I don't really have anything of value to add to the conversation, but in case the Librem5 team is here I just wanted to thank you for your work and applaud your openness to the current status of everything.
Another project which is taking on a similar challenge and is similarly open is the Dragonbox Pyra.
i wonder if smaller screen variants will ever be on the radar. i'm on a bootloader-unlocked, rooted, lineageos sony z5 compact (4.6" 720p display) that you'd have to pry from my cold dead hands. but i would love to buy a small hackable, privacy-first phone with open hardware instead.
i imagine pcb layout becomes a much harder and more expensive problem at small sizes, not to mention most people wouldn't touch "only" a 720p display in 2019, even at a 4.6" display size (unfort), even if you told them it adds 30% battery life.
I'm quite impressed by their company manifesto:
https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/
More companies should follow this example.
While the Librem5 is step into right direction, it is far away from open hardware and will likely need even software proprietary bits - so I would recommend to stay in realistic zone and help the project in any way you can.
Kudos. The most interesting thing in smartphones for my needs since the Nokia N900, not counting the SailfishOS efforts. I'll buy one if it works "a la Maemo" (Debian derivative).
> Almost right after that was a Chinese holiday, the Golden Week, which is in practice a two week holiday.
This doesn't match with my experience. Golden Week is a one-week holiday that gets you less than 5 days of vacation, because -- although companies are legally required to give Monday through Friday off -- the norm is to work on weekends around the holiday to make up for the lost time.
Does anyone have an idea what sort of Golden Week implementation Purism ran into? Why is it so different?
For the last few months I have been super excited about the Librem 5. I check way too often for their updates.
Maybe I’m alone but I wish I had more visibility into their progress. Might not be helpful for them though.
Does it have a hardware switch to turn off the mic and camera?
As an expat living in HK, I did not quite understand the explanations about delays at the beginning of the article.
The golden week is Japanese, not Chinese. Nothing closes in China at that time. And it’s in may/april.
Mangkhut did not really hit China mainland, it was already mainly just a storm when it reached mainland, and it died in 1/2 days once leaving the sea. I guess most of the factories are near Shenzhen, they should not have really suffered from Manghkut.
Just wanted to rectify that...
Any experiences with their laptops?
>18650 battery
I am tired of subpar battery life being a de facto industry standard
Why is there a substantial heat sink on what's supposed to be packaged down to the size of a smartphone?
Hate to be the party pooper here but does anyone believe this thing will ship in January?
It’s hard to overstate how important Librem phone is. Currently, it’s pretty much impossible to buy a high end phone that you can actually own. All Android based phones have their firmware locked and root access disabled. This effectively means that you do not own the device, and you don’t get the final say as to what will be running on it. I’m aware that it’s possible to crack the firmware, but I think that’s completely beside the point.
We desperately need an open alternative that puts control back in the hands of the user. I think open computing is of fundamental importance. If we lose the ability to decide what code runs on our devices, we’ll be moving a step closer towards a totalitarian dystopia where the governments and corporations get to decide what’s good for us.