For the record, it seems that the problems with my order are due to some incompatibility between the e-mail forwarding system that I often use and Purism’s e-mail setup, so I was not receiving e-mails relating to my Librem5 order. Thanks to @joao.azevedo’s intervention, it looks like my phone will ship soon 
Thanks also to @stephan - it was your post about receiving your phone on Jan 31 that alerted me to the problem.
That sounds interesting. Maybe you would start a new topic in order to elaborate on that, if doing so meets your privacy requirements.
What is your order date?
October 20, 2017
I have almost no hard information about the issue, so I don’t think it is appropriate for me to start a new topic. What I can say is this: as a general rule I only give my main e-mail address to people that I know personally, for other interactions I use a system of generating new e-mail addresses that are forwarded to my main mailbox. I used one of these for my account at the Purism shop, and I have successfully received occasional e-mails that have been sent to it. However when João tried to establish contact using this e-mail address, we found that he received e-mails sent by me with this e-mail address in the From: header field, but his replies never reached me.
I am not going to speculate about the reasons why this happened, but I am assuming that Purism sent me a modem/address confirmation e-mail which similarly never arrived.
Today, I received my “preparing your Librem 5 to ship” Mail. I ordered 2017-10-22. Actually I opted for batch fir, which Purism confirmed to me some years ago.
Now, I’m wondering if batch fir is abandonned, or when it will happen (it should have been out by Q4 2020). And why it is not possible to wait for fir, although they told us so.
Purism has been silent for at least one and a half year concerning fir.
@todd-weaver @Kyle_Rankin @nicole.faerber
I was the one that replied to your email today. Your order is in batch Fir, and it was an error on our part that you got that email. As for Fir, it is a Future model, it will only be released after evergreen, and after we push our backlog of Librem 5 orders.
I have a friend who’s order date was October 21st. He just got his shipping confirmation email today
"Dear Name
Summary: With apologies for the delay, we are now preparing your Librem 5 to ship "
I think it goes without saying that Q4 2020 estimate is out-of-date a bit… It assumed that all pending Evergreens would have been already shipped mid 2020, which of course didn’t happen. There’s no new estimate. At this point it’s best to assume that we’ll be thinking about Fir when the end of handling Evergreen is in sight.
I got my shipping email as well. I was wondering if there will be any upcoming releases that will have fixed or changed hardware? Because if there would be improvements coming soon, I may just wait to get the phone, if there will be things that are fixed…since from my understanding development is still early. Am I correct that the L5 is not really a daily driver phone yet?
And how long would I have to wait to have a phone with different/changed/improved hardware
Thanks
Not speaking on behalf of Purism but … an unknown and indefinite amount of time.
I don’t think a new hardware version is coming soon. I think the focus is on meeting the commitment to ship all existing orders.
I’m not aware of any specific hardware issues that need fixing (as someone who has been using his phone for 13 months).
It rather depends on your requirements and your pattern of use. The main obstacle is the time that it can operate between charges. I expect that software changes will appear soonish that will substantially improve that, but still not into the league of spyphones. I wouldn’t expect any hardware changes to improve that further any time soon.
There is still plenty of software work to do, in my opinion.
That could mean next year. But as you said, I don’t think the technical differences are worth the wait. The thing that keeps me from (trying) daily driving is battery, and that’s mainly a software thing.
What was your order date?
I have received 2 days ago the email for address/modem confirmation.
Order date: 2017-10-22
Email request for address confirmation: 2022-02-14
Shipping date: I hope soon 
Mine is the same as this. I ordered 10-22-2017, got my email for address on 02-14-2022
… and “thinking about Fir” could precede “Fir hardware available to order” by a fair amount of time. I think Purism staff have also commented that, just as shipping Evergreen is being slowed down by chip availability, so is development of future products (any products, not just a phone).
And I’m happy to report that I got the mail too today, which indicates that shipping is processing the first week of November at this point.
So theoretically, ~3,000 devices shipped? It’s been slow progress, but that is still a great accomplishment. Hopefully it won’t be long before they reach 30,000 
I got my shipping questionaire today as well. My order date is 2017-10-25. The mail has landed in my junk folder, so folks make sure to have a look there in the next days…