Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. Please try again and let me know if you run into any other issues.
2 Likes
Well, some credit unions have at least 2% cashback on their credit cards. One I have spits out $250 just for signing up. Since I pay the balance by the next business day I’m charged no interest at all.
1 Like
No. Because a wide spread is often worth. Like stability like privacy and to be secure.
Sorry to say in Line 3 that i hate to pop the bubble. We need to support the freedom and many Companies and Purism too. But its about the dream of Computers and Turing Manchines. That they can run the same code. And not have to got lost in Software Storage or by walled gardens. Right now we have an unspecific challenge because A.I. can thief privacy and be a not loyal companion, friend, lover, assistant, employer… on your Phone. And every company or Software which do not sell yourself computer interaction to others, will be worth it.
1 Like
When one spends close to a $1000usd for a product that works as poorly as this one there is not much one can argue about fighting the good fight. We are consumers for a product that has been in production for years. I am a retired SE/SA. I bought this product as the appeal of linux in my pocket when needed sounded good. My use case was using it with AweSIM and a Crowview Note. Got it working one time with the CrowView. The state of this product I would not even consider early beta. Major disappointment and total waste of money. grapheneOS is far superior to this product as are the other de-googled distros.
4 Likes
After spending close to $1000 on this product including the AweSIM service I am putting this boat anchor into cold storage. I am a retired SE/SA with a lot of experience in Unix and Linux. I was hopeful that this would be a product to play with, hookup to a CrowView Note. Got it to connect one time to the Crowview. Crowview works great, PI’s connect just fine as do other devices. It was not meant to be my daily use phone. For that I use grapheneOS.
Even though this is a production product being sold I can handle some bugs, and in general anything that offers an alternative to iOS and Android spyphones and their surveillance ecosystems is in principle good. But the product is unusable imo.
We are not angel investors, we are customers. After this experience I would never consider another Purism product. I will be surprised if this company is around in 5 years.
3 Likes
I have a different opinion to this. It is actually a huge win to have development going on here. I heard about Pinephones issues and compared to it, Librem 5 seems to be in a better state. But that’s not even the point (and btw I cannot prove it). It is just good that we have two companies following different goals in the same movement. It helps to grow the mobile Linux community on two different ends. And I probably can only daily drive, because Purism is investing in software development.
I already had that issue with Byzantium two years ago, but I could backport the libs I needed to run my software. I do not use AppImages, but few applications from Git. Anyway, it’s time to get Crimson and Dawn ready and I really hope devs can make good progress.
You can lose any mobile device for sure, but the difference about breaking: you can buy the broken parts and replace it yourself without repair shops and such. And you can use the L5 longer than any Android or iOS device. So the true costs per year are much lower than the 800$ indicates. Sure, it is still expensive, but you probably did not value the life-time and repairability. Maybe L5v1 is not for you for some reason, maybe v2 is, I guess my arguments are still true then while v2 is probably also expensive.
Until Google blocks GrapheneOS completely. Didn’t you hear about the strange moves Google has done? Do you really trust them enough that they will not fuck it up in 5, 10 or maybe 50 years? Having a free alternative is something we really need to have an escape room, just as Linux these days is an escape room for Windows users that do not want to go with Win11 any longer.
And GrapheneOS is no replacement for what Linux phones want to achieve. It does not run on open hardware, it does not run all native Linux software natively and especially and most important, it does not start a new movement. GrapheneOS is just a defensive tool against Google and does not create a new way we can go. It’s totally fine that you are more happy with GrapheneOS for now, but there are A LOT of good reasons.
And btw, when I bought the phone back in 2019 when the phone was not even shipped, I already knew that this pocket computer will be released in a state where Linux was 20 years ago. So it was already clear that for the whole live-time of L5 the software will not be able to compete with Android in terms of quality. But it is usable, it can do phone and computer stuff in a consumer friendly enough way, if you are willing to run unpolished software.
It seems like you just did not inform yourself well enough before purchasing it and now you are blaming Purism that it does not meet all your expectations. I think most people are not fully fine with Purism as company, including me, but they have my full respect about bringing the Librem 5 to reality, especially since Corona was hitting the project into the ground. Yes, we are consumers. But we are also pioneers and people should not forget about this part.
7 Likes
I think you make many valid points. However:
Yesterday I calculated the total cost of ownership. And in 3 years, I’ve spent ~€2000 on this phone:
| Total | Per year | Per month | |
|---|---|---|---|
| € 2,021.03 | € 655.47 | € 54.62 | |
| Purism Librem 5 | $599.00 | ||
| Customs + VAT | € 149.43 | ||
| PGP smartcard | $15.00 | ||
| Extra batteries | € 66.00 | ||
| Multimeter | € 23.36 | ||
| External charger | € 12.89 | ||
| PureOS subscription | $299.85 | ||
| Fund Your App | $500.00 | ||
| Lapdock[1] | € 318.00 | ||
| SparkLAN WiFi+BT | € 37.50 |
And that is excluding the many, many, many hours cursing and trying to fix it. I could have bought a new iPhone every year for that money. Which gets 8 years of (security) updates. It’s the old adage: Linux is only free is your time is worth nothing. The older I get, the less appealing that becomes.
This is debatable, but I only use it for my L5. ↩︎
10 Likes
I’m not speaking about additional hardware (especially not the lapdock), donations and so on and I’m speaking about using it 10+ years. If you buy an iPhone the 8 years support begin with the release day. You buy it two years later, because it is cheaper → 6 years of support. For the Librem 5 we have more or less support until it becomes to slow to run the operating system or required programs or until a component breaks that is not produced any longer (CPU is produced up to 2033).
So if you use it for 10 years without paying more, you are at ~17€/month. If we calculate with your 600$ for the phone plus lets say 150$ for additional replacements (battery etc), we are at 900$ → 7.5$/month. I said it is expensive, because you can also buy 4 100$ Android phones in the same time. But my argument was that you should not compare 1 L5 vs 1 Android device, but in my example 4 and you your example 2 iPhones. And not in the price included are environmental costs for producing 2-4x more devices.
3 Likes
In my honest opinion is always wrong to compare Librem 5 with mainstream smartphones (IPhones and/or Android) 
You literally bought an idea, a philosophy, a concept!
I really hope that our money are stimulating R&D throw Purism for better Linux Open Hardware (RISC? Something else?)
3 Likes
I am someone who don’t like saying “you cannot compare” … so even I do not mind comparing Librem 5 with Android and iOS devices. But you need a “translation layer” to make a proper comparison. You cannot just compare the battery uptime and say “Librem 5 is worse”, you also have to consider what you gain in return - a fully isolated modem with modem HKS and other things that may come to a higher battery usage.
Many people are just comparing things in favor Android or iOS devices and this way the Librem 5 seems to have no value and I think this is the way you got the opinion these devices cannot be compared. But a fair comparison is done without any favor to one or the other device and bringing up all relevant arguments.
3 Likes
I agree. I don’t think the L5 is without value. I am just disappointed with the development velocity of both the software and the hardware. I kinda expected Fir batch would be here by now with hopefully better specs. In the end, it comes down to your threat (and privacy) model – is modem isolation worth the extra hassle and loss of efficiency of life to you? For me, as an untargeted individual, it’s pretty intangible. I just want to reliably make a phone call to my mom 
8 Likes
No, literally, I bought a piece of hardware 
3 Likes
Thank you for your thought, Ick 
But
Librem 5 = pocket_pc in a phone factor
iPhone/Androids = smartphones
It’s like to compare your PC with a washing machine
for example! It’s insane!
Thank you
1 Like
Yes, of course! We bought Hardware and Software but made shaping an ideal, a dream!
1 Like
This!
Everybody complaining it!! Just that 
2 Likes
Plus the Apple/Android hardware markets are underwritten by the surveillance and data harvesting business models. This makes it hard for people to calculate the true cost.
“Apple and Android are a good deal, if your privacy and dignity are worth nothing.”
7 Likes
Both need electricity and washing machines also connect to the internet to run bot networks these days. Soon it will also deliver advertisement just like fridges. On the other hand, your PC does not clean your clothes. 
You can really compare everything, even if it makes not much sense to do so.
PPC in a phone factor is like to say water in a fluid factor. 
grapheneOS is fine but no substitution for a free Linux Phone or environment. And you have no idea how important a free developed hardware is, like this L5 you hold in your hands.
There may be manufactured Backdoors, but are really unlikely.
Gooogle went the way all Big Data privacy thief’s in the past likely went. To extract as much Data from humans interaction to train some neural network or a computer to predict there new future.
If you know how to program and to use a Linux system on the basic level. The L5 is a tool with Godlike possibilities. Ad-Free and without monthly rent.
You have no other access to this kind of technology.
3 Likes
Ick, i think he response to the early PCs in the 1980th. Not about the 1990th from the hanging rail one… so yes veleno think about it as a full turing machine device from the 1980th.
Yes, debatable.
Even if you only use the lapdock with the Librem 5 (as you state), it is still debatable because it gives you functionality that you do not get with another phone out-of-the-box i.e. not apples with apples, no pun intended. (That is, some other phones would support a lapdock e.g. DEX - Desktop Extension - and it is your choice as to whether you want or need that functionality and with the other phone it would be your choice to pay extra to buy a lapdock.)
So, yes, it is factual that it was an actual, real cost that you incurred. I am just highly doubtful that including the lapdock sheds any real light on “cost on ownership” or on a comparison.
It is also somewhat flattering for the iPhone to stop the cost calculation after 3 years. That is, the sooner you stop the cost calculation for the Librem 5, the higher the annualised cost will be, because a lot of the cost was one-off. This is not how a TCO calculation is done unless the Librem 5 has actually reached the end of its life and has had to be replaced. (This could apply in some sense if you personally have “given up”.)
Coming back to the lapdock, I don’t mind accumulating a bit of gadgetry because even if you never use it with the Librem 5, it is possible that at some time in the future you will have an aha moment about how you can use the lapdock creatively to solve a problem.
4 Likes