OK, here are photos and my thoughts about the Librem 5 USA:
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Holy shit. Your dad does great product demos. Your heart just bleeds listening to him.
You need to figure out how to get your dad to do product demos. You know that 7 year old doing toy reviews making millions? Get your dad to do something similar with products that interest him.
He could be making majour bucks.
Advertisers will flock to him because there is NO ONE targeting his demo and his demo has money.
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As an aside, I loved the CHONK of the phone. All the kids I’ve seem comment on it comment on its morbid chonkyness. I gotta tell ya, that looks like it will feel like a real phone.
All of this slim nonsense is for fools that have no clue about what a tool needs to feel like.
I also love how the back comes off and everything is easy to unscrew and take apart. That is awesome.
Your blog post is as excellent as all of your posts here. Really great detail and a great way to put perspective on the marketplace and where the L5 fits.
Maybe he already is … 
This could be better worded:
The left side of the phone also contains the dual SIM card and microSD card tray.
Sounds like the phone is dual SIM.
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These the points you are looking for?
Thanks. I removed the word “dual” to avoid any confusion.
I updated the article with the image of the test points from @dos. Looking at the schematics, we can now figure out what each test point does.
Ha ha! My dad is the worst salesman, since he is too honest to not tell you about a product’s flaws, but he does have the right voice for it.
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Looking at the schematics, the points TP12, TP28, TP34 and TP501 expose a USB bus (running at USB 2.0 speed) connected to the i.MX 8M Quad processor, so they open up the possibility of adding mods to the phone.
Those are test points, so using them for extensions would be rather annoying. For adding mods to the phone, you’ll be much more interested in the extension connector right below the ball grid, which exposes I2C (and bunch of other things, see the schematics for details).
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Update:
I’ve now been told by October, on the 31st of July.
This is after being told by August, on the 4th of June.
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Hey mate, have you received any update?
No sir! Not a word.
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I’m starting to wonder.
I was originally slated to be in Batch Dogwood. EDIT for clarity: I then switched over to L5 USA.
One would think I’d have my phone by now, especially since Amosbatto’s has shipped.
On emailing, I was told “2 months” and I then asked if I had priority as a preorder.
I was told, yes, I have priority as a preorder.
I just went and looked at the page for people wanting to buy the phone (I was not logged in to the site), and it says “6-8 weeks.” this is for people ordering RIGHT NOW.
So what the heck is going on?
Yes, in theory, for the USA orders anyways. Purism has previously stated that the 6-8 week time frame was for brand new orders (once the pre-orders have been filled). Implications being that all pre-orders should be fulfilled within 6-8 weeks as well.
However, Purism put that 6-8 week timeframe up beginning of June, so that information can not be considered accurate since we’re now sitting at around week 12-13 of that last update.
“One would think I’d have my phone by now, especially since Amosbatto’s has shipped.”
Per his prior postings, he has an L5 USA, not an L5.
Oh, I wasn’t clear. I’m talking about an L5 USA. Went back and clarified in my original comment.
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“Yes, in theory, for the USA orders anyways. Purism has previously stated that the 6-8 week time frame was for brand new orders (once the pre-orders have been filled). Implications being that all pre-orders should be fulfilled within 6-8 weeks as well.”
That’s the point. I am a preorder (for L5 USA) and I was just told “eight weeks.” I’m no better off than someone ordering it today, apparently.
The only thing I can think of that’s consistent with this (assuming it’s all true, not out of date, etc), is that NO preorder is going to ship until eight weeks from now (and there aren’t that many of them). After the handful of preorders, they’ve reached shipping priority and on almost the same day they can ship new orders.
If that was the case, we’d all have our phones by now. The 6-8 week estimate didn’t start today. That estimate was given to us back in June, which means all the preorders should have been shipped by mid July. Obviously that didn’t happen, so we can assume the 6-8 week estimate is neither accurate nor current.
We’ve seen 2-3 members here receive their phones, but not many. Who knows how many USA pre orders they have to go through and how many are currently in the wild.
I was assuming the web page and my e-mail were both current as of today so I was thinking they’re running into some sort of problem. They hope to have it resolved in eight weeks; then the small list of preorders (it’s an expensive device, so not many will have bought one)…then off to the new orders.
Regardless, there’s a lot we don’t know; I’m speculating about the “problem” of course. What I do know is that based on what they are telling us right now, the fact I am a pre-order makes not one whit of difference.
I think we’re all still considered pre orders at this point. Though if you are an early backer that upgraded to the USA, they should, if I understand correctly, be using your original L5 order date to determine where you sit in the line. I seriously doubt they will suddenly ship all preorders at the same time, so I expect you will get your L5 way before me.
But I think it’s impossible to put any stock in the shipping estimates right now because Purism keeps moving the goal post back for unknown reasons. They’ve previously stated that they had all the necessary parts to fulfill all L5USA preorders, so I don’t undsand what the hold up is or why they are moving so slow.
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“I think we’re all still considered pre orders at this point.”
If so then putting a bold claim on their front page that it’s “now shipping” doesn’t mean what any reasonable person would think it means, i.e., that orders placed today aren’t pre-orders.
“Though if you are an early backer that upgraded to the USA, they should, if I understand correctly, be using your original L5 order date to determine where you sit in the line.”
That is my understanding as well.
“I seriously doubt they will suddenly ship all preorders at the same time, so I expect you will get your L5 way before me.”
I was speculating that there were, perhaps, only a handful of preorders for this, given its price. That really would allow them to ship them all at once (or at least within days of each other), once they have all the parts they need.
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