Almost all of the points mentioned are for Linux vs Windows, not the Librem 16 vs. other Linux laptops.
Other than the availability of coreboot and HKSs, there’s nothing mentioned that isn’t available on my $300 laptop I bought used on ebay.
GCrimson wallpaper i do not like it.
Depends when you bought it and what you bought.
I’m wondering whether your laptop supports 3 external displays (i.e. 4 displays in all).
Obviously blob status of your laptop is unknown (to me).
Perhaps you will provide a product link to your laptop so that someone can make a transparent comparison.
I’m sure you can override to whatever you want. I tend to set the wallpaper to uniform dark colour as soon as I get a computer.
Thanks for the nice blog, I enjoyed reading!
I bought a laptop years ago, and I run GNU/Linux on it, but it has no ethernet port. Some laptops are doing away with the 3.5mm headphone jack also. So, some of the other hardware comparisons are valid, although not against all other laptops, just some.
Unrelatedly, this quote from the article is great 
I can’t pull data from your laptop any more than I can pull a jumbo jet down the runway with my teeth.
Can’t say I’m on the market for a laptop right now, but the Librem 16 looks pretty sweet!
Yes. And if I turn off the internal display, it supports 4 external displays. Was this a point of discussion in the article???
It has 2 thunderbolt-4 ports. I believe the firmware for those is not FOSS. But there are certainly firmware blobs on the Librem 16 too. I’m speculating that this is why they didn’t discuss those features.
The status of the driver and firmware for Wifi+bluetooth is identical (same driver, proprietary firmware for both).
But this is my point: They didn’t discuss the blob status of the Librem 16 in that article. That would be a Librem 16 vs general Linux Laptop discussion. Their discussion was almost all a software “vs Windows” discussion.
P.S. When I bought it I also bought a $54 32GB (Crucial DDR4) RAM stick for a total of 48GB RAM (64GB Max). But that would not have been fair since that RAM stick currently sells for $225.
I think this is by design. They do not consider other GNU/Linux laptops as their competitors. They compete with the megacorps and want to get a part of their audience. And I think this is the correct approach.
I do not get excited either by the post or L16 feature. Nothing sweet to me.
I mean if Purism can not make GNU Electronics Computer then it is better to start selling Microsoft Windows on L16 if want more money.
Can you expand on which features you are missing exactly?
Libre WLAN and GPU at a minimum.
Also Linux mainline is garbage. At the moment as 1 example: The best wlan controller redpine work terrible due to linux mainline.
My guess is that Linux Mainline will worse and worse on blobs.
Yes, it was mentioned.
Please Microsoft Windows for Librem 16…as i prefer Windows than Linux.
Cosmic is terrible for me as depresses me., yes better than Gnome but still terrible for me. I just say as a extra.
Is there any evidence that running Microsoft Windows on a Librem 16 doesn’t work?
I certainly wouldn’t want to do that and I wouldn’t encourage Purism to spend time on that question but …
It should work, but it is for someone that want to use fancy Microsoft out-of-the-box on bloby_L16.
That would surprise me. Judging from what I’ve seen on this forum, I would imagine that 90% or more people who buy a Librem 16 are people who are intentionally search for a Linux laptop vendor (System76, Framework, Tuxedo, StarLabs, Purism, …).
Please find a quote that claims “3 external displays”.
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I searched the article for “external”. No matches.
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I searched the article for “display”. The only text was:
Two fully-featured USB-C ports provide high-speed data, high-power charging, and high-resolution display output. Alongside those, there are many additional ports, so there’s no need to fumble for dongles and adapters. HDMI provides another high-resolution display output.
Having two USB-C ports for display output and one HDMI port through which one can attach displays does not mean the GPU supports 3 external displays. e.g. I had an old laptop that had a VGA port and a HDMI port … but the GPU only supported using one xor the other (not both). And, furthermore, DisplayPort supports up to 4 displays on one port … so the number of ports does not reflect the maximum number of displays either. Now, I would not be surprised if the Librem 16 supported 3 external displays … because that is now commonplace. But I’m surprised you think that was somehow mentioned and/or was the focus.
In fact 4 displays in total was publicly shown 2 years ago: From the Hackdesk: Librem 16 - #5 by jonathon.hall
There is no rigorous scientific answer to the question as to whether Purism is making a specific point of it.
Yes, it’s true that you would have to read between the lines of the specific blog post.
I am unconvinced that it could be justified having 2 full-featured USB-C ports (as mentioned in the blog post), hence display output via either USB-C port, if you couldn’t use the USB-C ports simultaneously for video output (unlike the bad old days when, as you say, the multiple video outputs tended to be alternatives and really just a convenient way of avoiding having to use a video adapter).
So I have taken all the available evidence:
- the public commentary 2 years ago,
- the specific text from the blog post that you quote yourself, and
- the Intel CPU specification on the Intel web site (which says 4 displays supported)
to make the claim that
in this case it actually does mean that.
@jonathon.hall Perhaps the tech specs at Purism Librem 16 – Purism could be updated to cover the specific point regarding external displays i.e. make it more explicit than just mentioning under “Video”: 1 x HDMI and 2 x USB-C - and really the product blurb on that page more generally should mention external displays explicitly, as not every potential customer configures laptops in their sleep. 
The question was whether they said “3 external displays”. They didn’t.
You brought up “3 external displays” and my point was the article didn’t even mention that, so why did you?
No. It may very well support 3 external displays — that’s not the point. It’s common. Even my $300 laptop (used, from e-bay) supports 3 external displays.
My point was that article didn’t say it. You inferred it.
But ultimately my point was that the article was mostly about “Librem 16 vs. Windows Laptops” rather than the “Librem 16 vs. Linux Laptops”.
I may be mistaken, but I think Purism’s competitors are not Windows machines, but are machines from System76 and others that I mentioned above.
Purism can’t make all components themselves. There is nothing modern on the market that could fulfill your wishes, and it’s not the Purism fault. So your minimum requirements are impossible to achieve, unless you show another vendor doing it.