Do you honestly feel you will use this as your daily driver? Have you used any of the other Linux phones before? I’m not trying to say the L5 will be bad or anything but I have had the feeling for a long time that there are going to be a lot of disappointed people. Many because they had unrealistic app expectations but even thinking this will be a daily driver seems overly optimistic.
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Two weeks ago, my ADHD self wouldn’t have agreed (rolling release seemed fine to me then. “Yeaaah, I can do it! I’ll figure it out!!”) but after struggling the last little while just trying to figure pinning a retro qemu package that has gtk on ye olde dell…yeah, I kinda see the wisdom. Rather, I definitely do see the wisdom.
I’m super happy they sent the emails because I’ve been in a state of “why won’t he call they email?!” angsty angst too. Thanks for that Purism 
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depends what you need it to drive daily i guess … for pre 2018 backers i suspect this won’t be such a concern …
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We can speculate endlessly - or we can answer when we have the phone.
In my case, this is my intention. The eyePhone goes in the drawer, never to be used again.
I know that there will be some missing functionality at Day 1 - and undoubtedly some bugs. That goes with backing the development of a new phone from scratch.
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I’ve used my jolla as a daily driver for 4 years (till its battery started giving up) and never had any problems with that.
Edit: for 5 actually, was shipped in 2013 and I’ve put it on the table (on permanent charger) a year ago.
I am estimated for Chestnut batch. I ordered on Sept 8, 2017. In the original batch selection email I requested Aspen, Birch, Chestnut. In that order.
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I don’t get it (but I am NOT complaining).
My order was placed 1 Jan 2019.
Yet I am estimated to be in Batch Dogwood.
So much for my jokes about Batch Yew.
Edit: fix silly typo.
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Ordered 27 December 2018. Requested in the order of preference: Birch, Chestnut, Aspen (that are batches no. 2, 3, 1 respectively).
Has been just put in Evergreen (batch no. 5).
I call the Purism Team to show the actual numbers of people who wanted which batch, how many devices of each batch are available and how the decisions as to put whom into which batch were made.
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Not surprising at all. “December 2018” is quite a late backer. There are literally thousands of people ahead of you in the queue.
Uh, also it’s reddit 
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What about the September 2017 backers above who also got into Evergreen? Still thousands ahead of them?
They’ve already been asked many times how many phones are in each batch, and I don’t think there’s significant value in them answering. It would be nice for transparency, but it won’t change the numbers.
As for how they decided… first in first out, it’s a queue, they’ve said this already. The only way someone further in the queue moves up is if someone earlier volunteers to move back…
Choosing an earlier batch preference does not, by itself, change your place in the queue.
With that said, I do think it was unwise to ask people so far down the queue what their preference was if it didn’t matter; all this did was raise false hope which isn’t exactly fair to those customers (in my opinion).
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I’m not particularly surprised to find that I’m getting an Evergreen phone. I’ve been managing my expectations in that direction for a while. I ordered on 29th September 2017.
On my graph, the rate of fundraising seems to have risen after about the 14th September.
I’m sure some people are expecting feature parity with their proprietary poison of choice, but I was never persuaded that smartphones were worthwhile until this one came along, so the bar is set quite low for it to qualify for everyday usability.
For me, it just needs to:
- work with ordinary phone calls and SMS messages
- last me through a day of unexpectedly high usage without having to charge the battery (probably the most challenging requirement)
- fit in my bag or pocket
- connect to Wi-Fi
- browse the Web better than a featurephone
- function as a general purpose computer without requiring third party approval (whether or not much useful application software is available for it at launch)
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We shouldn’t have to speculate, that’s my point. I’m fine with whatever state this phone ends up in upon delivery and happy I backed. Seems that is your stance as well. For some of the backers they might have expected and planned to get a daily driver (months ago using original timelines) when they spent $600+. The bulk of orders seem to be Evergreen so that means not only have people been waiting far longer than expected but I haven’t seen any evidence from Purism to support a claim that this can be the only phone someone will need to carry. Just because we’re excited about something doesn’t mean we should avoid providing constructive feedback to Purism.
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I love it, after things like: make calls, send sms, survive a day on battery, fit in my bag, connect to wifi, have a browser… suddenly you expect a mobile PC, the one thing I loved about n900 was you could use it to flash another n900, no windows/mac/linux pc needed, n900 could serve as another flash source for another n900, hopefully librem 5 will be just as general purpose, though probably idea of general purpose has changed, you could compile qtcreator on n900 and build apps for it from it, not sure if any android phone is able to run android studio to this day, doubt it
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You say that like it’s an unreasonably high expectation, but it’s one of the main selling points of the product and practically guaranteed, so long as the product ships at all.
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Poll:
The only app expectation is one that I’m almost certainly going to need to create myself (SnoopSnitch equivalent). I’m honestly not a particularly good example, because I barely ever touch my phone. All I’d need it to do is send/receive calls and SMS messages, and to warn me if there’s an IMSI catcher nearby or that someone’s trying to track me via the mobile network.
There are plenty of other things that I’d like to have (map software, wi-fi local information, a sudoku program, something to take notes with, probably other stuff that I can’t think of right now). The only one there which would present any difficulty is the map software. The rest either already exist in some form (notepad, wi-fi channel statistics will have some command line software if nothing else) or I should be able to port them without too much difficulty (sudoku, I know that KDE already has that).
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They should give you your first order in the batch of your choice, if you ask me. You were the only one on youtube who made videos of a working devkit and showed their progress. I would email them and wish you good luck.
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