Librem 5 USA - Read Before Ordering

They hadn’t started shipping in April. Once they started shipping (in June) they decided that “approximately 6 to 8 weeks” is the time anyone would have to wait independently of when they placed the order (this applies starting from June, of course).

This leads to

“Approximately 8 weeks” = 8 w ± 4 w = “At most 84 days”

So this means the information Purism has given to aipei isn’t correct, and they only have to wait until early September at most? Probably even sooner, given that they ordered in April and hence are in front of everyone who ordered in June.

Also I have absolutely no idea where that definition comes from, like I’m pretty sure, that if I were to sell someone a house and told them that it has approximately 100m² of living area, when it’s actually 100m² - 1/2 * 100m², i.e. 50m², I wouldn’t stand a chance in any legal battle.

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When aipei ordered a phone the website said “in a few months”, so it is hard to be incorrect with aipei unless their order takes one year to be shipped.

Rather, the question concerns new orders. The website gives an estimate of approximately eight weeks at most, and this is an estimate created before any phone had been shipped. I would say that we have no elements yet to judge the correctness of the estimate (which expires only today and only if you who ordered the phone exactly on 5th June or earlier, but not later), especially given that some Librem 5 USA phones did get delivered already.

My personal opinion is that Purism’s estimate is one month too optimistic. But as I said, I have not enough elements to judge at this point and the estimate was made before any phone had been delivered.

For sure I do have enough elements to judge about aipei’s shit storm at this point: not appropriate in my opinion.

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See above.

This is on a public forum.
If anything I have said is false it would take two seconds for Purism to swoop in and tell the world the guy creating a ‘shit-storm’ is lying.

Sorry to involve you @TacticalPandaLE, but you effectively strengthen my point infinitely, due to your order date.

Please advise me if you’d like me to delete this post.

@Kyle_Rankin @joao.azevedo @mladen

Is Purism planning on getting through a backlog from January 2021 to August 2021 and reaching shipping parity all within 6 - 8 weeks?

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Your good bro. To be honest, I share in your frustrations. I haven’t involved myself in threads like this because the incessant arguing gets us nowhere.

For any interested, I ordered an L5USA on Jan 28, 2021. When I ordered, it stated the same “order now, get it in a few months,” that the regular L5 showed. However, a blog post from Purism stated that shipping parity for the L5USA was expected in Feb 2021. So, I’ve been waiting 6 months now since I ordered, and 5 months longer than I expected.

In other news, I just ordered a shiny new firearm with an estimated 60-90 day lead time. @aipei care to make any wagers on what I get first? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Idk man close call, Purism’s latest post says the L5 USA is in stock with a 60 shipping day lead time so very close :wink:

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That’s the plan as long as we don’t hit any further delays or obstacles. It’s been a challenging year across the board, particularly with supply chain and shipping. You may not believe it, but we want to hit shipping parity on our products more than any customer. Based on past products, we always see some customers who will wait to order products from us until we hit shipping parity. It’s in our interest to hit shipping parity as soon as possible on all our products. Of course the shipping parity date is always somewhat of a moving target since new orders come in while we are still processing the old ones, but we are catching up.

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Then why haven’t you updated the status of the Librem 5 USA shipping status in your blog posts or shop? For example the Purism Products and Availability Chart has been saying “Librem 5 USA - In stock - Lead time: 60 days” for weeks now. This is completely misleading, given that you’re also telling costumers who ordered months back, to wait another couple of months.

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tl;dr: We try hard to make estimates accurate, we believe these lead times are accurate. Anyone who was told they needed to wait a couple more months to get a L5USA they ordered months back, was probably told in error.

I’ve elaborated on some past threads on how we approach estimates, since it comes up frequently. In case it’s interesting or helpful to folks I’ll give a longer explanation here. I’m not particularly interested in (or have the spare time for) arguing though, or answering questions posed in bad faith, so if anyone here is starting from a basis of thinking I’m lying about our intentions, and if you think we are intentionally trying to mislead people, feel free to skip the rest of my explanation.

Making lead time estimates are always challenging. We don’t want to mislead anyone. We review those numbers regularly, and whenever our current understanding of our timelines shows them to be inaccurate we update them. We want them to be as accurate as they can be based on our knowledge at a particular time because it’s important to set customer expectation, and it bothers us when a projection ends up being inaccurate. The challenge is always that it’s predicting the future based on current data, without knowing what might change the future. It’s an estimate, not a promise, and when we get the estimate wrong we can’t go back in time and change past estimates.

For instance we’ve reviewed the Librem 5 USA a few times since we’ve started shipping, and each time we’ve believed we’ll reach shipping parity within the stated lead time window, which means that new orders placed today would be fulfilled within that lead time. As we get caught up on the backlog, we’ll review that lead time and start lowering it. If we hit some minor delay, or get a surge in new orders, that ends up meaning we are keeping pace on orders, but not catching up on the new orders coming in, then that lead time tends to remain the same.

The challenge we continue to face though, is that we can’t predict future delays (or future orders), so these estimates are based on our best information at a snapshot in time. I certainly assumed we’d be far past shipping parity on the Librem 5 USA by now, if you had asked me for my best estimate when we started shipping them. Yet often when we hit some kind of delay (say a minor shipping delay on some component), resolve it, and then review our lead times, we still find that the estimate based on the standard of “when will an order placed today ship, based on the best of our knowledge” hasn’t changed, since we are estimating lead times (generally) on “weeks from the date of order” which is a moving target.

If we, instead, set hard dates (like August 2021) on lead time, which we have done sometimes in the past, we’d find ourselves having to review and change those estimates all the time, since they aren’t automatically a moving target. Then, of course, that causes some existing customers to misunderstand the lead time estimate to mean that their old order isn’t shipping until then, when the lead time on the shop is always geared toward a new order.

I don’t believe we are telling any Librem 5 USA customers that they will wait a couple more months, and if someone did get told that, it was a mistake or misunderstanding (possibly a confusion between Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA).

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I’d like to say up-front I’m not trying to give anyone a hard time. I work for a tech company that is telling customers they can get their equipment in Q1 2022 and there’s nothing we can do.

What is the most realistic lead time for the Librem 5 USA if an order was placed today?

And are folks that ordered in early June seeing phones show up 6-8 weeks later? i.e. now - late July / early August.

Thanks

My order was changed from the L5 to L5USA on June 9 and it started shipping on July 20 and arrived on July 27, so it was 6-7 weeks for me. Since I originally ordered the L5 on 2019-01-05, I was probably near the front of the queue. I have heard privately from someone who got his L5USA in early June. However, @aipei and @TacticalPandaLE say that they are still waiting, and @reC hasn’t mentioned receiving his L5USA either.

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Thank you for your response.

Ultimately, there isn’t anything here I can continue discussing.

My issue is that I don’t believe Purism aren’t updating their shipping estimates, due to individuals such as @TacticalPandaLE and myself still not receiving our Librem 5 USA’s.
However, you have reaffirmed that Purism does review the shipping dates.
There’s no way I can argue with this as I’m not privy to internal processes. While I do not believe this, my opinion is irrelevant as I cannot argue on opinion without an actual substance to the argument.

I understand @amosbatto is a unique case, as he actively contributes to the community, so I understand why he would receive it sooner as well, no argument there.

Due to this, I have no choice but to wait another two months.

So basically what is written here.

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This is surreal. The 9th week since 5th of June has not been reached yet and you wish that Purism update their shipping estimate because after 8 weeks and a couple of days you and TacticalPandaLE have not received your phone yet?

And still “in approximately 6 to 8 weeks!” is an update from the previous “in a few months!” that you found on their website when you bought your phone: so they did actually update their shipping estimates… just… 8 weeks ago (!).

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I’m not repeating this argument with you. Scroll up for my responses.

I’ll respond in two months or prior, if I recieve my device.

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aipei - I understand your frustration, but from my perspective, a person who ordered a phone a few years ago, their Evergreen mass-production phone just isn’t ready for quick shipping due to problems that you can read about in other posts.

The phone has charging issues, WiFi connection issues and from my opinion (let the hate replies begin), they are focused on Linux users that can forgive such issues and use this more for a science project rather than a daily phone.

My hope is to get it before year’s end, but I’m not pushing because I’d like as many problems ironed out as possible before I get mine. I use Linux on my laptop and workstation, and thought that a smartphone would be a great thing. I’ve got enough time to learn how to overcome the issues that are usually mentioned in the L5 forum and hopefully it will be more than an interesting paperweight. At least I’m looking forward to trying to use it to replace my iPhone. :smiley:

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I too, am on same boat. I use Linux as my primary OS. Don’t mind issues that Librem 5 would bring in.

And as you stated, with that very hope, I too, am patiently clinging to my already aged iPhone 5s. :smile: