For their next iteration, they should send the prototype to Louis to get some feedback… He’s taken apart so many laptops and seems expert at critiquing designs:
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Louis will always find something to mock them for 
Love this guys attitude.
For now it would be great if they could submit their own teardown to a place like iFixit:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/new
So that anyone can review the hardware before order / when you need a reference to repair something.
For now it’s a blackbox unless you are a hardware expert, and anything beyond swapping the hard drives
remain undocumented.
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Yep the sooner they get some free laptops to various qualified examiners, potentially the more money they could save down the road. It isn’t exactly clear who is a Purism staff on these forums.
I have the 15v3. When it arrived I had to open it up to install a hard drive, and then again later on to replace the battery. The thing that struck me about it opening it was that while it feels pretty solid when it’s all buttoned up, the aluminum panels are actually extremely thin. When the bottom panel is not screwed down and stressed, it’s actually quite flimsy and flexible.
Clearly some clever engineering went into this to make it so thin and to get it to fit like that, such that it feels pretty decent when it’s all screwed together. Given what I know about the construction, I try to be quiet a bit gentler with it than I am with other laptops. In my late teens/early twenties I amassed a collection of old ThinkPads by buying broken ones for cheap and them repairing them. The old ThinkPads were extremely tough and durable machines, maybe the toughest non-mil-spec laptops I’ve ever seen. The T4x line in particular was a work of art.
The 15v3 is not a ThinkPad T4x or even an X300. It’s even less durable than a Dell XPS15. But I’d gladly take it over any of the cheap plastic-bodied laptops from Acer or any of the brands they own.
And of course, durability isn’t the primary selling point of the Librem line. Basically, don’t compare it to a laptop of a similar price point from any of the major manufacturers. In terms of specs and build quality, it will disappoint for it’s price point. From the lackluster screen to the mushy keyboard to the flimsy case to the mis-aligned seams and hacky-looking kill-switches. The fit and finish is merely acceptable, but quite up to par for the price point.
These are the sacrifices we make for our ideological convictions.
I wonder why nobody says openly that the Librem 15v4 has the build quality and specs of a 4 years
old machine? By today’s standards, except the 4k display and the 3 years old 6gen 2-core CPU it will
be classified as a low-mid range machine, but with a $1600 price point.
The build design and thermal design are almost like a 2012 Macbook. Or Dell, or even cheaper Lenovos.
Internal design has many open spaces that cannot be justified by a better service design, there are many
open spaces which has neither thermal nor upgrade parts in mind. Just like the ODM provided.
Also, I didn’t see any board schematics nor boardviews. So good luck repairing it or servicing it outside
warranty. I would give this laptop a score of 7/10 in terms of ease of repairs, where 9/10 is a 2019 Macbook
that is sitting along my desk and 5/10 a Lenovo x230 just on the other side of it. Higher->Harder.
As a “freedom” company and social purpose and all that fluff, we didn’t see even the schematics or any
motherboard design. It’s more blackbox than a Dell or an Apple, at least even with them you will have the
board schematics after about a month of RTM, whether official or reverse engineered. We will probably
see Louis Rossman fixing 2019 Macbooks before we see Librem’s schematics or iFixit teardown.
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I was thinking the same thing earlier. It would certainly fit with the idea of transparency.
I’m not really convinced of the value of board schematics for servicing laptops in this era. Serviceable problems with printed circuit boards are rarely uncovered outside the warranty period, and even when they are it is rarely worth the cost to service rather than replace.
On the other hand, it’s almost a guarantee that if the released their boards to the public there would be Chinese knock-offs undercutting them on price, and a lot of potential customers would take their dollars elsewhere. It’s an uncomfortable truth that people don’t like to acknowledge, but I’ve seen open hardware companies die this way.
I consider it a miracle that Purism managed to pull of the Librem laptops with the resources they had. Not only did they design what they promised and get it to market, but they kept it going and are on the cusp of delivering a mobile device which has the potential to succeed where even larger competitors have notably failed in the past.
The only way to get better Librem hardware is to keep supporting Purism with our business while also being honest about what we want to see from them and how much we will realistically pay for it.
If a more durable enclosure would have increased the price by 10%, I probably wouldn’t have paid it. It’s “good enough” as it is. But I’d have paid 10% more for a better display panel or a better keyboard.
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Because if you are looking to Purism to have the bleeding edge, you’ve clearly missed the intent of their products. They are trying to give customers a current machine, that respects the FOSS ideology. This is hardware and software.
I have a V3. I don’t travel with mine. It’s on a desk all the time. I didn’t buy one of these for speed and knock around durability. I bought t because i think it is more secure from a privacy standpoint. Since I don’t make my living programming or as an IT guy and know very little about the inner workings of a computer I have no way of really knowing just how “secure” it is as far as someone hacking into it while I’m on line or keeping track of every key stroke.
Considering those of you that are on here who clearly know a lot about computers, hardware and software that just reinforces my thought that Purism does make a laptop that is more private and secure or many of you that actually know what you are doing wouldn’t have bought one.
Considering how I feel about tech companies stealing my info when I’m online and tracking me I was surprised when the FSF put their stamp of approval on Pure OS. After listening to Richard Stallman in a few interviews I figured that as paranoid as he is if these laptops are OK with him then I guess they are OK with me. He and I are pretty much on the same page though.
I like the keyboard on mine. It “clacks”. I did travel with it once and took it out of the back of the pickup when it was about 10 degrees and into a warm motel room and fired it up. Didn’t seem to affect anything though. I was worried about condensation.
Allow me to be the bad uncle that tells you that Santa is a lie.
First of all, if you bought this laptop for a personal, i.e. never traveling outside, never getting it anywhere
machine, it’s just a waste of money if we speak seriously. Who would tamper your machine if it never leaves
your safest 127.0.0.1 /home? So all the secure verified boot, the kill-switches, it’s just a nice gimmick that you
will never use - since they are not part of your threat model anyway.
FSF approval has nothing to do with security, and if anyone from Purism tries to censor me on this I can
be more loud on communities they don’t control. FSF approval means free software. Free software doesn’t
mean better security, not before, not now, not ever. This is just as it sounds - free software.
The security some people might automatically imply is that - it’s so nice and free, all open source, so must
be totally backdoor free right? Yes, maybe, but software backdoors are not the security attack vector in many
cases. Exploitation of software is the attack vector. And here both free and non-free systems have the same
type of vulnerabilities. Most of them are low hanging fruits, phishing attacks, user manipulations and so on.
Targeted ones are actually using the same techniques again, which are classic type of vulnerabilities (memory
corruption, programming errors, side-channel via CPU, etc).
Don’t think you are more secure just because Stallman agreed PureOS is free from blobs. This basically means
nothing. Read about how systems like QubesOS and OpenBSD actually take it to an actionable level.
//Santa flies
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Well? Thank you for the info s3nsOr. Because I don’t travel with it now and don’t store anything on it that is super top secret doesn’t mean I won’t have the need in the future. I didn’t intend to infer that I’m now immune from everything. My point being that I don’t think that every time I turn this thing on it’s “phoning home” to Microsoft or tracking everything I do like my Dell with Windows 10 is doing. Back doors can be in anything as you say but I doubt Purism engineered them into this OS.
By the way. I don’t think your “the bad uncle”. I’ve got no problem at all with the truth from those that know far more than I on a given subject.
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I know there is no phoning home if you buy Linux. I was referring to another laptop I own which has Windows 10. Not trying to derail anything. Marketing really had nothing to do with it. I’ve known for years that Linux is a better OS. Just didn’t know exactly who to buy it from and knew even less about it. I also knew it was going to be a steep learning curve, which there is. I just picked these guys because they seem to care more about privacy and security. You seem to believe they don’t so it is what it is.
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I seem to believe in facts you got it right. Did I buy their laptop? For sure I did, it’s an honorable
guest on my desk now.
Should anyone buy this laptop instead of a Macbook or a Cabron? Well I can’t really answer.
Some people buy art for millions so why not a laptop that says its “free”?
As in, watch Braveheart, Freedom. Hard pick, unless you know they just want the quick buck.
Nobody else will tell you, but actually check competitors. Disabling ME is easy, I will soon write
a guide with pics so it won’t be Purism/System76/ThinkPenguin “main selling point”.
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That’s pretty much all I needed to know. Is Purism into profit? Yep and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Are their computers overpriced for the speed and performance you get, yep, they are. I bought mine knowing they are still a “work in progress” and I’ve had a few glitches to work through but I’m satisfied with mine.
I’m not an Apple or Microsoft fan. As a matter of fact I despise just about every big “tech” company because I know what they are doing and I don’t like it. Ergo, another reason for my purchase from Purism. No, I’m not going to expound on “why” I despise them. It would be a waste of my time. Many on this forum already know.
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I bought and use a Librem 13, the smaller companion to the 15. I travel with it frequently and have run PureOS and Qubes on it. I have never had a single issue with the laptop. There was an issue with the stock charger I was sent but the laptop itself I’ve had no issues with. I frequently use LibreOffice, Firefox, Evolution, VirtualBox, Signal, Slack, and Standard Notes without any issues related to performance.
The system did struggle with the number of AppVMs I ran (4) while I was using Qubes and I believe that may be an issue related to the core count/clock speed of the provided processors. I did not bother to perform any analysis and moved on from Qubes. It was otherwise a seamless install.
Durability, since it measured either through a period of time or through intentional abuse, is a difficult thing to gauge for new products. I cannot speak to the intentional abuse aspect, I’m a user not a tester, but I can say that I have traveled across the United States from the West Coast to the East Coast and throughout the mid-West without a single incident. I have owned the laptop for 6 months. I have made roughly 20 trips with an average of roughly 1800 miles and a standard deviation of approximately another 400 miles. I hope you find those numbers useful.
And always beware anyone who seeks to influence thought through hyperbole, no matter whether they are “pro” Purism or “con”. Evidence, plainly and honestly given, is always the best basis for decision making.
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S3ns0r,
It would be great if you would step back and take a full picture of what Purism as a company is trying to accomplish. The security angle you keep slinging is known to those of us who understand such things, and yet we are still here. Why? Because it is BIGGER than just security. Talk to many experts and they’ll tell you digital security is an illusion to begin with. You can only hedge your bets and try to minimize your risk factors.
But Purism is also championing user repairs, products that are intended to last and be repairable. They also focus on privacy. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, but the logistics of even creating a product are complicated, let alone running a full on tech company.
More importantly is that while there is still some matters of discussion regarding transparency or products adherence to FOSS standards, etc. the company has done more to demonstrate their genuine belief and adherence to these things than any other company trying to demonstrate they believe their mottos. (Google anyone) I didn’t even know a social purpose company was a thing before Purism.
No company consumed with making tons of money or deceiving customers would structure themselves in such a way.
I think all of this goes to give Purism slack that I wouldn’t normally give a tech company.
Who else is making laptops with user replaceable batteries these days? Or a phone? Their offering of Librem One services? You and I know, that we can spin up our own Mastodon, Matrix, email servers with PGP, etc. anytime, but the average person cannot.
All that said it is important to provide criticism, especially when constructive.
On topic:
I’ve had a L13 v3 since October of 2018. I’ve been on several business trips with it, and bring with me to work and home 5 days a week. I am very good with how I handle all of my electronics, but notwithstanding that, it has not had any quality control issues. Everything works as it should, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t continue doing so.
I’m very impressed with the company. I look forward to the phone being finished and attention being put once again on the librem 11 tablet.
One final note: Please note that this forum represents a relatively small percentage of Purism customers and potential customers. People are much more likely to voice a complaint than to communicate praise.
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untill then hold my steering wheel
Clearly mainly of the main points of Purism’s existence are lost on some people posting here. I don’t think anyone who has been using open source software for more than 10 minutes assumes that “open source” means 100% guaranteed security. Human beings across the board are terrible are designing complex systems that are bug free and that applies equally to closed and open-source software.
What open-source does give you is a certain degree of assurance that intentional “bugs” have not been introduced as a way to grant access to a customer’s machine in a manner that the user is unaware of or would object to. Could the NSA,FBI, DHS have people implanted in open-source projects and secretly installing back-doors in code that the whole world is able to review? Sure it’s possible, but the hurdles are much higher than with a closed-source project run by U.S. tech companies that have cozy relationships and multi-billion dollar contracts with many of those same agencies. We won’t even address issues of tech companies openly harvesting/monitoring user data for purposes of monetization/analytics with little to no means for the user to stop it, and who cough it up at the drop of a dime to the highest bidding data broker or govt. agency possessing a warrant/NSL letter. If such things are irrelevant to you then fine, buy a Macbook, Chrome-book, Dell XPS running Windows 10 or whatever, but clearly many people that spend money on a Librem laptop feel differently.
Secondly, the cost for a Librem is higher and the technology less bleeding edge compared to a similarly priced machine from Dell, Lenovo etc… for the simple reason of economies of scale and the supply chain/manufacturing issues that go along with that. I bought a Librem 15 because I support their ideological values, not because I cared about having the latest Intel CPU/Nvidia graphics card, nor do I care about playing the latest “first person shooter” video game at insane resolutions and frame-rates. I know I am far from alone is considering harware kill switches more than just a “gimmick” and I prefer owning a machine made by people that actually give a rat’s a$$ about trying to produce hardware that doesn’t exploit the user (as opposed to just about every other manufacturer.) I’m sick and tired of constantly reading about tech companies working endlessly to lock users out of the products we pay good money for or intentionally installing some garbage in firmware/microcode/OS that introduces security concerns and/or conveniently gives someone I don’t know the ability to manipulate my interaction with a product I own. Purism hasn’t fixed all of this but they are one of the few even trying. I’ve only had mine (Librem 15 v3) for just under a year and have had no problems. While it’s not a true long-term test, the fit/finish and durability has been above average for my uses.
Some people here seem to feel the complete opposite about the issues I mentioned above and if such a person bought a Librem 15 then yes, they got “suckered” and didn’t do their homework since most of these “concerns” could be addressed by simply reading the product page and Purism’s mission statement ahead of time. For everyone else it’s a worthwhile purchase to consider.
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It’s great to see Purism censoring people’s criticism and banning them for doing so. I had so much hope for this company but it appears you got some things to hide.
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What you see here is mostly the community being annoyed by trolling, therefore flagging it.
Censoring would be to remove all the BS he littered around.
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