What from here: https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-shipping-announcement/ indicates to the average Joe that evergreen is not the final production product that was previously (and I’m nearly certain still is) advertised to them as being intended for them?
Edit: yep, pretty unambiguous that this is intended for the average Joe.
This device is for anybody and everybody interested in protecting his/her data, communicating privately to your loved ones, or supporting a future of protecting your digital rights."
Also no, everyone did not get to choose the batch they wanted, they got to submit a preference and the overwhelming majority never had an option other than Evergreen/Fir even if they wanted Aspen - Dogwood.
My prediction is that we will see a “Fir” batch after Purism finishes delivering all its Evergreen pre-orders, but it will just be the current design based on the i.MX 8M Quad with the RAM increased from 3GB to 4GB and the eMMC increased from 32GB to 128GB and a few other minor tweaks.
I say this because the 14nm i.MX 8M Plus doesn’t support DisplayPort, which is essential for outputting video to an external monitor, and has a worse GPU and VPU performance than the 28nm i.MX 8M Quad, so the Plus would be a downgrade. NXP still hasn’t released a quad-core SoC for the i.MX 9 series which can match the i.MX 8M Quad and it will probably be years before a new i.MX 9 SoC is adequately supported by mainline Linux. After investing so much dev work into the current design, I really doubt that Purism is going to switch to another chip like the Rockchip RK3566. It wouldn’t want to use the same SoC as the PinePhone 2, because Purism can’t compete with PINE64 on price.
So they shouldn’t have picked A-D because there might be hardware changes before “prime time” production. And they shouldn’t have picked E because its not ready for the average person even though it was and still is marketed as being for the average person.
Opting out of A-D doesn’t really address the second issue raised, that even if opting for Evergreen the phone is in development but is not marketed as such.
Issue 1 was selling prototype hardware.
Issue 2 was that currently
That’s exactly what it is. If you are crazy enough to order something unknown you are not the “Average Joe”.
Even now, after delivery, as I still cannot make a phone call (L5 hangs up immediately: “call ended”). I’m happy with my L5 and hope for next updates… I love the way to the current product, with all the discussions en progress, etc.: the path to the goal is more important then the arrival.
It is not crazy to order something unknown, people do this all the time, new companies and products come out all of the time…
Absolutely the average person orders things they’ve not encountered before based on marketing… otherwise marketing wouldn’t be seen as profitable. The whole concept of “surveillance capitalism” is that the average person will spend money based on marketing.
It is the uncommon thing for people to dig into forums to find out about product details, those of us that do this digging are the exception not the rule.
And the concept of “buyer beware” or “caveat emptor” is generally paired with disclosure requirements for given products/markets imposed by regulations that stem from the average person being exploited as the average person is expected to be able to rely on accurate product information from the manufacturer/seller.
I’m not sure what hindsight you could be referring to here beyond the hindsight that the librem 5 was not as ready as it was marketed to be? Except Purism would have been well aware of that… this isn’t about production delays/challenges/etc. This is primarily software that is still not as far along as the marketing suggests. If they had shipped on their original timeline the software would have been even further behind and even less ready for the average person to use.
I mean that at the time people were given the choice of which batch they wanted their phone to come from, it was reasonable to expect that “not Evergreen” was a development batch and “Evergreen” would be the production batch, and in that way the choice was given to customers to opt-out of a development phone and have a production phone. I think we’ve deviated pretty far from the point I was trying to make, though, because now I can’t remember why I was bringing that up in the first place.
On paper, the i.MX 8M Plus has 20% better CPU performance than the Quad (1.8 vs 1.5 GHz), but the Plus has half the GPU performance of the Quad (compare the Vivante GC7000Lite vs GC7000UltraLite). The Quad’s max video hardware decoding is 4K@60 HDR whereas the Plus only supports 1080p@60. The only benchmark that I can find is Geekbench 4 SGEMM (floating point performance in GFLOPS), where the Quad scored 12.0 and the Plus scored 14.0 (which is 16.7% better).
Yes, Purism could make a phone based on the i.MX 8M Plus, but it would have to add a HDMI-to-DisplayPort converter chip so it can output DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB-C or make a phone that doesn’t support video out. The Plus has a bunch of new components (neural processing unit, image signal processor, digital signal processor, advanced 3D audio and hardware video encoding), that will require new drivers, which is why I don’t think that Purism will bother with the Plus, because it will require a lot of work for questionable benefits, so I think that Purism will decide to wait for a future i.MX 9 processor where the extra dev work is justified.
IMO, this is not some usual issue with the Librem 5 (as calls should work right away), therefore I would replace SIM card if your current one years old. Get brand new SIM card from the same provider, with the same number. Such SIM card replacement might change things positively (at least to be tried if helps) as soon as replacement done (preferably without battery inserted).
I replaced mine approximately year ago and no issues since then with my Linux phone.
If you read the complete page you will see also the following text:
the LS1028A module consumes around 30% more power than the default i.MX8MQ module and also generates more heat when the CPUs are under load
30% higher power consumption meaning a battery that dies faster plus more heat is a no go for the Librem 5.
I think this was the same story with many other components. There might be better performing alternative LTE modems or better performing WiFi cards. But most are designed for devices that receive tons of power and cooling and are not suitable for a mobile phone.
The Librem 5 couldn’t be picked picked off the shelf at Best Buy or Fry’s, or found by searching New Egg – it requires word of mouth or a specific search for a FLOSS Linux phone. IOW, you had to be a Linux nerd or a wannabe. Wannabes should be careful!
The L5 is 99% complete, with respect to hardware, lacking only some GPS antenna and/or shielding placement. Software is another thing, but as a bona fide nerd who reads the forums before he buys, I’m confident it will work out to my satisfaction.