I’ve ordered my first L5 on October 7, 2017 and have its shipping announcements in my mails for September 2021. I ordered more and own 3 of the L5 for daily driver, for being in Cuba and for testing.
Todd, what are the ideas or schedules of Purism for the “L6”, i.e. for an update of the hardware?
Thanks, Matthias
I am personally waiting for an L4. The number is not the version but the screen size 
I know. That’s why I wrote “L6”. And the message is clear: hardware update is what I was asking for.
Sorry but I don’t think your message is clear.
I have never seen any indication that that is on the radar. I can imagine that Purism would be reluctant to make public comment, comment that would then be perceived as commitment, when it is too far in the future.
I can see some disadvantages in a larger screen (unit is bulky / heavy enough already) but some advantages (it actually might make it look less thick, and could potentially accommodate a higher capacity battery, or reconfigure the shape to get a thinner device with the same capacity of battery, not to mention the overt advantage of a larger screen).
And then you get comments like the previous from customers who actually want a smaller screen - and I can see that for some use cases that may well suit.
There may be some indications that it is on the radar but a fair way out. Again though, see above observation about “public comment”.
Whether that is interesting to you depends on what specific hardware update(s) you are interested in e.g. more RAM? more disk? faster CPU? CPU with lower power consumption? all of the above? 
Purism did recently release the 2026 roadmap. Discussed here. Said roadmap did not include mention of a new hardware version for the Librem 5. So one might reasonably assume that the answer to your question is “not this year”.
If you want an official answer from Purism then you will have to officially ask Purism. However, as above, there is an observation about what would still be a public comment.
The upside regarding a new hardware version for the Librem 5 being a fair way out is that there is an opportunity to provide customer feedback e.g. wild speculation here.
I’ll strongly consider buying it, whatever it turns out to be… but I really hope it ends up lighter and a bit thinner, with that universal modem that they mentioned. (I think someone mentioned a universal modem recently.)
Software updates along the way can handle functional improvements, if necessary.
4 posts were split to a new topic: Demand for a dumbphone
I don’t know. Maybe you are remembering this but that is more about 5G than universal 4G bands (but the two could end up being addressed together in a new modem if you are lucky).
Even so, @guru, that is a different dimension of hardware change (i.e. not screen size and not the underlying phone) that you could be interested in; and that looks to be sooner than other dimensions of change.
As far as I know the plans is to use the same case again for the next generation (without any further information). And I think it makes sense, because it saves costs and even make the phone eventually upgradable. Personally I have no issues with size and weight as long as it does not become larger.
Same case would be awesome, because the upgrade path could just be parts.
IMHO, Purism probably needs to see how the age verification laws filter through; they present big issues to a privacy-focused company. I’d probably stick with this generation of hardware if the next one forced me to give up more personal data. (and I’m certainly nowhere near to being a big privacy geek)
Other concerns for newer hardware are blobs in the selected hardware and staffing a development team; I have no idea what is Purism’s financial state, but this is a niche community.
There is no point in pursuing it without getting Purism vetted with the carriers, otherwise you’ll just have a useless phone that you’ll have to pair with a vetted android or apple phone in order to use it. To me that is the most important part of this. If you don’t get an agreement with the carriers you might was well not bother.
Purism
*the modem
The toughest thing about wanting an update is trying to know what update to ask for.
I asked the AI to build me an Android operating system for the Librem 5 because my carrier changed things and completely screwed me over and started requiring Android out of the blue one day, when I had previously gotten away with Librem 5 very well. After this change they also no longer delivered MMS and group text to the Librem 5. When I asked their tech support, they hallucinated buttons to click to solve the problem and when I sent them a screenshot of the button not existing, they told me to try again then when I told them an LLM told me their company is evil and wanted to screw me over but it was probably a bug in their LLM, they said they can’t confirm or deny that statement – and didn’t say it was false.
So I obviously have to change carrier to one that supports the MMS so I have texting working again, and in the meantime I put the SIM in an old Android. The old Android has offended me, and I no longer wish to use it. Ergo if putting Android on the Librem 5 for a while would appease the demons and make MMS work, I’d have probably done it.
Unfortunately while the LLM was building an Android build that would boot on the Librem 5, it asked me to answer to questions 1 and 2, and when I typed 1 to start answering the first question the 1 was interpreted as a review in the AI’s review system to rate it 1 to 5 that randomly pops up sometime. After I rated it badly (entirely by accident), it began to malfunction and tell me to go to sleep instead of asking it to do more work on my behalf, and making Android builds that no longer booted properly on the L5.
Edit:
So we might be in essentially the middle of an information war and it would be nice to continue being able to use the Librem 5.
This sentiment couldn’t be more true and there are corporations on the attack to make this be how Librem 5 is.
That’s what Purism told me February 12th about modem:
"Hello,
Thank you for responding and letting us know that our troubleshooting steps were able to work around the issue.
I’m sorry that this workaround is not ideal, however, I am excited to share a little bit of information that we are working on making a new modem model available and our initial tests show that it seems to have improved reliability. We hope that we can off this in our shop soon so that all of our customers can benefit from this work.
I will close this ticket as it sounds like all of your issues have been addressed but please feel free to reach out to us again if you have any further questions or issues. We are happy to help!
– Purism Support"
So, although they didn’t mention universal modem, it’s clear that they’re working on a better modem due to massive, unsolvable problems on bm818! 
Becarefull AI is too Liar and Dement.
Thanks for that! It led me to this post: Who wants to speculate with me? - Future Librem5 modem upgrade
… in which a Purism rep said:
So bm818 work fantastic to me, but it has low ram to be compatible with openfirmware at full.
I really wanted that Gchatty to talk to Modem.
In my case it doesn’t keep internet mobile! After a while it stops to navigate (tested 4g only and 3g only) 
$ ping www.puri.sm doesn’t scroll
Internet mobile is mandatory for me!
In fact my L5 still set into my drawer waiting for new modem (hoping it’ll solve it)! 
But this a bug on modemmanager, so a new modem will not fix.
Librem 5 is a jewel of the universe; it is the most beautiful thing on this planet. I pretty sure that gdos will kill all opensource bugs soon. 
For Data only, sure. For voice core services like VoLTE not quite. For voice core vetting that requires the entire device to be tested by the carrier.
Because data only applications are so prolific and in a sense much less complicated the carriers don’t require the same level of vetting.
Look up what is involved in vetting a device, its quite a robust process that involves more than just the modem.
They need to assess the impact the device will have in every aspect of the relationship, including the impact on customer service, which is probably their primary concern. They don’t want agents stuck on the phone with customers who have non standard devices on their network.
Listen, I know it sucks but I work for a small telco and these are the business realities I understand from the inside. If Purism puts in the leg work to build the relationships with the carriers, then there is a chance they can move forward. I mean they have the Awesim service so I’m assuming they understand what needs to be done. But there are many carriers around the globe to engage to get this done.