I understand where your coming from. I’m in the same boat. At the same time, i feel if we abandon it now we might never see it come to fruition. I think it would be best to give it another two or three weeks and if no outside reviews pop up, then get a refund and back the pinephone.
Also, while it might not be as cheap as a pinephone, it has a distribution developed just for it, and it has slightly more powerful hardware than a pinephone (in my opinion every bit of power helps the experience).
I just realized that for myself, it comes down to this. I didn’t want to say that I don’t care when I get my phone (within reasonable limits that could extend in to the Fir batch), because I don’t want them to put off my shipment because I said I didn’t care when I get it. But actually when I get my phone is not a big concern to me right now.
I have a very big concern right now because I see a dysfunctional pattern that is not being rectified. If a few regular customers got their phones here, I would worry much less and would probably wait a few weeks to come back here and read the reviews. If a few people here got their phones and those phones couldn’t make phone calls, I might think “oh well… it is a project and not a product from Google or Apple. You win some you loose some. Maybe Purism will get it right next time”. What I am afraid of most is potentially getting a notice from the bankruptcy court. Then I would think “Stupid me, all of the signs were there. I should have known better than to let this go on, after the company cut-off communications with their paid customers, and stopped publishing update articles. Now because I chose not to act, my credit card company can’t reverse the charges, and it’s my fault for allowing it to happen when I should have known better”. I still think this is less likely to happen. But eventually, we all need to decide when enough is enough. In my mind, we’re still weeks away from that point. I still might end up glad I secured an earlier place in line.
I’ve been giving them “a week or two” since July 1st.
The only reason I’m considering jumping ship is because we haven’t seen a real update since the one where they pushed the shipping to Q3 2019 and they told us whats up with the hardware… Had they been posting stuff about how the hardware is coming, What’s wrong, what they’re working on, you know, being open instead of just saying “Here’s what we’ve merged in the last month! woo” I’d be behind this 100%. Make the hardware right, take your time and tell us.
If a few of us leave over their lack of transparency and they go under. C’est la vie. I’m not going to feel responsible.
I agree with everything you’ve said. If they give us updates, real updates, I’d be less worried. If people here started getting phones I’d be super excited… but that’s not what’s up.
This ^ 100%. They’re being so shady I picked the evergreen 2020Q2 batch. Who says the earlier batches are going to be any good? You cant fix hardware mistakes after it’s been shipped.
Evergreen is Certifications: FCC and CE and everything else is just Certifications: FCC and CE for Radios. So I expect I’ll actually get the phone 2020 Q4 because someone is going to have to look at and approve the phone before we actually get it.
There, in fact, is evidence, it’s been discussed in this very forum.
Honestly, I’m a little frustrated with the lack of information myself. I am at least as anxious to get the phone as anyone else here. But calling them shady and liars is a bit much. There is evidence they’re still working on the phone, which is why people keep posting links to gitlab. The project is progressing still. That means they’re still funded and people are still actively employed to do the very thing people are complaining about, delivering a functioning Linux phone. We are still in the delivery window for Aspen. You have to reconcile the timeline you have in mind about when we (collective “we”) think things should reach a certain stage and what the timeline actually is. Unfortunately, we don’t know what the actual timeline is (I hear you), and that means we have to proceed with a measure of faith. For all the reasons listed thus far, though, we can do that with confidence that the progress is ongoing and that the phone will be delivered. I daresay that if not for impatience, everyone here would be doing that very thing. All will be well. Progress is slow, but then again, “slow” is entirely subjective at this point because this has never been done before, and as a final note (and yes, another analogy), lack of proof of alien life doesn’t mean aliens don’t exist. “Innocent until proven guilty,” if you feel better about that one.
Be cool. The phones will show. There’s no concrete reason to believe otherwise.
This is unfair to even mention, no matter the context. First off, this forum is not a means of communication with paid customres. There are mail addresses for that. Second, the few days of silence about Librem 5 hardly can be thought of as end of communication.
Please stop scaring people away.
I disagree with you here.
Sure Purism is sending email, pushing merges and posting updates on the software side of things. All things I can do without a physical phone or even just the dev board.
We haven’t seen a real update in months. how is the actual L5 coming? the physical hardware? any bugs? How is everything with the way things are in China right now? what’s the ACTUAL difference between the batches? how many phones per batch?
all the real questions they’ve been avoiding for months.
edit:
IMO, Purism is doing this themselves. We’re trying to get more information on how the actual phone is coming, not updates on how the OS is coming, something I’m probably not even going to look at as I can use Ubuntu touch, PostmarketOs, etc, etc, etc.
If few days of silence is too much for you, then I must say your expectations about communication from Purism are unreasonable.
So the shipping anouncement from 24th is not a real update, according to you, and you are convinced that all the pictures in there, and then later videos are photoshops and deep fakes.
The rest of your questions - internal details of a company, I can perfectly understand that they are not disclosed.
A few days is not unreasonable to me. Personally I’ve been waiting months for something I find important.
These are all fluf:
from my perspective, It’s not a real update. I don’t think it’s fake, I believe that an internal purism person has a real L5 Phone and I believe it’s the first of it’s kind. What it is to me is an alpha version of the phone. Is there any bugs with the hardware? Are they working on it? Why cant we all have this version of the phone? Why the batches?
From what we see in the forums, people post as soon as they get an email. there was a copy of the batch selection email before I even got mine. No one has posted the email for the modem selection yet… so how is purism actually shipping like their posts suggests:
how is the progress on the hardware internal details? From what I recall in updates they are going to release the blueprints? specs? whatever? of the boards. they haven’t given any updates on that.
It’s already gotten a bit buried, but regarding open hardware, there’s my post above:
There are legal hurdles to clear before all hardware drawings can be revealed, and at least with some of the drawings, they said they would not release until they had recovered their initial investment or something like that. Though I can’t find that statement at the moment.
Fair enough, and I believe you. This dose calm me a little but it’s still quiet around why the different batches, why we’re not getting all the same hardware, whats wrong with it… to me evergreen is the real phone they’re just doing this to make their Q3 goal, which I’d argue isn’t even met… not one person from the community has a phone.
had they said “yeah, sorry, lol… we need more time, pushing to Q2 2020. sorry.” I wouldn’t be on here ranting and considering jumping ship.
They’ll never be able to publish enough information so people will not speculate.
The differences listed make sense. It also has been clarified that every one will be fully functional. Assuming they already know 4 bugs to remove in iterations does not make sense. Also you have a 30 day money back guarantee.
The iterations are mostly case, certification and software.
If a problem becomes apparent, e.g. one in ten fails QA for the same reason, the design is adapted. That’s what every manufacturer does while not talking about it.
Also, it is impossible for Purism to assemble, install, QA and ship 10k devices within a couple of weeks. It took them months for the first laptops too, with much less pre-orders.
Wasn’t one of Purism’s goals to be better than the other manufacturers about transparency?
While I get what you’re saying and don’t disagree, I do think Purism set the expectations in a way that multiple people understood to mean that they wouldn’t keep things private and in turn not transparent.
I also think the issue is less about the transparency itself but rather around the way Purism communicates expectations and the way Purism communicates to change expectations. Instead of trying to step back and reset expectations Purism, does what most do, and tries to clarify specific details as they see fit.
I’m not saying that clarifying things is bad, but rather that if you need to clarify something; taking a step back looking at the whole from this different perspective, and then assessing whether a minor clarification is in order or a resetting of expectations is more appropriate.
I’d love something like:
"Listen, we’re not ready. We still need to get a molded body, test the antenna placements, get $USAStuff approval, and other little minor things that come up in our testing. With that, we’re going to push the phone shipment to Q2 2020.
For those who want in before Q2 2020, we’re going to run a couple small batches to test things out and get ready for $USAStuff approval. Send us an email showing your interest and will sort you according to when you preordered. Please keep in mind they will be different from the final Q2 2020 batch and not everyone who wants an early version will get it."
Rather than confirming your fears,
I’d love them to stick to their published roadmap.
I certainly wouldn’t try to scare people away. I originated the thread in this forum about getting in before the rush, and still (at this time) maintain that position. At the same time, the people at Purism need to know exactly what their customers might be thinking, with respect to Purism’s communications (or a lack there of) right now. I am trying to change their behavior for the better because I am in their corner and I want to see them succeed. And this behavior appears to be very counter productive to them right now. Granted, as a customer, I have an interest in wanting to receive what I paid for. But when I get my phone is irrelevant. Do they need more money? Maybe I should make a donation (for real). But right now, the donation route is off of the table, only because of how they communicate. They’re closing these kinds of doors routinely because of how they communicate. Purism’s stated mission needs to succeed. I don’t understand them as much as I would like to, and that scares me a bit. My gut tells me that the OS works fine, but that the phone may not be fully capable yet of making calls. If that is the situation, then there should be some disclosure about that immediately, not later. But who knows? … and that will be a problem if the Aspen shipping window comes and goes and if we still then don’t know more then, than we do now. Meanwhile, their biggest advocates are left in the dark as they plus-one, isolated perhaps from potentially valuable resourcing.
I’m going to step out of the ring. I hope purism makes an awesome phone and everyone is super happy. truly.
I’ll pre-order again when they can change their transparency/communication or it’s clear that communication is not a problem and the community is happy that there are no hardware bugs and it’s just software problems left on the table.
This is, more or less and excluding a few details, what’s happening right now, isn’t it?
It all sounds like people want more information for certain things they happen to be curious about and aren’t getting as fast as they want, and then using that as a valid reason to damn the company. It’s not a valid reason, though. We dont know what’s going on internally at Purism, and we don’t have a right to know any more than we do with Microsoft or .
And FFS there is a video demonstrating the phone making a successful connection with another phone. It has been discussed on this very thread of this very forum. The fact that that’s being ignored only lends credibility to the fact that people are only seeing what they want to see and instead rely on pure speculation.
Impatience, y’all. It is eating you alive, and ironically that is the only demonstrated fact here but it’s being ignored over and over and over again.
I hope you are right Gavaudan. The first shipping window is still open. Purism deserves an opportunity to fulfill their promises on-schedule.
I never refund even I lose my money.
Purism go go go
Do your well job, ignore the noise.
The way I see things is that many of the Purism critics have solid reasoning even though I disagree with their choice to request a refund. But my choice is mine and theirs is theirs. Purism communications isn’t in alignment with their stated positioning. If they want to bring “libre to the masses” then they need to understand that github updates should not be considered in-scope for comms. In other words, Purism corporate communications to a good portion of their customer basis sucks. It just sucks.
We can make up reasons for it. We can hypothesize. We can even watch Purism staff laugh at speculators on the forum for trying to fill the space that Purism is failing to fill themselves. I’m fortunate enough to consider the $650 bucks I threw at the phone a write off if Purism fails to deliver. But that’s privilege. Others have different considerations worthy of respect. Will I get a functioning phone in 2020? Who the hell knows? And Purism isn’t providing much evidence that moves the needle one way or the other in terms of speculation.
I think they’ll deliver. But it will be late, probably Q2 of 2020. But I have as much evidence for that stance as someone who takes an opposite one - wild fucking speculation.