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Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

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Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#211

Post by michaelmrose »

wiz21c wrote: post #79
jraph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an environmental perspective, it makes sense to keep your current phone as long as possible. I'd love to get rid of this thing full of proprietary stuff though.

Same dilemma for me. But I think environment priority is more important because freedom can't exist without environment. (now, it just could happen that my current phone breaks for a very unfortunate, totally unplanned, "accident" :-))

If you sell or give away your current device to someone who would have bought a new phone you aren't adding to waste.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#212

Post by ryukafalz »

hajile wrote: post #204

Can someone tell me why they opted for the imx8m with 4 A53 cores rather than the imx8 which adds 2 A72 cores (3-6x faster) and 2x the GPU performance? A $35 raspberry pi 4 has way more computing power than this phone while being 20x cheaper.

Battery life, probably. Faster isn't always better on a device that has to worry about its power budget.

Heat was probably a consideration too. It's all well and good to compare this thing to a Pi 4, but I'm not sure you'd want to hold that Pi under load.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#213

Post by bpye »

Tepix wrote: post #2

Low budget alternative: The Pinephone by Pine64, also with 4 ARM Cortex-A53 cores. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

I definitely intend to pick up a PinePhone. At 200$ I'm not going to be annoyed if the software isn't 100% or it can't replace all functions of my current Android device. For 200$ email, SMS, calling and VoIP are pretty much enough. The $650 Librem are asking, I'm sure is well justified, but is a much harder pill to swallow for something that I am well aware will not be able to replace my current device immediately.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#214

Post by Arbalest »

Looks like the best option is the EU radio if you're in Australia. However, that won't support Telstra's 3G, which might cut you out of voice calls. If you have the option of provider, go Optus, that will give you most of the 3G and 4G bands they have on the EU Radio. US radio only supports Telstra 3G and Vodafone 4G, and nothing else.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#215

Post by mkesper »

novaRom wrote: post #92

I like they use main processing unit from a Dutch company; is its ROM open source or/and can be accessed? All ARM-based Sytem-on-Chips do have a proprietary ROM, which is used mainly for boot-up and multicore management. But there's no access to check if it may do something else. >> The mobile baseband will most likely use ROM loaded firmware this is another vulnerability

>> The mobile baseband will most likely use ROM loaded firmware

> this is another vulnerability

That's why there's a hardware kill switch on it.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#216

Post by iamnotacrook »

hedora wrote: post #198
iamnotacrook wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 we…

Isn't it mostly all off the shelf hardware and software though?

I think they're going to discover that a lot of people say they want security but when push comes to shove when they're buying a phone they first and foremost want a good phone. If you were really bothered about security and privacy on a phone you'd just use tracking blockers, a disposable (google) account, not log into facebook, turn off location, use tor, or existing encrypted chat software to talk to other people who are also using disposable (ie not their main email accounts to sign up to google) accounts etc. But do all this on a regular phone. I'd always been concerned about timely security updates, software that's been written by people with no experience with security and who have no reputation to damage by cutting corners.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#217

Post by yepthatsreality »

swiley wrote: post #151
berbec wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason the iPhone 5/SE refurbs hit the front page of HN every time the Apple store restock the refurbs.

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

Agreed. Repaired my screen, battery and cleaned my camera. Never used a case (but had to replace my screen after dropping it on tile/concrete a few times...really the only deadly materials to it). Had a screen protector but honestly all the drops happen on the corners so the protector is really just an overpriced sticker for me. Hoping future Librem 5/Pinephones can replicate the experience.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#218

Post by vinay427 »

Arbalest wrote: post #214

Looks like the best option is the EU radio if you're in Australia. However, that won't support Telstra's 3G, which might cut you out of voice calls. If you have the option of provider, go Optus, that will give you most of the 3G and 4G bands they have on the EU Radio. US radio only supports Telstra 3G and Vodafone 4G, and nothing else.

It's rather unfortunate for those who travel as well. Most mid-tier or high-end smartphones on the market today seem to work fine for LTE and voice calls on nearly every major carrier worldwide.

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#219

Post by solarkraft »

beatgammit wrote: post #192
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.

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…

Isn't Pine64 also compromising security more than Purism by being more lenient regarding unfree blobs?

Re: Librem 5 Smartphone Final Specs

#220

Post by gradschool »

It's great to see this project coming to fruition. My main reservation about owning a smartphone has always been the idea of a device that knows everything about me under the control of God knows who. This phone partially addresses that issue, but can anyone here who's knowledgeable about encryption comment on that aspect? Without some form of encrypted storage it would seem like game-over when a well resourced adversary gains physical possession.
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