Introducing the Liberty Phone

I do actually believe 6 weeks is possible given the rate they have been shipping out phones the past few months. But Purism has made me cynical on any sort of promises from them.

No, I’ve had my phone for over 4 weeks. The upgrade isnt that major to me. The most I would have paid maybe would have been 100$ at the time they asked for the shipping info. Also looks like the new one is a USA production only while I didnt order the USA model as you may have guessed.

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Regarding “promises”


…and about a thousand other posts.

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Time for the old Klingon programmer joke: Klingons do not “release” software. Klingon software escapes, leaving a bloody trail of design engineers and quality assurance testers in its wake.

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No promises … just horribly biased and error-filled estimates.

Specifically, the above quote showed that Kyle Rankin asserted estimated in May of 2021 that Purism would be at shipping parity for the Librem 14 in June of 2021??? If I recall correctly, the Librem 14 hit shipping parity mid-January of 2022. What kind of errors can one have that would turn a 6 week estimate into 6 months???

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I would not expect longer than 10 weeks. The estimate shipping thread shows a really fast progress. I also think less people bought a phone after the huge price increase.

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My experience gained from 17 years in the electrical wholesale and electrical estimating business has taught me to call sales rep’s Reptiles! In my experience sales people will tell every lie going for whoever pay’s their wages until they run out of people to talk to for their company. Then they are reassigned to a different company and they start the game again with a different backer and a clean slate to begin the game again. I ordered my phone because of the premise not a promise. I’m still waiting on my delivery notification.

Bilhe77

Bilhe77

25m

May 26

Ordered: 09-Feb-2021
Verification email: 26-May-2023
Response: 05-June-2023
Shipment notification: TBC
Received: TBC

Accessories added to order so delivery will be delayed until payment has cleared.

Queried shipment notification and was told (not in stock 128GB SD card was delaying delivery). Readjusted order for SD drive to replace SD card (27/06/23) (Was told order adjusted and would ship within 2 day’s)
Awaiting shipment notification.

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Probably many, but in this case it was apparently the supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic:

Also like many hardware companies the supply chain woes of the last two years have caused us to rethink this approach. Each time it seemed like we had made enough Librem 14s to catch up to current and projected orders, delays of one kind or another created a new backlog as new orders continued to come in.

It would be foolish to expect estimated delivery dates to never change, even sometimes by a lot.

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Please please :pray: @francois-techene add this to Librem 5 Fir:

  • add Nokia N900 SIM and SD Socket trays, (current evergreen trays it is a shame)
  • 2 premium speaker, (current evergreen mono speaker it is shame)
  • 4 GiB RAM
  • 128 GiB ROM
  • 5000 mAh Battery
  • 5G-nr-lte module, open of docs.
  • reversing engenering the sparklan module firmware to free software. (current status is a shame)
  • reduce weight and thickness to L5 body.
  • add a thermal sensor camera
  • add a fancy desing to L5 Fir body
  • add a dedicate radio fm & transmitter controller.
  • add infrared controller next to 3.5mm jack
  • add NFC controller
  • add a micro fan to convergence mode to slow down the temperature from core then run cpu at full.
  • labeling Librem-5-Fir-Professional to meaning longevity & genuine electronics
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I would agree with those accept for the fan. Moving parts inside the device are going to shorten its life. Perhaps a metal heat conducting back that you could put in a dock with a fan instead?

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Yes it should be too.

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Other than the 4GB RAM and 128GB eMMC storage does anybody know if there are other tweaks to the internals?

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Which you would do how?

OK, if I had to take a guess, yes. But then you have to replace the mobo without breaking it.

Well there is in the sense that both of those components are soldered down so perhaps the only way that an in place upgrade could be done is by replacing the whole motherboard.

How does that work though for those that originally ordered the Librem 5 (not USA) and opted to wait for Fir? They getting a phone that retails for $2200 for the original $599? On the other hand, the “Liberty” name doesn’t really work for the Librem 5 (not USA). I mean it is freedom from the tyranny of Google/Apple. So I guess it depends on exactly what the references are for “Liberty”.

Still, I know what you mean. There could be an upgrade for the Librem 5 (not USA), not called Liberty, that is called Fir and which has the upgraded RAM and disk. That would be a nice reward for those who chose to wait even longer than shipping parity.

I don’t know that Purism has ever made any musings public. It might be. It might not be. For sure, some community members have published that speculation.

In other words, Fir could be anything.

Technically, not so. This is an upgrade to the Librem 5 USA. All pre-ordered Librem 5 USA devices have been shipped as of months ago. It is the Librem 5 (not USA) that is still not quite finished shipping pre-orders.

Good news. Your nuts are safe. They aren’t specifically saying shipping parity in 6 weeks. Shipping parity was supposed to be June 30, and they haven’t quite hit that. How much they miss by will only be known in hindsight, depending on how many Librem 5 (non USA) orders came in during the last 2.5 years.

Difficult business though. Librem 5 USA is causing confusion because people think it only works in the US (which is not a ridiculous thought given that there is no global modem variant). And then there are the people who get grumpy about the state of Librem 5 shipping relative to the state of Librem 5 USA shipping.

[Edit: Adding: Also note the awkwardness of specifying Librem 5 (non USA).]

So Liberty Phone could be a rebrand of Librem 5 USA. :wink:

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Todd Weaver wrote it by his own.

Batch Fir

Hardware: 14nm Next Generation CPU

Mechanical Design: Version 2

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OK, fair enough. But that was 4 years ago and 2 CEOs ago. A lot of water under the bridge since then. So thinking could have changed.

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Fair point and I even think there wont be an official Fir batch anymore (but what do I know?). Librem 5 v2 could also be completely redesigned with a completely different CPU (not just an upgraded one). But does it make the current Liberty to Fir batch? I don’t think so. At least, the community wont accept this as Fir, even if Purism internal handle it as Fir, because there was something other announced under that label. You also have to remember that a “batch” replaced the older batch for every device (not just the USA-version).

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Also note that there is no new revision image on Jenkins. If the Liberty Phone is Fir, there would be a “librem5r5” byzantium image.

To answer some of the questions :

The Liberty Phone is not Fir. It is an upgrade of the current Librem 5 USA with more RAM and more Drive space. The rest of the hardware features remain the same.

We thought that the name “Librem 5 USA” was already long so calling it “Librem 5 USA Plus”
or anything else added to it would make it even longer and not ideal for marketing. “Liberty” is a great name with some meaning that we chose for our USA made devices. It means Freedom and it has a USA connotation thanks to the Statue of Liberty. So you can call it the “Librem 5 Liberty” or the “Liberty Phone”, which is what it is : The made in USA phone by Purism.

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Thank you for clarifying this for everyone else.

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Librety is an awesome name for the phone. I mean in what world is liberty a bad thing? Purism keep it!

Great upgrade.

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Incorrect about the CEO’s. Todd Weaver has always been the CEO. Kyle was “President” and never was given the CEO title. Proof: Use the Wayback machine with the Core Team URL: https://puri.sm/about/team/

Also the CTO (Faerber) , while not promising anything, implied a newer NXP SoC.

Aside: She was CTO at the time. It turns out her title on the most recent website lists her as “Distinguished Engineer”. There isn’t a CTO … but there is now a “Director of Product” (François Téchené). When Faerber was CTO, Téchené was “Creative Director”. What is going on???

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