Librem 5 USA • Hacker News Board

Re: Librem 5 USA

#11

Post by ir77 » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

digression: christ, what font are they using? the undersized letter 't' in that text hurts my head just looking at it, barely making the text readable. i couldn't even finish a post and get the gist from the comments here.

comment: doesn't it reflect poorly on librem to even offer this option? for a hw company whose sole market shtick is to offer hw/sw privacy they're now implying that the majority of their hw can be compromised and if you really want the uncompromising security you should get the 4x more expensive option made in the USA?

either they should completely eliminate the made in china option or they really should try to spin this a different way, because it reflects absolutely horribly on them.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#12

Post by icefog » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

I'm unsold on spending $2,000 or even $700 on a new phone, but I also care deeply about privacy and security. Is there any strong reason to choose "Librem" over a cheaper Android running LineageOS or GrapheneOS? They can be purchased for a fraction of the cost and have been quite reliable for me.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#13

Post by newnewpdro » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

unlinked_dll wrote: post #10

katmannthree wrote: post #2

Wow, this version is $1,999, and if you've pre-ordered you can upgrade to the US-produced model for an extra $1,300. Does this pricing accurately reflect the increased cost of producing everything but the chassis in the US?

No, it reflects the price of low volume manufacturing.

Low volume is a constant across their existing offering and this "made in usa" offering, which if you've been following the librem 5 story at all you'd already know is unnecessarily overpriced.

There's no need for them to limit demand of the USA model with a higher price, the demand for this phone is very low in general considering it's not even usable as a phone.

Edit:

"Librems are heavily overpriced but that is because Purism seemingly never tried to get better deal and the South San Francisco partner abused this so that is why Purism Librems are double the price they should be." - Zlatan Todoric former Purism CTO [0]

[0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...

Re: Librem 5 USA

#14

Post by fghtr » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

icefog wrote: post #12

I'm unsold on spending $2,000 or even $700 on a new phone, but I also care deeply about privacy and security. Is there any strong reason to choose "Librem" over a cheaper Android running LineageOS or GrapheneOS? They can be purchased for a fraction of the cost and have been quite reliable for me.

Why Librem 5 costs that much: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/

Upd: quote from the Purism forum:

"First hardware kill switches; first replaceable cellular modem and Wi-Fi/ Bluetooth (on M.2 cards); first smart card reader (for 2FF OpenPGP card); first running 100% free software; only current phone to offer convergence as PC without special hardware"

https://forums.puri.sm/t/will-the-librem-5-be-a-white-elepha...

Re: Librem 5 USA

#15

Post by unlinked_dll » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

hwbehrens wrote: post #9

katmannthree wrote: post #2

Wow, this version is $1,999, and if you've pre-ordered you can upgrade to the US-produced model for an extra $1,300. Does this pricing accurately reflect the increased cost of producing everything but the chassis in the US?

There are probably several factors at play here. First, not all of the parts are necessarily produced in the USA - the PCBA is produced there, and the parts are assembled there, but the parts themselves are likely procured elsewhere. Even still, this greatly complicates the kind of supply chain attack this is meant to prevent, because you have to compromise individual components that you hope will end up in the devic…

>a 3x overhead is actually substantially lower than I would expect; we were seeing ~6-10x increases for manufacturing and assembly

How many units were you building/shipping? And was your QA on-site/in-country?

Re: Librem 5 USA

#16

Post by thehoomanist » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

Product value prop here: get mediocre hardware with unstable software in a year for the price of 2 and 1/2 iPhone 11 Pro. I love the intention, but this is a LOT to ask: if there's a good way to make a USA-made phone fail, this is it.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#17

Post by detaro » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

johnnycarcin wrote: post #7

katmannthree wrote: post #2

Wow, this version is $1,999, and if you've pre-ordered you can upgrade to the US-produced model for an extra $1,300. Does this pricing accurately reflect the increased cost of producing everything but the chassis in the US?

While I love the idea, that price is totally insane. I don't see how anyone would be willing to pay that much for what is essentially a beta device. It seems that it is quite difficult to manufacture these devices, at a reasonable cost, without help from the big names :(

On the other hand, many people probably think the same about the "standard" Librem 5 price.

The people getting them already do so because they want the idea to have a chance, not because they're cheap or directly good value for money. Some might say "it's double than what I'd spend on an Android, but that's worth it" about the normal price, wouldn't be surprised if for others the reference frame is "2x iPhone" instead.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#18

Post by kbenson » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

icefog wrote: post #12

I'm unsold on spending $2,000 or even $700 on a new phone, but I also care deeply about privacy and security. Is there any strong reason to choose "Librem" over a cheaper Android running LineageOS or GrapheneOS? They can be purchased for a fraction of the cost and have been quite reliable for me.

I think the idea behind purism is to also choose hardware with minimal or no problem firmware that you don't have insight into. Given how much software out of our control seems to run on the communication hardware (the actual baseband chips), if they can give control over that it's a real benefit over just throwing an open OS on the existing hardware for phones.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#19

Post by oarsinsync » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

uncletaco wrote: post #4

Imagine wanting a privacy-centric anything that was Made in the USA

For those downvoting, I suspect the point is that we've had leaks demonstrating that the US government is capable of compromising hardware devices (e.g. networking equipment).

Which makes their concerns about Huawei all the more understandable. They know the risks because they've performed the attacks themselves.

Re: Librem 5 USA

#20

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

icefog wrote: post #12

I'm unsold on spending $2,000 or even $700 on a new phone, but I also care deeply about privacy and security. Is there any strong reason to choose "Librem" over a cheaper Android running LineageOS or GrapheneOS? They can be purchased for a fraction of the cost and have been quite reliable for me.

The PinePhone will likely be preferable to most LineageOS phones, since it will run a closer-to-mainline kernel. It's also expected to be available for a "fraction of the cost" compared to the Librem.