After an eMail conversation with sales at Purism about if there was secondary market demand, I thought I would post this semi-self-serving poll about the two options they had for the Librem 5 at time of pre-order:
Both options were bundled with the Librem 5 phone, so the price is including that device, but when I was pre-ordering my 5—I wanted the kit badly—but couldn’t afford it at that time. I won’t buy it in the future because I’ll already have the 5 and won’t want a second one. So I’m doing this informal poll to see if there is a demand to make the Purism Salespeople consider it as a separate offering.
I would buy a 24" without a Librem 5
I would buy a 30" without a Librem 5
I wouldn’t buy either size kit but I will own a Librem 5
I wouldn’t buy either size kit and won’t own a Librem 5
I would love to order one of the kits, but I just can’t justify spending $700-900 for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $150 on all 3 of those things combined.
Plus, the keyboard looks like a cheap membrane keyboard. For that much money I’d expect a decent mechanical keyboard to be included, at the very least.
For me, there is an option missing: will get similar or update just my monitor or get a separate dock - but from elsewhere. Just because it’s easier and cheaper to get them from nearer. This is to say: I want and will get the experience, and do not want anyone to equate this that convergence wouldn’t interest.
I think just a working-out-of-the-box dock would be a good option. I’m sure they already exist, but knowing for sure because you got it on the same site would assuage a lot of fears and potential heartache.
the display panel is to “all-purpose” for me to have a daily use for it so no i’m not interested. but as a general converging-on-convergeance incentive it works … i guess
As I see it, it doesn’t cost Purism much to offer this option, and it generates extra income for the company. It is buying standard equipment and reselling it at a markup, so Purism should do it.
We want Purism to make a profit, and it gives people who want convergence a way to help finance it. We want Purism to have extra income to fund its development, and I wish that I was wealthy enough that I could afford to preorder the monitor kit to indicate my support for convergence.
Notwithstanding that this is a poll, I will also give some qualitative feedback, as it relates to my situation.
I would prefer not to buy something as big and bulky and heavy as a monitor from overseas. The postage starts to be painful. Then Customs fees on top of that. (It is one thing to buy a mobile phone where there may be no realistic domestic alternative at the current time.)
Until we have the phone, it remains to be seen what existing monitors it is compatible with, using a locally-sourced adapter if necessary and possible. I have no shortage of existing monitors.
It also remains to be seen how well the phone performs in a convergence scenario.
Convergence is nowhere near my number 1 use case for this phone.
The exchange rate is not favourable for overseas purchasing at the moment.
30" is bigger than I would want - particularly at a relatively low resolution (although yet to be determined what combinations of video parameters work).
As far as keyboard and mouse go, you would hope that any random Bluetooth keyboard or mouse would just work.
I think there will be a lot of loose ends with the phone itself and I would prefer that Purism focus on that rather than working on convergence scenarios and issues.
I am very attracted to being able to use my phone as a high portable Linux mini-computer. I don’t need a monitor or keyboard for this because I can find them in the any current location. However, I do need compact tools to connect my phone with the keyboard, mouse, and any type of monitor. Possible variants:
USB-C hub with ports: HDMI + DVI + VGA with Power Delivery and USB to BT adapter for keyboard and mouse;
if monitor, keyboard and mouse can be simultaneously operated from one USB-C port: USB-C hub with ports: 2xUSB + HDMI + DVI + VGA with Power Delivery.
I’m with you on this one. My main workstation is a refurbished box. It’s multi-monitor set-up consists of a Dell 2001 machines monitor (box went fubar after 2 hard drives and 1 motherboard got replaced), a Westinghouse non-smart HDTV from 2003, and a Samsung non-smart HDTV from 2002 (old kitchen HDTV). I have a Toshiba laptop hand-me-down that was originally sold with Windows 7 on it. My secondary workstation is just a Chromebox plugged into the new kitchen HDTV.
I hear ya. Some people think I’m cheap. Other’s think I overpay for things. It depends on what they see me owning. I make decisions based on specs and long term needs and the weight of alternatives and price. These items have very little on specs, so I assume nothing about them apart from Purism doesn’t seem to be a screw job type company. The monitors may be high-end items, and they have bundled the custom connectors and so-forth into it. Custom things aren’t cheap to produce.
I did give some thought to other options, but because this was focused on a possible business decision for Purism, that would benefit me, that type of poll choice wouldn’t be relevant. In their scope, you would vote option 3.
I just bought a 49 inch ultra wide which is like three monitors in one with built in kvm, type c, thunderbolt connectors for like 100 more than this.
This does not appear to be a premium product or offer anything special that is not already out there for half of the price without effort.
While I like supporting developers that are working on projects I enjoy, there is no real development with this Monitor Kit nearly as much as it is exploiting those that may not realize that there is nothing special about this.
If anyone does buy it, I am more interested in their thought process.
“Effort” is the key word here. You pay for convenience and the assurance that everything will work together as opposed to having to do some research and piece together your own setup. Some poeple think it’s worth the price. Others, as you appear to, do not. The beauty of it is that there’s no gun to anyone’s head, nor any other lock-in, for that matter.
Correction: I only paid like half of $1600 for a 49 inch ultra wide with three type c connections, built in kvm, HDMI, multi screen, multi device, the works, etc. It did require almost no effort to realize my current workstations, phones, servers, keyboard and mice would be compatible.
Today I learned that 11% of folks that want to support companies that promote privacy, Linux and hardware innovation will literally be donating over $1k dollars for there to be no effort involved in turning a phone with 3gb of ram into the worlds most expensive all in one computer. To make tons of profit, I guess that is all you need. Even when you sale the remaining stuff at like 70% off you will be profiting.
GROSS… Hopefully this does not reflect Purism business practice. “To make the most amount of money for the least amount of EFFORT”
Is $1100 expensive for a mouse and keyboard? It is. $1600 is an expensive laptop. But they make it all themselves, in order to fund their open software and hardware development. So yes, $1100 is a lot of money for just a monitor and keyboard, but if that’s all you see that you’re paying for, then perhaps this isn’t the company for you?
