Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
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Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#2This is really inspiring to see consumer electronics made in America. So many people say that “we lost the capability” to do such.
$2000 isn’t a bad price in the grand scheme of things. But I will be waiting until the software / UI is snappier.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#3For reference, the Librem 5 USA cost $2000 and comes with 32GB of eMMc on device storage, a SoC that can be generously called "slow", and 3GB of RAM.
It's easy to see why phones are not entirely sourced from the US when it makes the iPhone look like impossibly good value for your money.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#4I applaud this accomplishment. I think there will be a push to manufacture more semiconductor-intensive products in the US over the next several years as tensions with China continue to heat up and Taiwan is left as a single point of failure. I know progress is already being made with TSMC building new fabs in the US.
I will note that Purism do not say what their production capacity is, and that it would probably be a different task entirely to manufacture a significant percentage of iPhones in the US. 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. The big question is whether the federal government will embrace the industrial policy required to rebuild our manufacturing capacity in high-tech.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#5$800 (down from $900) for the Librem 5; $2000 for the Librem 5 USA edition.
(Edit: I'm leaving this paragraph here as it attracted comments that would no longer make sense if I edited/removed, but it was a result of a flawed premise [bad math in my head]) That seems a significant premium over the actual cost differential, but they self-admit "this is for customers who have hard requirements on sourcing" rather than "this is what it costs to make something in the US".
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#6For reference, the Librem 5 USA cost $2000 and comes with 32GB of eMMc on device storage, a SoC that can be generously called "slow", and 3GB of RAM. It's easy to see why phones are not entirely sourced from the US when it makes the iPhone look like impossibly good value for your money.
This is not just about the specs: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....
By the way, there is also China-made version for $800.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#7For reference, the Librem 5 USA cost $2000 and comes with 32GB of eMMc on device storage, a SoC that can be generously called "slow", and 3GB of RAM. It's easy to see why phones are not entirely sourced from the US when it makes the iPhone look like impossibly good value for your money.
Correct me if I am wrong but the choice of SoC was due to the open nature of it and not the origin. All of the other limitations stem from the choice of SoC it seems.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#8This is really inspiring to see consumer electronics made in America. So many people say that “we lost the capability” to do such. $2000 isn’t a bad price in the grand scheme of things. But I will be waiting until the software / UI is snappier.
Maybe I'm missing it, but it doesn't seem obvious if the parts they're using were also manufactured in the US? Which, if they're not, makes sourcing them still an issue if global supply chains were to break down for example.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#9$800 (down from $900) for the Librem 5; $2000 for the Librem 5 USA edition. (Edit: I'm leaving this paragraph here as it attracted comments that would no longer make sense if I edited/removed, but it was a result of a flawed premise [bad math in my head]) That seems a significant premium over the actual cost differential, but they self-admit "this is for customers who have hard requirements on sourcing" rather than "…
What's the basis for your impression that this "seems" a significant premium over the actual cost differential? I have zero idea of what it costs a company to manufacture a phone in China versus the USA, so I'm genuinely curious.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#10$800 (down from $900) for the Librem 5; $2000 for the Librem 5 USA edition. (Edit: I'm leaving this paragraph here as it attracted comments that would no longer make sense if I edited/removed, but it was a result of a flawed premise [bad math in my head]) That seems a significant premium over the actual cost differential, but they self-admit "this is for customers who have hard requirements on sourcing" rather than "…
The amount of overhead to spin up a US based manufacturing process for an already niche item is going to be expensive. If someone has that type of hard requirement, they must not have many alternatives and should pay the premium for it. I'm sure if there was enough demand the cost would come down.