Replaceable battery is my vote, considering phone tech is a viable job for work and mechanic role for a community.
Reloadable batteries sound like the most realized form of a device ever, not limiting the type of chemical reaction
no i meant reloadable as in mechanically reloadable batteries as refering to the insertion inside the main body of the device. what about the chemical reaction ? what do you mean by that ? as far as i know only acid-lead type car batteries can be chemically “reloadable”. in this case the reloadable content would be a mixture of salt and distilled water … but in the case of mobile device batteries that is not the case as they rely on a different principle. LI-ION or LI-POLIMER etc.
This is one of the issues where you have to make choices, and I’m not sure that everyone understands what Nicole Faerber was saying.
Want a cellular modem that doesn’t need a binary blob in the Linux kernel?
Then you need a separate cellular baseband chip with a USB interface. To get that you end up with a giant 29x32x2 mm chip, and it won’t support all the LTE bands if you need one that runs without binary blobs. OK, then let’s make the cellular modem replaceable, so people can use a modem with binary blobs that supports the bands in their region. OK, then you end up with a M.2 slot and a 30x42x2 mm M.2 card.
Want an SoC that doesn’t require any binary blobs in the Linux kernel and has a decent free software driver for the GPU?
OK, then you end up with a power-inefficient i.MX 8M Quad that will require a big battery.
Want 3 hardware kill switches?
OK, then you have to separate the cellular modem and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth from the SoC, which means 3 separate chips rather than 1 like a Snapdragon or Mediatek SoC. It also means that you can’t use the GPS in the cellular modem, so you need a separate GPS chip that can be turned off separately from the cellular modem.
Want a hot-swappable battery?
You can’t do it, because you have a giant circuit board covered with chips which takes up the entire length and width of the phone, so you have to put the battery between the screen and the circuit board. You can get your hot-swappable battery if the phone is 20 mm thick, or if you give up a replaceable cellular modem (which means a soldered modem that supports all bands and uses binary blobs).
Want a thin phone that is only 10 mm thick?
Sorry but you can’t have it, not if you want 100% free software, not if you want 3 hardware kill switches, not if you want a replaceable cellular modem. You can only do it if you design the Librem 5 like the PinePhone. Do you still want a thin phone? OK, then buy the PinePhone with binary blobs, an outdated and underpowered Allwinner A64 SoC, and a soldered cellular modem. Are you happy now?
We seem to want the impossible, without acknowledging the necessary tradeoffs in each choice. Maybe the industry will eventually give us the parts so that is possible to make a 10 mm thick phone that runs on 100% free software, but those parts don’t exist today.
Hopefully all of us will keep these realities in mind when the Librem 5 finally arrives, and appreciate the difficult choices that the Purism engineers had to make to give us such a unique phone.
We already know what the tech reviewers will say about the Librem 5, but frankly most of the reviewers of cell phones are best ignored, because they don’t know know what is important and they don’t have the technical knowledge to appreciate the engineering challenges of the Librem 5 in either the hardware or the software.
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Thanks for the perspective summary. This goes along nicely with my long time, non use of face…k or tw.tter, g…gle, etc… I’m used to attracting attention with my choice of phones, i use a Silver BlackBerry passport with minimum side loads. Weird? Some things are worth the sacrifice. I don’t care if it’s late or later, just give me reliable hardware that i control, where i decide and that i own.
Bravo Librem5
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I agree with with many posts here : everything more than 13mm is a design risk in terms of product “image” and grip in hand.
I would even suggest (if possible of course) : 12mm thickness (as a reasonable trade-off) and start to improve the power management as soon as the SOP.
If the battery is replaceable with screws, it’s good, please just make some video tutorials and it can be OK.
I don’t know what is the simulated thickness in the below picture, but the shape is acceptable :
the new photos from the blog post and the taking-the-back-apart hands-on by CEO TW seems to suggest that the battery is somewhere between user-replaceable and hot-swapable.
has anyone a better word for it, that’s different from these two ? (to avoid confusion ?)
Todd Weaver said that he had loosened up the plastic pressure tabs by taking off the back cover multiple times, so I bet it was more difficult to open the case the first time. Also, I doubt that you would want to open it frequently, since pressure tabs can break over time.
“Hot swapable” usually implies that you don’t have to turn off the device, but this doesn’t have a bridge battery to allow that, so I think that “user replaceable” is the appropriate term, but I think that “designed for easy repair” should be added to the description.
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Guys, and girls, a have a question: What do you think about the possibilies of the extra battery size?
A long ago, i was have a Motorola Defy, and i loving it. I was have two batteries for this device, one original (slim) and a big, massive battery.
This is the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeruNqOY0RM
The Librem 5 is not a typical facebook and messenger phone, the customers (we) i think, will generate heavy load, so i think, the Librem 5 will be more power hungry than a small full-optimized android phone.
If the Librem 5 needs power, i say, give it.
The “battery backpack”, like the motorola extra battery, maybe will be good for us.
Of course, need a extra sized back panel, but this is feasible via 3D printing.
What do you think, what is the maximum acceptable size of the Librem 5, when using with a extra large battery?
What do you think, is there a real need for a larger battery?
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probably, i would say yes. the cases that it would actually benefit and those who would take advantage of it though i would say is a slim fraction of the user base
we could also use a small UPS if power demands will be so high … but i doubt that since there is so much heat you can dissipate on this phone. you will reach the thermal limit long before you can complain about the performance and energy drain.
does size matter ? 
At 15mm thick, the Librem 5 is already very thick, so I don’t think that it will be easy to hold if you add even more thickness to the device. How big are your hands?
Holding in hand shouldn’t be a problem even at twice the thickness. Operating with one hand - not so much, for two reasons: 1. thickness, 2. weight - batteries are heavy. Also it would tax those poor plastic pressure tabs.
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I know I’ve seen enough complaints elsewhere that manufacturers (other than Purism of course) keep making the phones thinner at the expense of battery capacity; I suspect most people “out there” would happily trade a couple of millimeters for a bigger battery.
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Personally I would rather have a big battery than a thin phone. My old N900 is 16mm thick (18 mm with camera) and it is very good to hold. It is a stupid trend to make the phones thinner and thinner.
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Sometimes I travel all day, and do not always have time to charge it. Also, I am using the phone more often than normal, so it drains faster. I already carry around a USB battery pack that, when placed behind the phone, is even thicker than in that video. It would be nice to have that kind of solution.
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Depends where the thickness goes. If you keep the frame same and the battery cover has bulge in in the middle with the slope , you wouldn’t feel the difference. It’s because when you wrap your hand around the phone there is a huge gap under. What matters is the frame profile, not the back.
If L5 was more popular, we would start seeing these battery packs w/ included custom covers.
Seidio was the best back then. You have HTC Evo and Galaxy Nexus in the pics. Way better design for Evo, because the original cover was clipping straight on the edges and they could just let the battery stick out. It felt just the same for single hand use
Nexus had a smaller opening for the battery and bad placement
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I love it. I want one with a small battery that is user replaceable, but a part of the case, and a second larger one that clips on and ejects out. This makes the larger battery hot swappable. The kickstand is great too.
Electrically, I am actually already doing this, but that is because my internal battery no longer holds a charge long enough for normal use, and the USB battery pack connects via USB.
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we will soon reach a point when a paper-cut becomes synonymous with smart-phone-cut … cutting-edge-smartphones
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Well there has been proposals for paper thin displays for many years already but no working solution. I would not mind to have a phone like a folded brochure - if it is working. But I’m afraid that is still quite far in the future.