The “Lead Time” for Librem 5 in the Purism Products and Availability Chart at https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/#availability has been 52 weeks for a long time, but recently it was changed down to 20 weeks. (Purism apparently forgot to update the “updated on September 2, 2022” at the bottom of the page.)
I just checked using the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/ that the change seems to have happened between May 15 and May 18, so it was no more than one week ago.
Moving 20 weeks ahead from May 18 we arrive at October 5, 2023. I guess this means that, according to Purism’s most recent estimate, by October 5, 2023, the whole remaining queue of Librem 5 orders should have been cleared and after that any new orders should ship within 10 days.
What do you think, will it happen, or is Purism again being too optimistic?
It means that the estimate is now 20 weeks for orders placed now, and depending on the rate of orders going forward that will affect how quickly that gap closes.
Generally I would use a 1.5x estimate for something like that so 20 week lead time now I would estimate in 30 weeks to get the lead time to 10 days. But that is a very generalized estimate process and not one I would estimate based on Purisms past performance with estimates, it’s really just to provide some context for why a 20 week lead time does not mean 20 weeks to cleared backlog while taking on new orders.
I do agree that it means Purism estimates having all of the orders through today cleared out in 20 weeks from today, but the orders over the next 20 weeks aren’t included in that time period they’ll be included in the estimates available at the time of their purchase.
Purism has publicly stated that by June 30, 2023 the whole remaining queue of Librem 5 orders (the backorders) should have been cleared.
Technically speaking that is exactly not what they are saying. They are saying “lead time 20 weeks” and until such time as they change that to the standard “lead time 10 days”, the lead time isn’t 10 days. And I would imagine that this is 10 business days, so basically “2 weeks”.
However informally Purism has also stated that once the backorders are cleared they intend to carry stock of the Librem 5, which should mean that an individual order in isolation for the Librem 5 would indeed have a lead time of 10 days and Purism could update the “Availability Chart”.
I always took “10 days” as “10 business days”, which is the same as “2 weeks” anyway.
If that’s correct then “2 weeks” was actually clearer.
I’m sure Purism has more important things to focus on but if they are going to write “days” then they should make clear, if only by footnote, whether that is “business days” or “calendar days”. (For me personally it won’t matter anyway since it will take many more weeks to: get to this country, get through Customs, get to me …)
