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Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

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Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#181

Post by MayeulC »

iamnotacrook wrote: post #165
sgeisler wrote: post #57

As someone who backed them in 2017 I'm so happy to finally see the specs. It's amazing to follow their progress, I love what they are doing with Gnome/Phosh, that gives me hope that there will be many native apps for the most important tasks and not just some web-app mess. For the people complaining about the price/specs ratio: this phone is no standard off-the-shelve system, it had to be designed with user privacy a…

"For the people complaining about the price/specs ratio: this phone is no standard off-the-shelve system, it had to be designed with user privacy and openness in mind while having a ridiculously small market. I'm amazed they did it so cheaply." How does that affect the price tag? Would it be less secure if they charged less?

Well, using an off-the shelf system like many of the cheap smartphone companies do allow you to keep development costs down, and leverage economies of scale even for small batches.

For one, they are bringing up a stack that's quite different from the one usually found on smartphones, which sounds quite costly.

From the security point of view, I am not sure it would be less secure on the sw side, but it would be less open. On the hw side, they have kill switches, isolated the firmware on ROM chips (RYF-compliant), and have a pretty strict security-first approach.

Unfortunately that places it out of reach for me, financially-speaking. I'll continue with postmarketos, and keep an eye on the pinephone.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#182

Post by ncmncm »

jethro_tell wrote: post #15
zeveb wrote: post #13

Ever since I saw the project come out, I've been thinking about what would be required for me to switch from Android. Right now I think that my hard requirements are: - Firefox (pretty sure they have it) - Signal (I use it all the time) I don't know if some kind of TOTP store (think Google Authenticator or andOTP) is a hard requirement or a soft one, but it would surely be useful. I can live without my banking app (t…

Signals going to be a no go right? From what I remember it needs google services for push notifications. As far as the non mobile version, I think that is an election app that uses a pretty good chunk of ram

Right, Signal won't be on it at release, maybe ever.

They are recommending Matrix as a substitute, so I am getting used to that. Riot.im is the client, and Matrix is a little more capable than Signal (does interest groups), and doesn't demand your phone number or rely on Google Play services, so there's that. As usual, the problem is getting other people to switch, too.

A Matrix Signal gateway server somewhere would help a lot of people make the jump.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#183

Post by MayeulC »

Rooster61 wrote: post #126

One thing that isn't clear to me. The phone clearly supports GPS in terms of hardware, but does it actually do anything with it? It won't have access to Google or Apple navigation, and that is certainly something I use my current phone's GPS for.

I use OSMAnd on my phone, and am quite fond of it, for the record. There are numerous other applications, as pointed out by other posters, that would be a better fit for the Librem. Most are using OSM as a map source, which I consider a feature rather than a bug (though I admit the map can sometimes be incomplete, the opposite is also true sometimes).

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#185

Post by dustfinger »

dan1234 wrote: post #170
dustfinger wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to Symmetric Multi-Processing kernel support. Since the Librem 5 has a serial port via usb, the kernel can be easily customized to suit an individual's needs. If you mess up you can just flash the last known good. It is hacker friendly :-)

Ok, wouldn’t that be SMP, rather than SMT?

Sorry, it is actually called Simultaneous multithreading (SMT).

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#186

Post by dustfinger »

dan1234 wrote: post #170
dustfinger wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to Symmetric Multi-Processing kernel support. Since the Librem 5 has a serial port via usb, the kernel can be easily customized to suit an individual's needs. If you mess up you can just flash the last known good. It is hacker friendly :-)

Ok, wouldn’t that be SMP, rather than SMT?

Actually, now I am all spun around. The kenel configuration I was thinking of is indeed SMP [1] or Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)

[1] https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_kernel/kernel_...

I will correct my typo above and expand the TLA (I can't edit my original post. Sorry for the confusion)

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#187

Post by jnbiche »

These specs are really impressive. I'm actually in the market for a phone upgrade, and the $700 price is not an objection, given what I'd be supporting.

What does concern me is the apparent lack of a verified boot option for the phone. I'm not sure, but it appears there's no trusted boot option to use signed firmware and OS. Android and iPhone have had verified boot for years now. Given Librem's focus on privacy and security, and assuming my understanding of the phone's current capabilities is correct, I'm surprised that Librem wasn't able to come up with some solution, particularly given their innovative approaches to firmware security in laptops.

And I jumping to the wrong conclusion? Did they end up implementing a verified boot feature? Last I checked, it wasn't looking very likely. They had pretty much ruled out TPM.

Regardless, a big congratulation to librem. They've accomplished a very difficult goal. I'm guessing that if they don't have a verified boot currently, they're working on it for future versions of the phone.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#188

Post by giaour »

jammygit wrote: post #180
TylerE wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purism is a for-profit corporation. You aren't donating - any more than you're "donating" to Comcast when you pay your cable bill.

Purism is a social good corporation. It changes things a bit, but I’m unclear how

B corps are allowed to prioritize specific values enumerated in their corporate charter, even at the expense financial gains. Regular corporations have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, which in recent decades has been interpreted as requiring companies to maximize short-term shareholder value

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#189

Post by curioussavage »

jammygit wrote: post #178
mpnordland wrote: post #25

So for me, this is roughly what I want in a phone. But the thing is, I bought a phone over two years ago, with better specs for $100 less. That same phone today is priced at $200-$300. The way I see it the real value add for this phone is the software, and this whole mainline Linux, FOSS, run whatever you want approach is very attractive to me. But is it worth $700? Is it worth $700 when my current phone is in great…

For me, I need authy, anki, and a couple of other apps or else I need a second phone. Luckily, anki is open source too and hopefully somebody ports the linux version for the smaller screen.

There is an Authy alternative ready for it.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#190

Post by curioussavage »

I have wanted this phone for months but right now I kind of wish somebody would do a crowdfunding campaign to get one of the postmarketOS phones to great support.

Pick a newer phone and a desktop , either plasma or phosh and do a crowdfunding campaign and just spend all the money on getting things working as perfectly as possible. Buy a bunch of refurbished phones of that model and sell them with the software pre installed.

Like purism you could bundle it with a subscription or partner with a company and take a cut.

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