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Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

puri.sm

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Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#191

Post by nickpsecurity »

TylerE wrote: post #119
wayneftw wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, who complain that the software might not be that great, but who also want freedom, your option would be to buy without expectations as a way of donating to the project or to simply donate money directly to the project. That's the great thing about open source! People form groups and spend their own time/resources to build what they want instead of waiting around for the corporate big brother to build it.

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

Not quite. They are a social-purpose corporation incentivized to use their profit for public benefit. Which they are doing.

https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#192

Post by beatgammit »

ThreeFx wrote: post #61
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…

I'd go even a step further: Since they open-sourced all their work, maybe other vendors can pick up / fork where they left off and we may actually have more than one Linux phone in the future! Two years ago that seemed like wishful thinking to me, but I am very excited about how far Purism got in an even shorter timespan.

Like PinePhone? They're pushing for a ~$200 phone in Q3 this year, same as Purism. The difference is that Pine64 doesn't seem to be putting nearly as many resources into development, just enough to get functioning hardware out there and then leaving it up to the community to build the ecosystem.

It's an exciting time! While I'm waiting, I'm setting up my own PBX to hopefully take control of my phone service, and I'm going to experiment with using VOIP over data instead of going over the "regular" voice channels.

I'm super excited to see what's possible with an open platform like this.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#193

Post by inawarminister »

flattone wrote: post #76
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…

im an in debt, highschool dropout, unemployed, and ill biy this on credit just to take a stand. i cant wait to set my google phone on fire. will be like finally ridding myself of a disease. get it together man. priorities. the value of an old phone stands up to forcing cash in meaningful directions? forget my wallet/welfare/bills, badd things have to stop at any cost.

For us, I think it's better to buy a PinePhone instead. It's targeted to be $200.

Not as full-featured as Librem5 is, not as developmentally supported. But that's what the open source ecosystem is for, no?

[0] https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#194

Post by colechristensen »

flattone wrote: post #76
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…

im an in debt, highschool dropout, unemployed, and ill biy this on credit just to take a stand. i cant wait to set my google phone on fire. will be like finally ridding myself of a disease. get it together man. priorities. the value of an old phone stands up to forcing cash in meaningful directions? forget my wallet/welfare/bills, badd things have to stop at any cost.

The best advice when you want to help is to help yourself first when you need it.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#195

Post by flukus »

moftz wrote: post #45
Endy wrote: post #36

I'm sorry, this device profile doesn't really sell me on why I need to upgrade from my Android TracFone; it doesn't even give me confidence that it will work with the networks I need it to. This is part of the problem I've found over the years with consumer Unix-derivatives - too many "figure it out yourself" answers, not enough "just works, or we'll show you how to figure out whether it works or not first". That's t…

https://puri.sm/faq/supported-networks/ They already have a list of LTE bands that will work depending on if you buy the Europe or US variant. That list is only for the Gemalto PLS8-US and PLS8-E. There is another Broadmobi BM818 module as well. For the US, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile support the 2, 4, 5, and 17 LTE bands that work with the PLS8-US. All of Europe should be supported on the PLS8-E. The BM818 mention d…

I sure hope that page is meant to be a technical spec sheet and not intended for consumers because it's mostly gibberish terms I've never heard of to me even as a technical person. The frequency check site they link to also has a confusing layout, is US centric and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to use it for.

It would be much better if they could simplify the chart to display country, network and the variants of their phone. This is a very common problem with phone retailers and why I never order internationally. This is the final checklist item before I pre-order.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#196

Post by berbec »

wyre wrote: post #175
swiley wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those phones are tough enough you really don’t even need a case.

I would still use a case. I thought the same thing when I bought one 3 years ago, didnt use a case but used a screen protectoe and then I had to replace the screen three or four times in a year. Also each time the screen broke the digitizer stopped working as well leaving the phone unusable. YMMV though. Im pretty hard on my stuff (I was also 22 and partying a lot when I had it)

I got a $80, 32GB SE on ebay. I bought a case and a screen protector, but I don't use the case anymore. The phones metal!

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#197

Post by dewyatt »

jnbiche wrote: post #187

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…

Hmm maybe they'll add something later. It does have smartcard support, so that may be one approach.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#198

Post by hedora »

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?

> How does that affect the price tag? Would it be less secure if they charged less?

Price = cost of goods sold (hardware) + (profit + development overhead + marketing + ...) / number of units sold

So, yes, if they didn’t bother spending r&d resources on security, they could charge less.

Also, the marginal price of security is much higher than with the big two, since the number of units sold is smaller.

I wish them well, but they picked a tough fight.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#199

Post by necovek »

redwards510 wrote: post #23
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…

Without a browser, it kind of ceases to be a smartphone. It's just a flipphone. So I don't see how that is really something you need to note. For me it's Google Maps. There is just no comparison. I don't want to imagine trying to drive around finding places without it. It's not just the navigation and traffic, it's the business hours lookup feature and all that. I hadn't thought about TOTP stores (Authy), but that's…

It's weird that someone as tied to Google Maps would be looking into a privacy-oriented phone like Librem 5.

AFAIK, Google Maps will record your location/speed even while you are not using it (to get their traffic information), it will record any nearby wifi APs to help populate their aGPS database (so your private APs will get recorded along with their locations on Google's servers), and who knows what else.

Why would you want a Librem 5?

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#200

Post by m463 »

dastx wrote: post #62
ThreeFx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go even a step further: Since they open-sourced all their work, maybe other vendors can pick up / fork where they left off and we may actually have more than one Linux phone in the future! Two years ago that seemed like wishful thinking to me, but I am very excited about how far Purism got in an even shorter timespan.

> fork It'll probably be a closed source fork. Defeating the whole purpose of Librem.

> > fork

> It'll probably be a closed source fork. Defeating the whole purpose of Librem.

wouldn't that also defeat sales too?

might not, system76 comes off like purism and sells well, but I believe they have hardware that requires binary blobs.

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