgrew]

Nevermind everything else and all the circus around the Librem5, if I understood this correctly:


this 700 usd brick cannot even be used to make a phone call...

- And Bob, now the question for 500 bucks:, what does work?
- I don't know, but:



That's it, I'm done making fun of this 'phone' because it is not even funny anymore. Unfortunately it's just sad.

This post has been up for over six hours. Do you notice the absolute flood of comments (there were a grand total of 3 up until two hours ago)?
People are really, really tired of this Librem crap...everywhere else, too.
******************************************
Ars Technica

"I want to believe —
"The Librem 5 has been “shipping” for a month—but not to backers"
"Backers were largely patient with earlier project delays—but concern is rising."

Jim Salter - 11/22/2019, 1:31 PM

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/the-librem-5-has-been-shipping-for-a-month-but-not-to-backers/

[jaypatelani]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/e2mqgb/i_have_my_librem_5_ama/

Congratulations to purism team .. it's better step towards privacy

[aht0]

Nevermind everything else and all the circus around the Librem5, if I understood this correctly:


this 700 usd brick cannot even be used to make a phone call...

It's the ultimate privacy

[Baguy]

This is amazing! The privacy this device will offer is unparalleled! No calls? No bluetooth? No cameras? Battery life lasting for a very short time? Amazing! This is well worth $700 dollars and multiple lies! Oh, and that transparency report they are legally supposed to release every year (Since 2017), since they are a SPC, where is that? In a software update perhaps?

This is just a sad mess. Not something to celebrate. It's going to take serious work on their part before this is something to be celebrated.

[blackiwid]

So despite all the haters here including Michael that basically claimed they missed their shipping window they exactly reached it, be it on the last day. Very nice. I am very excited.

Could it be better and smoother and would we like them being as big and powerful as google or apple to have perfect software support on day 1 sure. But I wonder what people expect was clear to the beginning and it's always the case with crowdfunding that you don't get a finished perfect product.

Does that hurt more because it's expensive maybe but they didn't force people to spend so much money into a kickstarter, if you don't have the money for a geek free software project you should not baked them. Again we can't compare them to Google or Samsung.

Let's compare em to all the other projects:
1. Nokia with Openmoko extremely expensive utter garbage devices way to overprices total garbage hardware, software also very bad, and that was the market leader back then.
2. Ubuntu Phone (Hardware) stayed a wet dreem
3. Firefox OS, nonfree android drivers as far as I know not to mention the modem that spys on the rams device, also abdondend
4. Jolla: A scam they showed a disabled developer to be seen as trustworthy good people, and promised that the OS will be 100% free software. Now it's worse than Android because the latter itself is 100% opensource while Sailfishos is not. Not to forget the scam they did with the Tablets.
5. Necunos NC_1 no modem but I don't blame them for it, but no news on the website since April 1, I find no link to order one?
I missed the negative news about them on Phoronix? Do you only hate on Librem when they don't deliver 100% of what they said on their dates and look away for the competition? So you are biased? Well ok we know so much...
6. Pinephone the big alternative:
I see on the website only a photoshop photo no one running any software. I am sure they will be especially for the low price deliver a good hardware hew secure (privat) is another question but we will see. But the software part? They expect others to write those... well I bought a similar device not a phone but a arm soc, and I know that it can take years or happen never that they support the important stuff like video hardware acceleration. So software is the big question.

Releasing hardware is not enough because only the company write the drivecs nobody else magically reverse engineers all that shit. Either there exist free drivers for everything or it's a brick (or you use blobs and then your privacy is gone) I am not totally informed about that hardware.

Warranty: 30 days nice
We will see if they make their release plans, I think they don't even have a hard date on when they deliver devices for consumers? Hardware is trivial on this devices if nothing else remove the modem like Necunos did. The software is the problem, 99% of the Arm socs suck because nearly non of them have 100% functional free drivers.

So getting that not 100% right, and problems with cameras are really small problems. I believe only that they have free functional drivers for real linuxes (without any android driver compatibility bullshit) when I see it. It's a paper tiger and we can't just assume that their release will work flawlessly.

So what is the thing you compare them Samsung? Even if the Pinophone would be better in the end Librem is first, if amd releaseses a new CPU or GPU that destroys the competitors with features (be it only one with privacy) nobody says "ohh that does not matter because maybe 6 months later their competitor will release a better product".

Also get that out of your system that the main feature of a SMART phone is to make calls, it's not it's for navigation, for browsing, for listening to music, for writing email. The SMART is the important word in Smartphones, if making calls would be the primary focus of such devices they would only cost 20 dollar.