Librem 5 is now $999 (a $300 Savings)! Due primarily to the overwhelming demand for the Librem 5, we were able to lower our component costs and are now able to pass that savings onto new customers.
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Usually companies maintain the inflated costs even after component costs get reduced. Happy to see this development! I am assuming this decision was made after observing a consistent pattern with the cost of the components rather than a hasty decision. 
I do hope the refurbished Librem 5s also have their price reduced because they cost the same as a new one right now.
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Check again 
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Glad to see the price reduction. I hope that a 25% reduction in price will get more people to consider buying the phone.
Another thing that would help attract more customers is upgrading the model to 4GB RAM and 128GB eMMC to keep pace with current tech. According to Phone Scoop’s phone finder, the average phone has 5.5GB RAM and 110.7GB of storage. The Hindustan Time’s mobile phone finder shows that only 28 of the 540 smartphones released in 2023 have 32GB or less of storage, which means that the Librem 5 is in the bottom 5.2% of smartphone models.
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Sure, but I do not think specifications matter all too much with PureOS; challenging the perverse narrative in the consumer market is a far more worthy pursuit.
The crucial point is that Purism is marketing the L5 as a convergence device, and it is hard to sell the device that way when it has so little RAM and storage for a desktop computer. A 128GB eMMC chip should only cost Purism about $16 , compared to $8 for a 32GB eMMC. Keeping the same specs in 2023 as 2017 doesn’t make much sense considering how cheap those components have become.
Most people are going to balk at the idea of paying $1000 for a phone, but it is an easier sell if it is a phone that can do double duty as a convergent PC. For $10-$15 more in components, Purism can reach a larger market of customers.
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I agree, but there is a microSD slot available for expandable storage, and convergence with the Librem 5 makes more sense if your needs are modest; otherwise the Librem 11 is the better option for that purpose at the same price: it has 8 GB of LPDDR4; a 1 TB Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive; with a microSD slot for expandable storage; at the cost of cellular connectivity.
Over here in Canada, phones are usually financed monthly over a 24-month contract along with the phone plan, which is how most consumers justify purchasing phones over $1,000; only a small percentage pay the full retail price of the phone outright. I am confident that if Purism followed a similar model, there will be greater mass adoption since it will become more financially accessible and justifiable to consumers.
I am not in a position to argue if upgrading components is as straight-forward as it seems on the manufacturing side - I am more grateful that we have a solid option to boycott the Android and iOS duopoly.
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I guess being under $1000 for the Librem 5 allows for a $1199 premium model that has the upgraded RAM and storage specs (purely speculatively).
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Where did you find information about refurbished Librem 5s?
And hopefully an upgrade kit for existing owners! IMO that would be a nice way to show an advantage of the L5 (Pine64 did something similar early on in the original Pinephone’s life… though it doesn’t seem like they’re continuing on that path haha)
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That’s actually an interesting idea… There isn’t anything else to replace than the motherboard, which has the memories. All the other parts should be the same. Many users could do the swap themselves. Cost might still be a couple of hundred (not cheap), but still far less than a new phone - maybe about the same as the difference between the two models. I wonder if that will be offered as an option at some point…?
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Sometimes Purism adds items to their shop without a formal announcement.
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Looks like they finally added product images to everything too.
Well that would be nice but both would be soldered on - so no easy upgrade path.
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The whole mainboard could be swapped out though right? That’s what I did with my PinePhone Braveheart edition → then bought a $75 upgraded mainboard that had a lot of hardware fixes. (PinePhone Pro mainboard wouldn’t fit in the OG PinePhone though so that upgrade is not offered).
Possibly but …
How many customers are going to be competent to do that? If not then it could mean sending the phone back to Purism and being without the phone for weeks. So the whole thing becomes more expensive (more electronics, delivery costs in both directions, who knows maybe even Customs charges) and time consuming - than if it were a straight memory and/or disk upgrade (but I understand completely why that is not possible).
Oh, and because we are talking about the disk … there’s the hassle of doing something to copy the contents over and protecting the contents while the phone is away and resizing the file system. (Details depend on whether the unencrypted variant or the encrypted variant.)
Admittedly, if there’s no upgrade path and the customer simply buys a higher spec phone then all that aspect of it still has to happen - but there are differences in how it could happen - since you keep custody of the original phone and since you have both phones once you get the new phone.
I guess it could be arranged as: you pay full price for a new higher spec phone on the understanding that it’s a deposit giving surety that you return the old phone. You then copy all your stuff over to the new phone, erase the old phone (particularly if using the unencrypted variant), send the old phone back, and then get your deposit back minus whatever is the actual price of the upgrade kit. ???
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I’ll let Purism decide if it makes economic sense for them and if they can justify that a section of their customers are savvy or brave enough to try it out (Pine64 did but their target market is not exactly the same as Purism’s)…
All I’m saying is it would be great (and fun) and show a commitment to increasing longevity of their devices (and a thank you to people who have already backed the campaigns , preordered, or ordered).
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Any hardware upgrade, especially to extend the life span of electronic devices, is better than none at all.
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