After 4 years - review of Librem 15 v1

Hardware
1

Hi guys, I was among the first to buy Librem laptop when it was released. I even bought it with SSD installed, and it (SSD) was indeed a very good investment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SVG7Tpjo7E

So here are my thoughts after 4 years of using it :

  1. Warranty / support : you may not get it. I tried to to repair my laptop for several defects, emailed to support on 2018 as instructed. I was prepared to pay for shipping, or repair cost in case this is considered out of warranty repair. Never got a reply : https://i.imgur.com/h2vbKhW.png
  2. Broken hinges : yup it happened. And I am very careful with this laptop, I’m not those guy who open / close their laptop with abandon, then just toss the laptop somewhere when they’re done, not me. Anyway with non-existent support , I was hopeless at first - until a friend offered his help to fix it. I was lucky to know someone with that capability : https://i.imgur.com/CmoMHuL.jpeg
  3. Broken key : this was a major pain - until several months and I adapted. Now it’s an annoyance : https://i.imgur.com/0RFEvIj.jpeg
  4. Fan always on full-blast : on a silent room, my laptop will always be the noisiest. Confirmed I got a defective hardware : Fan noise but no solution.
  5. Short battery life : I guess this is the consequence of point 4.
  6. No way to set battery charging level : to extend battery life, you can use TLP on Linux to make the laptop start charging on 40% and stop charging at 50%. With lithium-ion battery, this can help prolong battery life. Turned out this feature of TLP is only supported on Thinkpad laptops. A workaround exist though - when you’re using Windows-compatible laptop, you can set this on Windows, then the setting will carry on to Linux. I guess that’s not possible with Librem : https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/190728
  7. Librem kept hitting 99 C temperature, so the performance slows down due to throttling. This is even with the fan going full-blast at all time (see point 4). Found a workaround though - if I propped it with a pen/marker - the temperature will drop to around 80 C : https://i.imgur.com/c4CIpbL.jpeg
  8. Unstable Bluetooth : during this plague I do a lot of teleconferences, like many others. I bought a wireless (bluetooth) headset for this. It’s unreliable though - it kept getting disconnected. After I bought tp-link’s UB400 bluetooth adaptor, the problem disappeared. The headset will connect reliably with the laptop : https://www.tp-link.com/id/home-networking/adapter/ub400/
  9. No Kensington Lock : therefore it’s impossible to use this laptop on public areas for prolonged time. Check the current product page, still can not find this mentioned on the technical details.
  10. Backlit keyboard broken : it won’t lit up anymore. And due to point 1, I don’t think it will ever be fixed. This is a very useful feature for me - I woke up very early, so this enable me to work without disturbing my wife. Now I use a dim desk lamp to lit the keyboard, but of course this is not ideal and still rather bright for a sleeping person.

Otherwise I’m happy with my Librem laptop.

I’m going to buy a new laptop soon, but due to point 1, I’m gonna have to buy something else. Probably Thinkpad, with AMD processor, it also fulfill all of these wishlist points : Desired Improvements For The Librem 15v4

cheers !

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2

This is one of the worst things I have seen written about Purism yet on this forum. And I don’t question that it is probably true and valid. In my mind, this is worse than even the late release and lack of communications with respect to the Librem 5. Running late on new product development because of the unforeseen is somewhat of a norm. Bad or no customer service or not honoring of warranties puts otherwise good companies out of business (as the norm). Everyone on this forum should be warned here.

I challenge Purism to publicly address your warranty issues here for all to see. I was recently thinking of possibly buying a Librem 14 myself. But how Purism has honored your warranty is how I figure they’ll honor my warranty if I buy from them now or later. Hopefully it’s not too late for Purism to step up, apologize, and make good here. At least they should tell their side of this story here… if they care.

Please step-up Purism. Everyone is watching here. Is this how you would handle my warranty issue with a Librem product also?

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3

The Librem 15 v1 released in 2015 is definitely not the same as the Librem 14 v1. The laptop designs have gotten much better over time and the company is now using different parts suppliers and a different assembler. Purism now offers an optional 3-year warranty on its laptops, so it has to be able to get replacement parts for up to 3 years, whereas it only released the L15 v1 with a 1 year warranty. Purism has 47 employees today, whereas it only had half a dozen in 2015. You are comparing apples to oranges.

4

My question has nothing to do with better warranties and more about available parts, nor about the quality of Purism’s older products. How can the original poster be allowed to be ignored early after his purchase while still under warranty? What about honoring commitments to the customer? If this customer (the original poster of this thread) remains unhappy still because his warranty was not honored, that is still an outstanding issue to this day. He says that his next purchase of a laptop will not be from Purism. He appears to have a good reason. Most reputable companies would want to keep their customer happy (if for no other reason than to keep them quiet) if the claim is valid. Purism needs to step up here and either refute this claim or make good on it. For Purism to stay silent in this case only tells others here not to buy any Purism laptops because they shouldn’t trust Purism to honor their warranties.

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5

I bought Librem 15 v1 with intention to support a pro-privacy and pro-freedom company.

That’s why I didn’t cause any ruckus when I had problem with the support on 2018. I just tried to resolve or live with it.

Now Purism is clearly a much bigger and a successful company.

I am happy for them as well.

On the other hand, I think this is the right time for them to start thinking about various outstanding issues, and to avoid them in their current and future products.

Hopefully now they have developed the capability to address them.

Am continuing to wishing Purism the best of wishes to their missions.

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