Mainstream Librem 5 video from Mrwhosetheboss

Librem Phones (Librem 5)
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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSudn0qB6u0

Invidious link: https://invidious.site/watch?v=GSudn0qB6u0

Was this a review copy or is he an early backer? He also mentions de-googled Android as well as /e/os.

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He misspells his own moniker. Lol!
(Who’s)

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Pretty good report overall.

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This was a review version. Given his mainstream phone perspective I thought it was a good and fair review. Ultimately his pessimism is more a pessimism in humanity than the Librem 5 or the FOSS ecosystem itself, as he thinks Big Tech is just too entrenched for people to move to an alternative.

I can see where he’s coming from but obviously we don’t share that pessimism or else we wouldn’t have started this project. There is still plenty of work for all of us (including you here in the forum!) to do, to help with the large task of making the remaining Linux desktop apps adaptive, and slowly ticking off the checkboxes each individual has that prevents the Librem 5 from being their “daily driver”.

That’s a large part of what is behind the Fund Your App campaign–we recognize that the current state of the Librem 5 base software stack is not enough to make it a daily driver for a lot of use cases, so with Fund Your App we get a better sense of what we can focus on next, to help make it a daily driver for more people.

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It was not the fanboy style (yes, I’m looking at you Gardiner)
It was not a shit-all-over-the-high-price-bad-phone (like some other youtubers I won’t name)
It seems to me very neutral, with some jokes, pros and cons, and he took time to explain the current state of smartphones market and the ‘why’ behind the phone
Very nice review much more aimed to a non-technical audience, that’s the Mr boss of all the review I saw about the L5 :wink:

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Thanks for the clarity Kyle! I agree on all your points, it’s entirely doable to leave the “app” ecosystem and change habits but it’s harder if you’re not already interested in FOSS and/or privacy at some level imo.

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Agreed! It wasnt what I was expecting, and was surprised that he took the time to showcase (and enjoy) a few other OS variants too.

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I also appreciate that he took the time to explain some of the nuance behind why a lot of smartphones are so cheap–that the hardware cost is subsidized through other means either by capturing/selling user data, or pre-installing software that does it.

While he didn’t mention the other reason–that locked phones are significantly cheaper than unlocked ones because the carrier makes up that cost over the term of your contract–I imagine that’s because he assumed his viewers were already aware of that phenomenon.

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Wow. At least he knows what he’s talking about.
500k views is also not too shabby :sunglasses:

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I didn’t get it at first read … because in my country, phones are not locked to one carrier anymore since at least 15 years
I don’t know where he is located, but maybe locked phones are not common in his country too

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Could you guys consider adding MMS support as an option on this page? I know a lot of people here (especially Europeans) don’t use MMS at all, but it’s a big part of my texting life.
I can even life without for personal use for a while, but my boss likes to send us all group messages and so due to that, I can’t fully move away from my Android until Chatty/mmsd/ModemManager/whatever are all working to handle MMS.

I am aware that there has been some progress on this issue lately by some community members, but if this shows up in FYA I’ll happily vote for it and throw a few bucks in it’s direction.

Now, to keep this comment on-topic for this thread…
When he started with the phrase “something called ‘Linux’”, I assumed the worst and that he wouldn’t understand the point of this phone. Very happy to be wrong there, it’s good to see something “mainstream” understand what was going into this phone.

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Sure! Check back in a day or so.

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hah im watching it right now

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Incidentally, the degoogled /e/ OS that he gives a shout out to in the end is what I have on my daily driver right now. I’ve been using it for over 18 months and it works well. It’s honestly not much easier to install than LineageOS + microG on most phones, but they’re selling it preinstalled on Fairphone 3 and refurbished Samsung Galaxy, so could be a contender in the Android world. They’ve lasted longer than I thought, anyway!

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If Fairphone 3 worked in the USA better that was my plan for my next device, glad it (and /e/) are working well for you!

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I like how he eluded to the fact millenials and younger for the most part are slaves too concerned with being a slave to ever care enough about privacy to own a librem 5 lol

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Holy cow!

I audibly said “Whaaaaa!!!” as soon as I saw that thumbnail with the Librem 5 in it, and immediately went here to see if the forums got the news yet.

I did NOT expect to see an actually good phone from one of the YouTubers who review lots of phones that are very beautiful and pretty as well as powerful but too locked down to be a good option for me. I never expected them to review a phone I would actually consider buying, and, indeed, asked for and got (although I’m still waiting for it to arrive) for my birthday in 2019. This is… very interesting and good news =(^ヮ^)= . This should get the Librem 5 in front of a LOT of people who might have not known about it before.

Haven’t watched the video yet, but this is my reaction right after seeing it exists!

I guess today is a good day =(´• ω •`)= .

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After watching it, I would say it describes the situation pretty well too! My only objection is 9:51, where it says the younger generation born after 2000 isn’t likely to jump ship, due to not caring so much about privacy. I was born in 2001, and am switching to a Librem 5, because of the better convergence, dream of an open source phone, more durability, a removable battery, an SD card slot for more storage, etc, in addition to the extra privacy. So, at least one person in the younger generation is willing to jump ship to a large enough extent to use the Librem 5 as their main phone.

The only proprietary apps I am really concerned about are Discord and Google Authenticator (which I use to log in to Discord), because the network effect has somewhat forced me on to that platform. And… perhaps a few miscellaneous things like the Sonos app because family has an annoying “smart” speaker. But, pretty much every other important app I rely on is already free and open source, or has a web client (and, in fact, even Discord has a web client). My most used apps are probably RedReader, Waterfox, and OI Notepad, all of which are FOSS, as well as Termux for some of my favourite command line software, which native Linux does better anyway. I plan on keeping my OnePlus One around for a while for all the things which might need it, but switching to my Librem 5 as a primary mobile computing device, as most things I do should be able to work fine there, or even better, in the case of all my favourite Linux command line and desktop software.

I mean, whenever I look for new apps I’m already immediately checking F-Droid first, and usually ignoring the Play Store unless it is absolutely necessary. So, the Librem 5 isn’t as big of a leap for me as it might be for some others. My main concern is those free/open source apps that might not have good equivalents yet in normal Linux, like RedReader, not proprietary apps like Instagram which were too proprietary for me to start using in any significant fashion in the first place.

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Also, it was not a hands-on experience review and that’s a good thing for now.

He limited himself to present the Librem 5 and the concepts around it (privacy /free software/hardware) and did a good job at it.

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He did said the phone costs $800 instead of $799, how dare him :wink: ?

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