Librem 5 Video Reviews UK

Many fora explicitly identify employees, or more generally the role that a person is playing. Has Purism consciously chosen not to do that? The Discourse forum software appears to have the functionality.

Anyway I regularly comment that I do not speak for Purism just in case someone mistakes my feral opinions for company policy :slight_smile: and if I had a phone, I would be more than happy to provide independent measurements of standby time etc.

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@Caliga, you big brain :brain: :grinning: True about the delay, but it’s still “originally planned” vs. “how long will the delay eventually be”. And how long it takes for someone with interest in videos to get one and make an attenboroughish or mythbusterish (or michaelbayish) documentary. I’d bet on the glimpse as well.

And, like @Kieran said, at the moment such a [battery depletion] video just might have an audience (even if I too like the graph). I mean, we have plenty of time to verify the graph data now :slight_smile:

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And please if you grab that video leave the clock on the screen somewhere so that noone can discuss that purism stretched the time or something ^^

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maybe also open up the fragments app and pirate a few AVs so that we can complain about the battery and heat build-up :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Hey FamousJameous,

If the chestnut is making and recieving calls just fine, it mkaes me wonder why no one else with a chestnut has put a video up of it making calls?

I love Purism, and I’m making the move from Windows to Linux, and love the whole community, so I really want the Librem 5 to work out, however, there seems next to no real reviews and footage anywhere?

Hey Caliga,

I hope the calls are working and you make some great points, but again, if calls are working why is there no videos anywhere online?

Employees or equivalent in this forum usually have little badges or shields next to their names.

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That is a good question. I can only speculate, but here are some guesses.

I expect that a lot of people that got the Chestnut are not the video posting types. I know HackersGame at least had one and made videos about it on his channel and then later on Purism’s channel. He mentioned that calls (https://youtu.be/eOVJ7eOHY2c?t=38) worked but said they were “spotty”. I haven’t experienced anything I would call spotty, but I haven’t made a huge number of calls.

I don’t know how many Chestnuts went out and as far as I know, only HackersGame is really officially reviewing the L5. I don’t know if anyone else was given a phone in order to review it. It may just be that the type of person buying the L5 is not the type of person to post public reviews. I certainly fall into that category. It is also possible that Purism doesn’t want to show pre-production hardware/software for a feature as important for the phone as calling. Especially if it is not 100% reliable as HackersGame mentioned in his video.

But again, I am not associated with Purism at all so I can only speculate as to the reasons.

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AS I recall, merely about half a dozen people have even written about their experience. It’s plausible to me that none of them is the kind of guy to film themselves making a call. I would’t.
Also, what’s the point? Those who question written accounts (even though they are not full of praise) would also question videos (looks fake!1!!1!!!).
Obviously, if it would’t work, we would read a lot of complaints.
The real question is not whether it works, but how well. And not only might that depend on the provider/region/band/modem selection (meaning that you could get a variety of results), it is likely also improving every other week.
From a marketing perspective, I’d rather have such a demo video or independent review close to the big launch, when the quality is close to perfect.
Take the pinch-to-zoom example. Instead of appreciating the huge progress, some people just see “still not good enough”. You don’t want that to happen to the key functionality. You don’t want them to bad mouth it. You would like leave as little room for criticism as possible.

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Thinking ahead… I suppose some kind of coordinated (community) effort is needed to provide test data and that could be planned in advance. A single video (or even few of varying levels), although nice, would not give an accurate picture of what confidence to have that L5 works somewhere. A systematic approach would also help in improvements, effective diagnosis and fixes.

Just at the top of my head,

  1. What details should be logged (what’s needed and meaningful): at least test location, time, HW version, SW version, modem version, network name and possibly tower details, channels… and something else? Some level of identification of user or device (to separate disinformation but more for updating old info as fixes come)?

  2. What is the test protocol and gathering procedure: call to any number/network or several? Length and timing of calls? Separate data transfer test (how and why)? Level of audio quality measured (how)? Do distance and line of sight matter (also thinking ease of testing vs. level of details)? Anything else needed for general/local troubleshooting? Good instructions are needed for the data to gathered similarly enough.

  3. Global geography and making information visual and useable: as in A) “where”, which is how normal people/customers think, and B) “whose networks”, which is info tech people need. Which leads me to hope for two things:

  • a map view for a quick overview: colors (“not tested/know”, “no working found”, “only one working”, “several tested networks work” or similar) and possibly other information (which modem is used/suggested, level of translations, available keyboards, suggested networks etc.)
  • a list view for details: grouping sorted by country and network at least, maybe by area/city too
  1. What kind of tools can be used to collect and disseminate the data? A net form probably? Where would that be - a separate website and/or an app for the phone (semi-automated, could someone make one)? An automated telemetry would not seem to be an option (sec&privacy) and there is some data that can’t be gotten that way. The data list can be put to wiki, most likely. Can existing network and mast datasets be used with this (may not need to)? List and map can be updated by hand, if it doesn’t need to be updated too often - is couple of days a week or month enough (probably more often at first and less later)? There’s probably a spike after every update (thinking about amount of work).

Or how should this be approached - if at all? I was also thinking that similar challenges may come with other new (linux) phones and same could be applied there (a joint effort). Does anyone (with time and a need for a project) have experience setting up forms and databases and mapviews?

If anyone has good ideas and interest regarding this, we may have to set up a separate thread and not hijack this one…

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The shield (in your case at least) seems to mean “This user is a moderator”. That would make it an assumption that only employees can be moderators.

Anyway, it’s not a big deal for me. However transparency about who is and who is not speaking for Purism would avoid allegations such as above that a post is company propaganda when it isn’t.

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Besides the badge on the profile, if you press the avatar, there is also the job description.

When you press an avatar you can see the person’s job description.

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In the spirit of corporate identity (just because that seems to be a better justification than “I would fancy that”), wouldn’t it be nice if y’all used your nice hand-drawn avatars, as some already do? :grin:

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In the spirit of rampant digression, possibly only those staff physically based in CA had those avatars created.

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No. But all the “newbees” don’t seem to have one yet.

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Well, this conversation thread took a left turn… :slight_smile:

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I have a hand-drawn one but I don’t really like it. It’s a matter of taste, I suppose.

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Yes. It is linked to above by @Caliga. You can thank him/her later. :slight_smile:

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Thank you all for putting up your posts & thoughts

There have been some great posts, but for the vast majority of people out there, until there are some at length reviews, conducted both inside and outside the US, with people making and recieving calls, among other things, then people wll continute to wonder if the Librem 5 actually works.

I believe what people on here have said, I really want the Librem 5 and all Librem projects to succeed, but more needs to happen in terms of visable reviews.

Thanks again.

LinuxNew

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In case you didn’t see it.

This video shows quite a bit about the phone. This video matches my experience with the phone. This isn’t a review by an external user, but it is something.

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