Before I buy anything… I would love to know what I buy.
What hardware does the Librem 14 come with? I mean… very specific.
Sure… DDR4, 64Gb ram…, but what make? Part number? Memory speed? Pictures?
And the storage options to choose from… what are the make and part numbers of the different SATA/NVMe/NVMe pro options to choose from? Pictures?
Any pictures from the laptop under the hood?
How much tax is there on the Librem 14 in the US? If it’s shipped overseas… can it be sold tax-free so customs can add local tax (and I thus don’t have to pay tax twice)?
Purism doesn’t typically supply that information, possibly so that they can use whatever they can get their hands on (within reason).
If you need that level of control, you may be better off buying without RAM (or, I think maybe that’s not possible, with minimal RAM) and buy exactly what you want and install it yourself.
Basically same answer re disk.
Questions about tax might be better directed to Purism support via email.
Purism has published some photos of the motherboard if you look at the web site, but Purism says that it can’t publish schematics because they are based on Intel’s reference design, which is copyrighted. However, Syatem76 will send the laptop schematics to customers who ask for them ( although they can’t be published), so Clevo has a different policy than most ODMs. Maybe Clevo doesn’t use the Intel reference designs or maybe Intel isn’t as strict as we have been told, but it is dissappointing that Sysrem76 does better than Purism in this regard. I wouild like to hear from Purism whether it plans to have the same policy as System76.
In the meantime, it would be very helpful if someone who owns the Librem 14 would post the output of the sudo lshw command. Of course, there is no guarantee that the next batch will have the same RAM and SSD as the current batch.
It was/is not my intention to infringe on any copyright… so let me rephrase my questions:
I assume the 2x SO-DIMM DDR4 slots on the motherboard will support 3200MHz-Non-ECC unbuffered, CL22, 1.2v SODIMM’s, is it not?
The website mentions:
I’m guessing the NVMe PRO disks are PCIe Gen3 SSDs.
Does the motherboard and CPU also supports PCIe Gen4 SSDs? (sequential read/write speeds: max 7,000/5,300 MB/s)
And if the answer is no… and I do add a Gen4 SSD into this motherboard… will the Gen4 SSD still work at a reduced Gen3 speed? Or won’t it work at all?
Oh… and what about the battery? How much Wh is it? And how long does it last on 1) idle, 2) watching a movie, 3) 100% CPU, ram and ssd usage?
And the power adapter… what’s the rated wattage? (I live off grid on a 12V system… the picture of the power adapter looks pretty standard… so I’m guessing my 100W adapter will work)
And screen performance? SRGB?
So yeah… looking in details at the specs… it’s a shame that so little information is given… makes me wonder… what is Purism trying to hide?
Yeah… great sales-pitch Purism… but I don’t think granny is going to buy a laptop from your website. Granny want’s Windows.
I’m guessing that all your customers are (wannabe) nerds who highly value their privacy. If we are willing to familiarize ourselves with highly customizable/tweakable OS/software… then it’s only logical we want the same for our hardware. My current laptop that I am looking to replace is a barebook for which I bought the components in 3 different shops. I even went so far as to select very specific cooling paste.
This is what draws me towards buying Purism’s laptop:
The lack of details makes me hesitant.
I hope I don’t sound disrespectful in this post… as I am not.
Have a great day!
(Maybe I am just a special kind of nut-case as I am even considering building my own laptop from the Purism Mini, with a 7" Raspberri Pi HDMI screen for on the go (and a larger 13" screen for at home), with a battery, keyboard, etc build in an old leather suitcase… but yeah… the RAM is only DDR4-2400 and same question for SSD applies to the Purism Mini… )
As mentioned previously, Purism doesn’t publish the exact specs of all components, mainly because the brand/model may change at some point due to availability (eg).
The RAM in my L14 is 2x Samsung M471A4G43MB1-CTD (PC4-21300 DDR4 2666MHz / 19-19-19-43), but I know we use Kingston RAM with equivalent specs too.
NVMe drives are typically the latest Samsung models (970 or 980), hence the standard/Pro designations. For the SATA drives, Samsung and Crucial have been used. My L14 has a Samsung 970 Pro.
NVMe speeds are, like RAM speed, limited by the 10th-gen/Cometlake mobile platform. PCIe 3.0 x4 is max supported. Gen4 drives limited to Gen3 speeds, and should work unless they have buggy firmware.
The current 4-cell battery shipping in the L14 is rated at 8800mAh / 67Wh. I’ve not done any run-down tests to measure the battery life under those conditions.
The LCD screen may vary by batch, but it’s a very good quality 1080p IPS screen. The current batch of L14’s have an Innolux N140HCE-EN2 panel (specs)
Purism certainly isn’t trying to hide anything. We’re just not providing details that are subject to change, like internal components. I’ll see if we can add some more details to the product page that aren’t likely to change (like CPU, max RAM / max NVMe speeds, etc)