750 USD + import is pretty steep and at evergreen, I heard that the price might go up again. I understand it is a different phone and it is great and whatever and others are willing to fork out even higher for the product but I cannot really do that. Just want to know so I can choose between pine or this.
edit: Did some research and almost definately going to 800USD + import. Going higher?
since youāre not an original backer why wait ? go for PinePhone now and keep in touch for L5 news ā¦ 1000 $ is hard to swallow for most people ā¦
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Ordered about 20 minutes ago. Will wait to see if it will just keep rising or not.
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Links?
Not everything on the internet is true. 
Current price is US$749. Happy that I am in the queue at US$599.
As you say, import overhead costs and taxes are on top of that - and donāt really know how much those amounts will be - and depends on your country / your government / exchange rate / phase of moon.
and other COVID-1984 measures that might inflate the price ā¦
20% import. USD to GBP.
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But why? China is up and running. Just seems like an excuse to charge more.
edit: Medical supplies and toiletries are increasing. There is no reason the price of the phone should increase even more.
OK, when I said that not everything on the internet is true, obviously this is Purism itself saying it, so we can assume that it is accurate about their future intentions as known at the current time.
Quoting the actual text:
once Evergreen ships, will arrive at its final $799 price to reflect the actual final costs of the hardware, instead of being based off estimates
āfinal costsā
gov: hey guys ! itās going to be a world-wide economic ārefreshā this year possibly taking months to subside ā¦
people: kayā lemmeā get muhā money from the bank ! all at the same time ā¦
gov: told you guys ! now donāt worry well print as much as you need to make sure youāre covered ā¦
Economic uh oh. 2008 2.0 . Other electronic products havenāt changed in price at all for where I live so it wouldnāt make sense for this one to. Unless all of them do, L5 has no excuse to.
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Presented with the options we have today I personally would go the pinephone route. The āadvantagesā the l5 has over the pinephone arenāt enough for me to justify the $650 difference.
Ever
I purchased a braveheart last novyand had it a couple months later. Iām perfectly happy with what the pinephone has to offer.
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From a pure consumerist point of view, the PinePhone is probably a better value for your money, but keep in mind the majority of that $650 difference is for the development of Phosh and other mobile capabilities for PureOS, many of which get contributed to upstream projects, and which PinePhone users (and eventually any other Linux phone users) will get to use for free. I donāt see my payment as a regular order so much as a donation to make a true Linux phone a reality. If that means my Librem 5 subsidizes someone elseās PinePhone, so be it. The alternative is that everyone continues to wait for someone else to fund the development and then nobody gets a Linux phone.
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From a consumerist standpoint, I cannot afford to casually donate 650 USD + some more for import + future cost increase. All the librem else has is slightly better hardware and HKS but the main thing about it is that it is fully open source though I think some firmware still isnāt so I donāt think that is true. The main reason most people arenāt going to buy this phone are aesthetics with it being a very chunky boi, practically no Emcc storage while SD cards are much slower, huge bezzels, massive bugs on the OS, weak hardware so less performance capability. I donāt care about most of those except that it is chunky because that first didnāt sound too bad but the product video for the phone doesnāt just make the phone look wrong but just uncomfortable to use. Only 32GB main storage is a bit of a joke as I want more storage on the phone that is fast. I can deal with seeing some visuals bugs and maybe even phone crashes but anything about deletion of data, random brick after update or crash during important thing like phone call is annoying. The hardware strength just seems plain ok at best. People say that it is strong but I think that is stupid to believe because it just isnāt. Fir hardware will probably be good but evergreen isnāt amazing so can everyone just stop about that. It seems like a phone I would be making daily backups with from what I have seen on youtube. I knos that the OS isnāt fully ready but even on their latest video on the purism channel, it just seems eh/meh. UBports and others have been tested and fully work as a phone and are linux. Iād rather not save up rent money for a phone when I have other important bills coming up.
People say that you arenāt paying for the hardware but the development of the OS but then stop saying the hardware is great because it isnāt. 3GB RAM on ARM isnāt enough unless you have crazy optimization like apple. With pinephone, I know what I am paying for and that is the hardware and I can get the OS from somewhere else if I want. I think the only reputable thing about hardware on the L5 is HKS. They also say you are paying for longterm security and software updates for the phone but if purism goes bust, it will just be made by the community which is a very small community at that. I donāt know if they will but product price increases and accepting pre-order money for something that still says get in approximately 6 months on their phone product page since December although we are nearly through April and original funding for the phone already being huge and funding from their other products already being used for it seems like a little bit of forshadowing.
If the product is successful and I can see that they actually made a usuable phone and actually runs well even for evergreen hardware, I may consider purchasing fir if evergreen price goes down and that Fir is less than what evergreen price was because this just isnāt a viable option to buy as a phone. System76 do not even overcharge as much for their OS development but I guess this case is different because it is for a mobile OS which other groups have done but not to the highest standards. If I am honest, I think on release, the OS will be somewhat on par with UBports speed and functionality today on the pinephone. But hey software updates can make a whole lot of difference even up until a point but yes. Wow this was a long rant.
Just one more thing which is a bit of a tangent. PureOS, for my taste, is a terrible OS for desktop. I tried to use and hated almost everything but I guess it isnāt bad for many other people. The only upside I saw about it was it being FOSS. But I donāt know. Some people like it for some reason so it has merit for something more that I am not able to see apart from the has my firmware been modified USB thing on their laptops.
edit: My disapointment in their desktop OS makes me think I will hate their mobile OS too which I already do but it is just in beta so I will probably end up changing my opinion once more development reaches the phone and looks usable/actually fast and good and doesnāt break in a year due to normal damage with their laptops already having a short lifespan though not as short as this but this is a phone and it will naturally get abused by its owner over time more than obviously a desktop PC but also more than a laptop. I guess time will tell whether this product is another failure or not. Please donāt send weird sarcastic comments or extended metaphors in response and just get to the point with where I am wrong to bash me into the dirt and comment on different parts of what I say.
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But the Pinephone has that or less, doesnāt it? If it isnāt enough, it isnāt enough - no matter how much you pay.
Iāve got a number of Raspberry Pi computers, each with way less than 3GB of RAM. ARM CPUs. Actually run āOKā. Iām not saying that you can necessarily extrapolate to a phone but it is indicative that 3GB can be enough. We will only know for sure when we have phones in our hands. (Just talking here about regular usage. If your use case is āconvergenceā or you want to run VMs, your mileage may vary.)
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Pinephone has less so I expect it to lag but what I paid is fair for the hardware. If there was no OS build for the L5, the phone would cost around 200 USD or slightly above and the highest I am willing to go is 600 for the phone with realistic expectation with the OS bringing total price to 550-500.
edit: I do not want to do something as big as run VMās. All I want to do is stream video, call family by signal and friends by phone call, check my emails quickly on the browser, setup phone call voice recording for when I need it, navigate with a maps app, play minesweeper, run torrents, use a VPN when I need to, take photos sometimes and maybe even video, 2FA app like aegis and run some programs like wireshark and that is it.
You ordered an L5?
No pinephone.
How do you know the L5 only costs 200 for the hardware?
As a PinePhone owner, much if what you listed you want to do, from what Iāve experienced, just is not possible yet.
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AFAIK L5 is based on Nitrogen8M reference design which alone (without battery, display, cards, sensors, case) costs 185,48 ā¬ so I think your $200 bar is set too low.
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