That’s how I understand it as well
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I got an email at the beginning of the year that my Librem 5 would ship in April and then at the very last day they put up a blog post about how there is a delay. Wouldn’t it have been better to have informed people as soon as possible that the previous estimate was going to slip? I don’t think that is too much to ask for.
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What seems to have been made clear to me if you followed the Laptop Librem 14 thread is that purism has a propencity,to habitually not get out in front of an issue but rather let it unfold,unravel,get out of control and then when it just cannot be ignored… you might get a short reply in the forums. I believe this hurts purism more than any supply issues or such, cause you cant buy reputation,suppliers dont sell that.
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It says the CPU for the Librem 5 is unavailable until October, but the Librem 5 USA will reach shipping parity in Q2 2021. Don’t the two phones have the same CPU?
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They’re assembled in different factories, so it may be a matter of the Chinese factory having a separate arrangement/contract/order/whatever with NXP, and for some reason NXP can meet the order of the factory located in the US but not the one for the factory located in China.
I wouldn’t know enough to begin to speculate on the difficulties of taking some of the CPUs reserved for the Librem 5 USA and sending them to the Librem 5 factory, but I do know enough to imagine there might be plenty.
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I think that one of the main things we have learned during the last several years is that things aren’t as stable as they seem. We are becoming more dependent on each other, which is a generally speaking a good thing because we won’t start a war against each other because we want to make business with each other.
However, we are not only becoming more dependent on each other, things have to work perfectly so that they work. This is clearly a bad thing, as we are forgetting one of the most important things in IT, which also works for other parts of society: Make Backups. Things will go wrong. You need redundancy, if you do not want to get into trouble. We all know, redundancy costs money, an immersive amount of money. If we want to have more security, we have to be willing to pay more.
This is no problem of Purism, this is a general problem. I think that we shall invest as society gigantic amounts of money into the resistance and resilience of our economy because this Virus won’t be the last Crisis of this century, climate change & other problems will bring more troubles for sure.
Inventory on the shelves get taxed, so a few decades ago someone came up with this bright idea of “just-in-time” delivery of parts. It reduces the tax burden and your warehouse does not have to be as big. Go figure. But with the law of unintended consequences, it also opens up to the risk that any one link in the supply chain can be broken.
Folks in the Pentagon wargame this out when targeting critical infrastructure. Business could save time by also gaming this out to find alternative solutions.
Example, two links below how a Supermarket gamed their supply chain LAST YEAR:
“Still nothing prepared it for the rush on TP.”
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I couldn’t see that because I used a mobile browser. Everyone should use the desktop version of the website. There is more to see.
@FreeRangeHuman
Didn’t Purism mention the semiconductor supply issues the whole world has?
Didn’t Purism mention that this may affect shipping?
Didn’t Purism tell that they try hard to get hands on parts?
I assume that they tell us of concrete shortage of supply became clear, namely that of the Librem key and that of the L5 CPUs. Both shortages lie in the future and they continue to ship ATM. So they told us beforehand. Didn’t they?
When would you liked to hear about that?
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There are no new L5 for a month already, they do not ship anymore. They told us this fact 4 weeks after stop shipping.
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Someone just got a shipping notification for a 2017/10/01 order 
So some non-Librem 5 USA orders are still being shipped.
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Not some, only one after a break of 4 weeks. Maybe they have found one CPU in the dust below the table
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Let’s not forget the scale of the whole Purism customer base and that of the forums. Less than 5% (numbers may even be closer to 1%) of customers post on forums about their orders. And with such a small sample size, we are due to miss some things. If 1 person here had their order shipped, I’m willing to bet at least 50 more did as well
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Last month when I looked, none of the electronics suppliers that I checked had much in stock of the i.MX 8M Quad and the lead times to get new stock were ridiculous:
I had hoped that Purism had already bought up a supply of the i.MX 8M Quad, but it looks like it hadn’t, but if Purism is getting it in October it must have an outstanding order, because none of the electronics suppliers that I checked can get those processors that fast. Arrow has increased its lead time to get the i.MX 8M Quad from 26 to 52 weeks, but Mouser and Digi-Key are still saying half a year.
It is looking pretty grim out there. When PINE64 put its PinePhone back on sale, I ordered immediately because I wasn’t sure whether that I would be able to get it again this year.
It looks like the price of the Librem 5 is going to increase from $799 to $999 if I’m interpreting that table correctly. My advice for anyone on the fence is to order now. I’m glad that I ordered back when it was $599, because I don’t think that I can justify paying that much for a phone, as much as I believe in the cause.
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- No shipping in April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
Looks like half a year until we get the ball rolling again too…
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I smell a very optimistic prediction in that table.
No new CPUs come in until October (and then manufacturing and shipping needs to take place), we are now shipping (one) order from Oct 1, 2017.
And shipping parity is predicted to be reaching in October 2021? I wonder how those 3-5k devices are going to be assembled and shipped around the world in the last few days of October.
I fully understand the delay (even if it is a pity). It is a sad situation as it will deprive puri.sm of revenue that it needs to keep the software improving. But I sincerely doubt that we will see shipping parity in 2021.
I would be happy if proven wrong.
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FYI, for those who need something to play with in the meantime, there are several Pinephones for sale or auction on eBay at the moment.
“for some reason NXP can meet the order of the factory located in the US but not the one for the factory located in China.”
According to Purism, the L5 USA is made with US-sourced components, including the iMX 8M CPU ( https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ ). NXP has fabs in Austin and Chandler AZ ( https://www.nxp.com/company/about-nxp/worldwide-locations/united-states:USA ) so I suppose that L5-USA’s CPU likely originates from one of these fabs.
I also suppose that the US-sourced processor costs more than those made in NXP’s Asia-Pacific fabs, and this is reflected in the greater price of the L5 USA. Shipping the US-made processor to China would add to the overall cost of the base L5 model (shipping costs (likely a small amount) plus increased fab cost), a situation that probably was never anticipated by Purism and therefore was not built into its pricing of the base L5.
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This may sound a bit odd, but maybe purism could start soliciting and accepting donations to keep their supply chains moving during this tough economic time, even if shipping at below expected shipping levels. Those who believe in the social purpose could make their donations in blocks of $50 in Purism’s store.
The only thing that those who donate would receive in exchange for their donations might be information (broadcast in this forum by Purism) about exactly what means Purism is using every week, to use that donation money to get their hands on more of the needed chips, using any legal/ethical means possible to ship out a specified (disclosed) number of additional phones that were made possible because of the donations. The disclosed information might say something like “…last week donations to (name of) fund allowed Purism to purchase an additional (exact number) number CPUs, even though we paid double the market price to get them. As a result, we shipped an additional (exact number) number of Librem 5 phones this week”.
I would be willing to donate to such a fund and maybe on a regular basis, or more than once, if as a result, I could see the tangible effects of my donations. If I see reports of twenty more phones going out occasionally and occasionally a few people who receive those phones show up here saying “I just got my Librem 5 yesterday”, it’ll be worth donating, as opposed to waiting until October or longer to see people starting to get their phones again. Purism wouldn’t have to disclose the total number of phones shipped as they receive these donations. Only those additional phone-shippings that were made possible by the donations would need to be reported on as ‘additional phones shipped’. Purism’s actual costs would not increase this way as Purism would pay whatever it costs to keep shipping some phones, while being supplemented to make up the difference. As with any charity gift, the donors want to see the results of the good that their gift did for others. Purism’s regular reports would fulfill that need. Notice, I didn’t suggest anyone getting moved to the front of the line in exchange for money. Even if I donate, I’ll also wait my turn in line.
A shipping delay until October or later will hurt Purism and thus, the social purpose. Maybe those of us who can afford an extra $50 or more (maybe much more in some cases) can help grease the skids to keep more Librem 5’s shipping until the chip shortage is over.
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