Ordered 28th July 2020. Confirmed my shipping details and still not delivered (no tracking order email)
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Good question, there are multiple people that preordered in July 2020 that are on this thread. AFAIK only @craftkiller has recieved their L14 (at least the only person whoās posted in this forum that they recieved theirs).
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I ordered July 19th 2020, confirmed my shipping address in March. I sent an email to the support yesterday asking if they were going to ship the laptop with the hotfix. They were going to ship the laptop with the hotfix, but offered a laptop from a new batch which shouldnāt have the hotfix. I asked when the new batch will be shipping and still waiting for a reply.
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Interesting to hear this response!!!
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I just received an email that my refund request is being processed. (Ordered 6 July 2020)
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I ordered July 5th, 2020 ( I think that is the third day of the campaign? ) No shipping/tracking information yet 
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Iāll repeat myself: The expectation that everyone in the company knows everything about their products is unreasonable.
The weirdness was first spotted by someone who took closer look at the post https://puri.sm/posts/librem-14-in-pictures/, and you can still see it there.
The only point I can fully agree with, is that Purism needs a PR person, who would set their outside communications straight.
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OK, this whole situation is nuts.
This community is plagued with various degrees internal distrust, whether such distrust is warranted and to what extent matters very little at this point.
I understand the pain on all sides. Even if I were to assume the worst about Purismās competence, the staff are all clearly doing very difficult and painful jobs that are not made easier by this entire rigamarole, regardless of how necessary the criticism may or may not be. Honestly, I donāt understand how Rankin hasnāt blown a fuse yet, thatās an accomplishment in itself.
I also thoroughly appreciate the pains of the Purism skeptics here, more than I can explain. Iāve been checking in multiple times a day for well over six months, Iām tired now. This whole situation has only been frustrating and unsatisfying at every step, expectations beaten down repeatedly. All of the hope and excitement I had for the Librem 14 has gone, and thatās OK.
Iām not even invested in the Librem 14 directly, I just couldnāt get a replacement under warranty after my Librem 13 failed and was placed on the waitlist. Iām supposed to be feeling lucky, but really Iām just wishing my Librem 13 was still with me, even if it had to stay somewhat broken for the rest of itās lifetime. I canāt imagine what itās like for people who actually paid for the device.
I think that itās time for all of us to ask for a refund or stop caring about the Librem 14, this isnāt healthy. Even if it means giving up on Purism entirely at risk of loosing everything they stand for, we canāt keep doing this. Letās put this to bed start thinking beyond Purism.
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Starting to get the sense that this is the closest thing to a Purism product weāll ever get to see 
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Please. Can you explain me how to build a truly modular & libre phone without bricks, on the market???
It seems like Iām on the opposite site of most of the critics here.
That fix and itās explanation by @nicole.faerber in the now closed post where this thing first came up shows that purism is trying to do the right thing Engineering wise, that they can do within the time given.
From my understanding of her post and my own initial analysis of the fix it looks like itās done to adhere to some EMI regulation probably emissions on a attached USB cable.
So even if the solder joints should fail it probably wouldnāt cause any Problem for the normal operation of the USB port but only a slight spike in itās electromagnetic spectrum at the switching frequency of that SMPS.
In my opinion the answers we get from the Purism Staff are the answers from the actual engineers doing the work not some spokesperson who does not understand the technology behind it at all, but might be a way better wordsmith. I always prefer the engineer over the sales, PR or social media person.
I still want my Librem 14 asap even with that fix.
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I understand that the fix is not critical and that even if it would fail, the laptop would keep working normally. My fear, however, is that it might introduce a short circuit (if you look closely, the solder points of the fix are very close to some other pads on the board), or that it might come loose and short other components on the board. Do you think thatās a valid concern?
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This my concern too. Loose metal pieces inside electronics is never a good idea.
Yeah and I still want my laptop.
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I still not ordened yet my L14, i could wait until
Purism have on stock L14 without hotfix.
I hope that on next time Purism to inform to customers any changes on the products preordersā¦or any.
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Someone post a picture of a giant ball of solder and do the same thing but Librem 14 instead.
Iām not very knowledgeable what to not do with PCBs, but what if you put some sort of resin over the two spots the hotfix was applied to keep them in place to prevent them from rattling around? I imagine this might void a warranty though.
Please do not speak for the rest of us.
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So, playing devils advocate, what risk is there in removing the hot fix? @nicole.faerber said it has no affect in functionality?
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I share your concern about the fix coming lose and shorting out other components. Iām not an expert in this area though, and defer to Nicoleās reassurances and othersā analysis.
If I could speak my mind a little bit though having observed this Librem 14 deliveries situation since the beginning of the yearā¦
To me it seems that Purism customers are very similar to other early adopter customer segments, for example Tesla customers (pre-2020), such as myself.
- Emotionally invested in the product
- Principled
- ātech-savvyā
Which from my observations is a double edged sword for product companies:
On the one hand they are advocates, they spread the word about the product because they really do love it, or at least the concept/principle behind it. Free word-of-mouth advertising can be a huge asset to scaling. Even if they donāt spread the word, the amount of research and time spent in making the decision to buy is possibly worth way more than the money spent to buy it.
On the other hand, if something goes wrong, reactions can likewise be emotional, especially if theyāve been telling everyone else about how good it is! Now their personal reputation is on the line, if not a potential feeling of time wasted/feeling cheated.
Principled/tech-savvy
This goes to what Manuel was saying about Purism engineers responding to peoples questions (I wish more would), but itās great that people like Nicole are willing provide quite detailed and seemingly very transparent responses to questions when sheās available. This is a huge plus over other companies.
Purism is big on branding/marketing (at least thatās what it looks to me, a new customer). What I get out of that is two things:
- Principled - Iād hazard to guess a large number of Purism customers are of the mindset - āfreeā as in freedom device. This principle is very close if not interchangeable with transparency. While Purism isnāt an NGO or similar entity that would be required to be highly transparent, itās not unreasonable to think their customers would appreciate if not expect that level of transparency. From my experience, this also means many customers (unfortunately the less vocal) are willing to be a lot more forgiving of mistakes, if itās clear the people behind the company and itās mission are admirable (beyond making money).
- Premium/High Quality - A polished and consistent experience, that one would expect extends beyond the products but to customer service as well. Engineers (especially principled ones, myself included) arenāt necessarily the best people to provide this. It would definitely be advantageous to have someone who is good at putting themselves in the customers shoes and be empowered to do the right thing (from the customers perspective). This is something that (using my earlier example) Tesla is terrible at, and it shows in how upset their customers can get with their service org at times (to the point of wanting to sell their cars out of principle). Amazon howeverā¦
Amazon, is a good example of a company willing to eat the cost of a bad experience regardless of whoās fault it is. This builds strong brand trust, removes significant friction from the buying experience and builds strong customer loyalty. In an era where ācustomer is always rightā seems to be dieing, disruptors like Amazon are bringing it back and it seems to be a winning strategy.
In conclusion
As a community of customers who care about Purismās success, itās my opinion we need to be more understanding / patient with Purism, and also understand that any negative pressure (especially if over the top, unreasonable) we place on Purismās employees is likely to kill the motivation they have for building the products we want (which will impact quality, or worse), and also reduce the chances of them interacting with us and being transparent.
Likewise, I think it would be helpful for Purism to reevaluate whether itās succeeding in upholding itās brand image consistently across interactions with the public. What can be done to improve operational transparency, and accommodating customers even when it means it may effect individual profitability.
Personally Iād love to read more detailed blog posts about the inner workings at Purism, and the actual real mass manufacturing challenges that Nicole had alluded to, maybe in a weekly or by-weekly blog posts. Mostly out of pure curiosity, and I honestly donāt think this is something that would damage public image ā it might actually help bring in valuable suggestions/recommendations on how to improve operations, just like open-source contributions help improve open-source software.
P.S. When will Purism have a drop-in āfreedā Tesla MCU/FSD computer for me to use? I have a spare in my basement if someone wants to try. 
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I donāt know about removing it ourselves. But if it breaks off due to repeated thermal stress as someone has noted then itās bad idea to have the metal piece around circuitry.
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