Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

puri.sm

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 148 posts

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#61

Post by emacsen »

I purchased the LibreM phone when it was being crowdfunded. I waited years for the thing to be released, and what they came out with at the end was beyond disappointing. It's nearly three times heavier and 2.5x thicker than a normal phone- by today's standards, the thing is a brick.

If I had been told that I was going to get a developer device, that would have been one thing, but I (and many others) were sold the LibreM as a consumer device, and it's just not.

Along with that, there are reports of how working within the company was, such as this one:

https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...

... which paints an extremely negative picture of the internal working of the company.

Between feeling ripped off for my purchase and hearing how terrible working with them was, I'd have a hard time buying any new products from Purism.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#62

Post by ahmedalsudani »

cle wrote: post #27
yifanlu wrote: post #23

Yeah it’s 2021 and Chinese manufactured are more reliable and higher quality than anything American made. As an anecdote I build PCBs for a hobby and I’ve purchased PCBs and chips from both cheap Chinese fabs and suppliers as well as Americans ones. The only issues I’ve ever had were with American ones (which were many times more expensive) and I’ve stopped using them completely. I would be curious if librem will eve…

Even assuming that all hardware is backdoored, it can still make sense to use hardware from your own country, since your own government probably doesn’t want to harm its own economic interests.

On the other hand, your own state has more of an incentive to control your behaviour.

As with everything else, think through the threat model.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#63

Post by CivBase »

detaro wrote: post #58
CivBase wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not surprised that manufacturing thousands of extremely expensive phones in the US is possible. I would be a lot more surprised if they had managed to manufacture millions of reasonably priced phones in the US. I'm pretty naive on the subject, but in this case why would cost of local labor affect which product is manufactured at any given plant? Lets say employees A and B are payed $50 and $20 respectively for…

I'm not sure I understand the question: What are the two products you are swapping between the employees? Problems with scaling production also are more complex than just labor cost, especially when starting up.

The question was basically "If you have a fixed pool of employees at fixed compensation-per-output (ie fixed net expenses) and a fixed product throughput with fixed values (ie fixed net revenue), why does it matter who makes what product since the net profit will be the same?"

Although it sounds like that question may have been borne out of my own misinterpretation of the post to which I was responding.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#64

Post by jolux »

orhmeh09 wrote: post #57
jolux wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but part of the problem with manufacturing in China is that American companies have become complicit in the abuses of a brutal authoritarian regime. The manufacturing efficiencies cannot be ignored, but it would be wise to take this into consideration as well moving forward. I’m just not sure if there’s a reasonable way to do so. This may be an inevitable consequence of globalization in the short-term.

Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? The US imprisons more than China does, forces citizens to work through a yet-unresolved pandemic that disproportionately impacts already marginalized and abused segments of the population, and furnishes private companies with prison labor for $1 an hour when the prisoners are not being made to fight forest fires or being abused (or killed) by law enforceme…

> Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem?

It's always been a problem, but it's best to make whatever strides to resolve it that we can.

> The US imprisons more than China does

Sure, but it is not currently engaged in a genocide. Standards for due process are also stronger in the US than in China, and you don't get thrown in jail for criticizing the government either.

The US prison system being bad does not make China's abuses any less serious. They are still much worse than what the US does.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#65

Post by munk-a »

detaro wrote: post #56
jolux wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a difficult question to poll because in a great sense actions speak louder than words, but what information I can find suggests similar preferences among consumers themselves: https://review.chicagobooth.edu/marketing/2020/article/made-... See also: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-buyamerican-poll/amer...

I just found it funny that your provided link starts with a sentence containing "has not made Americans more willing to pay extra for U.S.-made goods."

Tariffs and subsidies are tools we can use if we want to make sure that domestic products can compete with those from abroad - but the current wide allowances for lobbying in the US make any sort of move in that direction extremely difficult.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#66

Post by thatcat »

jolux wrote: post #59
detaro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found it funny that your provided link starts with a sentence containing "has not made Americans more willing to pay extra for U.S.-made goods."

Well, I think the government buying American is probably a precursor for anyone else doing so, because they're not at the constraints of the market to find the cheapest viable product.

I thought the government had to accept the lowest bid that met specs, though one of those specs could be mfg in USA.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#67

Post by albatruss »

yumraj wrote: post #28
yifanlu wrote: post #23

Yeah it’s 2021 and Chinese manufactured are more reliable and higher quality than anything American made. As an anecdote I build PCBs for a hobby and I’ve purchased PCBs and chips from both cheap Chinese fabs and suppliers as well as Americans ones. The only issues I’ve ever had were with American ones (which were many times more expensive) and I’ve stopped using them completely. I would be curious if librem will eve…

> Also after the Snowden revelations, I laugh at the idea that American made products are somehow more “secure”. Be that may, but as a US person I’d rather have US intelligence snooping on me than a foreign hostile entity. There are no ifs and buts about it. For folks in other countries, I leave it to them if they are more comfortable with a democracy, with relatively good relations with most countries in the world,…

Not good advice if you're American as your own government can always hurt you most.

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#68

Post by tomcam »

> Another misconception is that a machine placed part is in some way superior to the same connected part placed by hand. It’s not. It’s faster and more efficient, but hand (re)placement is equally stable. Electronics off a line are hand repaired more often than people understand. This only increases cost (labor and time), it doesn’t reduce reliability.

I had no idea! Worth the price of admission. Whole article fascinated me tbh

Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US

#70

Post by blihp »

Is their claim about electronic components 'origin declaration'[1] credible or is it just marketing sleight-of-hand? Aren't they just buying the same components made in Taiwan/China/wherever from a U.S. distributor such as Digikey and then saying 'Made in U.S.A.' in the same way other manufacturers do? (which would seem to seriously undermine their 'secure' supply chain claim) I've been under the impression that we don't have fabs in the U.S. making anywhere near the variety of components needed for a complete modern smartphone. I don't ask to be pedantic, but rather if it would be more accurate to say 'assembled' rather than 'manufactured' in USA.

[1] https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/

Post reply on HN