Librem 5 received and inital reaction

I’ve immediately run into a bigger problem. So I let the battery run out last night because I didn’t know that I need to turn it off after use. OK, I’ll learn. I plugged it into the charger earlier today. The red light came on. I walked away. I went back an hour or so later and there is no light on (no green, red or any other light). I pressed the upper button for 2 seconds. I pressed the upper button for 10 seconds. Nothing. So I plugged it back in and the red light came on. I walked away and came back two hours later. Same thing. It appears to be bricked. Suggestions?

I suggest taking out the battery for a few seconds, then re-inserting. When I had first got mine, I let the battery drain fully one night, then had a similar issue, if I recall. Removing and re-inserting the battery brought it back to normal.

Anything to add, @dos?

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That worked. Phone turned on automatically when I re-inserted the battery which was at 100%.

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Your L5 USA is come with Amber or Byzantium? because Librem 5 Byzantium has huge improvements and work really nice to be ready a daily driver, except the battery performance, but Purism is doing nice work to improvements L5 every day.

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I believe we’re still shipping with amber-phone, but that should change very very soon now.

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For the reference, when the phone locks up for whatever reason, long power button press should always be able to get it back to life (provided that the battery isn’t fully depleted). There are two kinds of long-presses though:

  • a 5 second power button press should turn it off, and then another press should turn it on again - this however assumes that the PMIC still cooperates; if it locks up in some weird state, this may fail
  • a 15-20 second power button press with USB unplugged (important!) should always work and turn the phone back on. This cuts the battery power from the rest of the phone for a short moment, making sure that it fully restarts. This doesn’t work with USB plugged in, as then the power is still provided by USB even when the battery is cut out, so nothing gets restarted

Ideally, the second kind wouldn’t ever be needed - but we’re still in a state where bugs happen and the first one may fail, so it’s good to know that both kinds exist.

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Thanks for the review @DonWills,
Overall, how is the speed/responsiveness?

I’m looking for a reliable linux phone.
I have a couple PinePhones, my chief complaint is most apps have a very sluggish response, often to the point of non-usability.

Was hoping he L5 is snappier?

~G

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My very early (less than 2 hours of use) experience is that responsiveness is good. But I’ve not played any games or done anything other than browse a few web pages and do some stuff in the terminal console app.

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Great update! this sounds encouraging.
So the issue I’m having on Pinephone, you will notice it right away.
Thanks!
~G

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so lucky! i ordered it 3 years ago and i am still waiting :worried:

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Which games? I mean, is anyone really playing TuxCart? :slight_smile:

The Chess app works nicely on the L5. (GNOME Chess)

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And AisleRiot (Solitaire) and Reversi. :slightly_smiling_face:

You are talking about regular L5 I guess. L5 USA wasn’t yet offered 3 years ago, was it?

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With a global chip shortage resulting from a perfect storm of things in the silicon industry:


I feel lucky to receive any electronics that I order at this point of time :wink:
It must be 2x as hard to build a USA supply chained sourced anything these last 2 years.

Thanks. Surprisingly difficult to find…

Thanks @amarok. I’m waiting for approval for my registration. Just mentioning that in case you are in the community there. Either way, helpful info indeed.

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Also -my 2 cents, I think the Librem is snappier then the Pinephone but I am having some issues out of the box that I am dealing with that are out of my wheelhouse. Mainly the bluetooth. My wifi takes some time to connect but other than those two things(the bluetooth is really a buzzkill) yea its at the very least snappier. And of the kill switches are obviously easier to get to hehe.

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great to know! I’d love to replace my daily driver with a fast/reliable linux phone. Thanks for the impressions!

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I don’t think you need registration to view the Wiki. Sure, if you want to contribute new content to it then you will need registration.

Are you trying on the 5 GHz band or the 2.4 GHz band? The signal will be stronger on the latter and so that may be preferable for an easier life (unless you have a really fast internet connection). Traveling Experiences

Bluetooth worked out of the box for me - although what types of device you can actually pair with is hit-and-miss at the moment i.e. some profiles not supported. Keyboard worked for me but I believe that car or headset are not currently supported.

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