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All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

puri.sm

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#41

Is this negotiable? Can I offer half my personal data for half off? Oh wait, joke's on me. Google already has 100% of my info and I still paid full price for a Pixel.

I bought a Pixel 6a earlier this year, and traded in my Pixel 3a for $150 USD off the $300 sale price. Other than the fingerprint reader being kind of terrible, it was worth it to get a new battery and OS updates for the next few years for $150 (plus tax and shipping).

If you don't want to spend a lot on a phone, you can do that.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#42
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people in the PRC aren’t really working for peanuts nowadays either. They’re not making US/EU wages, but they ain’t working for free, either. China has been doing its own outsourcing of cheap labor to places like Vietnam. Labor is nowhere near the only factor that makes Chinese sources cheaper. It’s the ecosystem. There’s an entire industry that can do every possible thing, and they’re doing it all the time, so…

>Well, people in the PRC aren’t really working for peanuts nowadays either. They’re not making US/EU wages, but they ain’t working for free, either. Mate, forget about chinese wages being livable as an argument. First and foremost, US/EU workers aren't working in factories which have suicide nets on them, that alone shroud tell you everything. Secondly, workers in the US have it so good that they don't even want to w…

Hey mate, you watched a documentary about Foxconn a decade ago! Good for you!

Read some actual economic data.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#43
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad reflection of the realities of manufacturing, I suspect. They won’t ever achieve the kind of scale you’d need to make it cheaper. IMO it is what it is. Especially when you consider the hardware kill switches etc this is a niche product that the right small audience will pay $1.2k for.

It was $700 two years ago and has almost doubled. I have no issue with a $1300 phone (I own one) but generally tech things get cheaper as time passes.

Not cell phones. I remember when the most expensive phone you could get was like $700. Then all the stories about how prices were about to hit a ludicrous four figures. Now there's a wide variety of phones that cost four figures.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#44
post #41

Is this negotiable? Can I offer half my personal data for half off? Oh wait, joke's on me. Google already has 100% of my info and I still paid full price for a Pixel.

I bought a Pixel 6a earlier this year, and traded in my Pixel 3a for $150 USD off the $300 sale price. Other than the fingerprint reader being kind of terrible, it was worth it to get a new battery and OS updates for the next few years for $150 (plus tax and shipping). If you don't want to spend a lot on a phone, you can do that.

It's true, and my partner got a free phone by switching to Fi. My switch was just ill-timed... I tried out an iPhone on a new carrier for the first time, and hated both so much I paid to get out of the contract and start a new service with another carrier and Android again.

Now I'm much happier. Just much poorer.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#45
I have a Librem 5. It's currently collecting dust in my closet.

I was enticed by the idea of having a user-replaceable battery (my last phone upgrade was 100% motivated by battery life problems). However, the Librem 5's battery is basically as bad as my Google Pixel's was after degrading for several years. The evening I opened it, I set it down after tinkering with it for a little bit and came back the next day to it at 1% battery, with a notification saying "Your laptop will shut down if you don't plug it in soon". Typically, I'm used to mobile devices using extremely low amounts of power when you're not using them for anything at all.

It's also extremely slow--I figured that it wouldn't be as snappy as a flagship phone but I was surprised to find out that video playback (or, at least, YouTube in Firefox) is basically unusable. That's basically a non-starter for me.

I'm hoping to find something fun to do with it (I don't expect to get refunded, nor do I think anyone else will or should pay $600 for this thing) but haven't come up with anything yet.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, people in the PRC aren’t really working for peanuts nowadays either. They’re not making US/EU wages, but they ain’t working for free, either. Mate, forget about chinese wages being livable as an argument. First and foremost, US/EU workers aren't working in factories which have suicide nets on them, that alone shroud tell you everything. Secondly, workers in the US have it so good that they don't even want to w…

Hey mate, you watched a documentary about Foxconn a decade ago! Good for you! Read some actual economic data. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...

Just because Chinese labor is now statistically getting more expensive doesn't mean those Chinese workers making your iPhone or 'Black Friday impulse buy e-waste', have it that much better in terms of QoL that would get them even within spitting distance of western QoL.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#47
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad reflection of the realities of manufacturing, I suspect. They won’t ever achieve the kind of scale you’d need to make it cheaper. IMO it is what it is. Especially when you consider the hardware kill switches etc this is a niche product that the right small audience will pay $1.2k for.

Two generations of pinephone disagree. I think the price is due to labor costs for software.

I think pine64's business model is to pursue sales volume, but it's unclear to me if there's enough buyers of linux phones for that approach to be sustainable long-term. Maybe if they can keep refreshing their model with regular hardware upgrades, they can milk their base.

Having a pine64 style competitor is problematic for Purism since it's cannibalizing their sales. It's likely contributing to the even higher prices needed just to keep the lights on. Which just creates more pressure diverting potential sales towards pine64.

Would Purism even move more product if their prices better matched pine64's? Is there a queue of would-be librem5 buyers waiting that just can't stomach the price? How many people are there really who want a chunky phone with work-in-progress software, regardless of price?

My prediction is after Purism implodes Pine64's prices start climbing.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#48
post #29
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two generations of pinephone disagree. I think the price is due to labor costs for software.

pine also puts $0 into software though

Are you trying to contradict or agree with the post you replied to? That’s exactly what they are saying.

Re: All Librem 5 smartphones have shipped

#49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pine also puts $0 into software though

Are you trying to contradict or agree with the post you replied to? That’s exactly what they are saying.

Neither, really, just spell out what that means more explicitly
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