Well… I was joking, but in reality, woodfibers are used to do amazing stuff (one article), like bottles. But, yes, a hardwood case would look and feel nice too.
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Oh I knew you were joking, but I love things made of wood and it certainly would be unique. Maybe someone with their Librem will craft a wooden case…lol.
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I stand (gladly) corrected. As per an email from customer support, both the milled and molded cases will be of metal.
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That’s great news! Did they mention if this will be updated in the FAQ and shipping article?
I’ve got an E-Mail over night asking which batch I want to be in.
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I didn’t see any promises to update the FAQ or other articles. This is the entirety of my communication (below, blue highlight is Mladen’s response). I generally find that shorter, more direct and relevant questions are answered, whereas more open-ended and peripheral questions are not. I imagine this has to do with the workload of the Purism personnel, and the number of info@purism requests they get.
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the poor WiFi performance of the laptops has more to do with the used chip than the antennas. You can replace the WiFi chip btw (M2).
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It is not clear what you mean by chip replacement as in M2. Can we buy from pur.ism and self install?
Yes , the cellular baseband modem as well as the wifi card ( or so it seems from the assembled soc pictures ) too is user replaceable as per M.2 modular slots .
I only recently learned the wifi module was also M.2 but I guess thats how they got a hardware switch on it .
I’m not sure if Purism itself will be the ones responsible for selling these items however or if we’re going to have to source these parts on our own .
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Thanks. But what are the advantages of the molded case vs. the milled case if both is metal? Is the molded case thinner, smoother, whatsoever?
Creating a mold is a nontrivial process (AFAIK)
Some related info on molds: Librem5 silicone cover
Apparently it not only takes a long time but also a lot of money to create the mold.
But once the mold exists, it is cheaper (per piece) to produce molded cases than to produce milled cases.
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Will likely be smoother. If the milling process is high quality, you’re talking visible, but not meaningful difference. The big thing is the milling process is better able to adapt, and faster to develop. It’s also more expensive per unit to produce. Assuming they’re doing injection molding, the mold has to be manufactured to exact specification, which can take a while, and can’t then be further tweaked without lots of expense.
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Ok, thanks. So no meaningful difference for the customer… I balance between Dogwood and Evergreen.
The bad Wi-Fi and lack of Bluetooth in the Librem 13/15 is caused by the Atheros chip, but the Librem 5 is using a Redpine Signals chip, so in theory we won’t see the same problems (although we might get different problems 
).
Think Penguin has managed to get decent Wi-Fi with an Atheros chip and a free driver, but I’m not sure how Think Penguin did it.
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I wonder if Purism will release the STL files for the back case to try reproduce it in plastic with a 3D printer!
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From https://puri.sm/faq/ :
Will this be an “open hardware” design?
Our intention is to have everything freed down to the schematic level, but have not cleared all design, patents, legal, and contractual details. We will continue to advance toward this goal as it aligns with our long-term beliefs.
It does not answer your question exactly but I guess this may mean they will free the case as well.
This may also be interesting: Phone Case for Librem 5! Who could make a great case?
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Yeah, I read that actually… But I have bad experience the last time a company declared to open source their OS, I am referring to Jolla with SailfishOS, they never did. Hopefully Purism is different
They are different already, you cannot find silica or kernel components on jolla’s gitlab, while libhandy is an upstream widget library and kernel is here along with other phone software components. More importantly they are mainlining their changes.
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Having done a small electronics run myself, I suspect the really don’t know how long many things will take. So rather than trot some schedule out which will almost certainly not be right, I think they choose to just put these out as fast as they can. … I liken it to the old difference between the 8080 and the Z80 CPUs. The 8080 was internally fully synchronized to the clock and the Z80 was quicker but less predictable because it proceeded as fast as it could rather than on a fixed schedule.
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