With the emphasis being on production, will those who receive their phones in early 2021 have software that is updated? Or will product development stop until the backlog is caught up? If I receive my phone in early 2021, is it likely to have a working camera?
My biggest concern is that the phones may be shipped in batches, with feedback time built-in in between batches so the product can be perfected as quickly as is possible. Quick perfection of the product does not mean getting the phones quickly. It means that (for example) maybe the product is near perfect within two years instead of five years, because more development iterations occur with delays between batches for time built-in for customers to discover and report flaws.
There was some discussion in a Matrix chatroom. One person who ordered on August 29, 2017 was already not offered a spot in early batches. The Wayback Machine doesn’t have snapshots of that date, but the number of pre-orders on August 28 was 158, and on August 31, it was 245.
So 245 is an upper bound on the number of phones in pre-Evergreen batches. I would say it is more likely 175 +/- 25. So for all practical purposes, no one should assume they are an early backer, or at least not a very early backer.
I was offered a spot in Birch (by my estimates, I was somewhere between order number 70 and order number 100), but opted to wait until Evergreen. I am away from my home address until November 22, and then I will probably be away for Thanksgiving, but I will be happy to start posting pictures and videos when I receive my Librem 5.
From what I have gathered, the software and hardware teams are separate. Software will continue to develop all throughout the shipping process, so yes, the longer it takes you to get one, the more fully functional it will be out of the box.
According to backers comments on this forum and the matrix chat, even those who have preordered in September 2017 are not prequalified for early batches.
Kinda, but the levels get (I believe significantly) shorter and simpler each time. All will be well.
If it helps, the way I choose to view it is to see that A) there’s no evidence the phone won’t be delivered and lots of evidence that it will, and B) I can not affect (nor effect) its arrival, so I’ll focus my attention and/or worries elsewhere. Stressing about something one has no control over is an excellent way to be miserable.
I see a snapshot for Tue, 29 Aug 2017 05:53:18 GMT, which shows 173 phonesworth of backers. (166 just for the phone, 2 for the 24-inch monitor bundle and 5 for the 30-inch monitor bundle).
If you have ordered the Librem 5 and subsequently changed your mind and are seeking a refund, you should email Purism directly.
However I believe that they have previously stated that you are eligible for a refund once you are at the front of the queue - so it would depend on when you ordered.
Also, I see that you are cross-posting. Most fora consider that to be bad form. Please continue any discussion of this in the other topic that you created.
Per our policy, we can not provide refund for orders that are in the pre-order status.
Now that we have placed the “Evergreen” batch order, your funds are locked into that order. We can’t refund those funds until the phone goes from “pre-order” to “shipping now” status. Once the phone (final, mass production build batch) pre-orders start shipping and we reach your order in the queue , we will refund the full amount you paid, unless you change your mind.
Well, you are right and some people complain, but if you think about it, how could they return the money if it is locked by a third party? It might be a bit unfair and Purism should have written it earlier, but we all want Purism to succeed. At the end you will get your money if you really need it (which is not true for every crowdfunding campaign).
Purism changed its refund policy in February 2020, and it was likely because of financial difficulties. Between February and May, five developers working on the Librem 5 were laid off or quit, and the number of commits fell for several other developers indicating that their hours were cut back.
This seems to have been a temporary problem, since Purism has since rehired one of the laid-off developers, hired an extra developer, and is advertising for another developer to work on the Librem 5.
Yet if you actually think about it, how can it be that they can’t offer a refund now “because the funds are tied up by a third party”, yet they will be able to refund once they start shipping the phones that have already been paid for and therefore do not generate any revenue, hmm? Also: it’s still breach of contract. If you want to unilaterally change the terms of a deal after the deal’s been made, you are legally required to offer the other party an option to back out of the deal at no cost. So if you want to change the terms under which you’ll offer a refund for your preorder, you must offer the customer a refund if they don’t agree. At least, here in the EU, not sure about the US. And it doesn’t matter that they sell from the US; if you sell to the EU, all sales to EU citizens are bound by EU law.
Anyway, I believe they’re banking on the hope that once the phones start shipping to actual backers and preorder customers, they’ll see a flurry of new orders so that they can simply send your phone to someone else instead. Every preorder that gets displaced to a new customer will even generate a little bit of revenue, since they’ll have to pay more for “your” phone than you did during the crowdfunding campaign or preorder phase. As long as that happens, we’re golden. But what if it doesn’t?
Granted, that’s an unlikely scenario. I can’t imagine the folks who’ll back out after the phone finally starts shipping to outnumber the new customers who’ve been sitting on the fence.
Then again, how’s the battery life? Is the L5 currently ready to become our main phone? If the Pinephone is any reference, I’d say probably not (8h idle, display off, no SIM, only WiFi and Bluetooth, no active BT connections). If we need to charge it throughout the day just to make it past lunch time, I can’t really see much demand for it at its current price point. I could even see how this might lead to more refund requests. It would really depend on how much inconvenience folks in the community are willing to put up with for the cause.
Also there have been a post or two describing Mobian and Manjaro having near-android battery life on the pinephone when PureOS didn’t. Granted, it has different hardware, but it would suggest that its a software issue and can be fixed without too terribly much effort.
On the Pinephone, there is crust, a low level power management firmware for Allwiner Soc than can’t be used on L5 SoC.
It gives a long battery life to the Pinephone but have a cost in term of responsiveness (to long to wake up in time to take an incoming call) and stability. It will probably be fixed later.
