That’s funny.
Would you spend $1,000.00 on a piece of hardware to see if it will work, and if not, throw it aside until it might? Sure kieran, I’ll just take out ads in all the local and national newspapers asking who has a L5 and if it works for them. Yep, I’ll get right on that one.
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People do post about their experiences on the internet, you know.
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by this i assume you expect you will NOT be able to verify the L5 status later down the road ? that is - in the future you expect you will not be able to have access to ANY form of internet so you could verify IF or NOT you should invest in the L5 ?
i didn’t mean to take it out of context i just assumed that by asking that you DID receive an L5 in the first place … what we have said so far regarding the censoring/network-restrictions are STILL far-fetched and just paranoid-speculation but not without their due merits …
Um, you may have misunderstood. I am suggesting you don’t buy until there are other happy customers in your country.
You wouldn’t need to take out ads in all the local and national newspapers. Just ask in this forum, once Evergreen has well and truly shipped, for customers in your country who can confirm which mobile network operator / reseller / location is working, or not working.
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If you buy a phone after the preorder period has passed, you’ll have 30 days to return it, but Purism charges a 10% restocking fee.
I think that the decision to buy a Librem 5 is different than buying most other consumer products. Both the risks and potential rewards are higher than if you bought a phone from Google or from Apple.
Some people would never run “format C:” on their PC. To risk that you can correctly install a new operating system or if you can’t, to render your PC useless is a risk that some people are just not willing to take. Other people do this all the time without a second thought. Although the L5 comes with the OS pre-installed, whether or not you will be happy with your L5 comes with similar risks. Purism does not have a good reputation at supporting their new products if/when something goes wrong. They might warranty the hardware. You might be on your own when it comes to software support if anything goes wrong. If all fails, my plan is to format and re-install the OS myself. I know how to troubleshoot and fix problems in Linux. I wouldn’t recommend that my mother or my sister buy this phone unless I planned to support it for them myself.
When I pre-ordered my L5, I figured that I was ‘all in’ when it comes to the risk. You need to learn a little bit about modems and about the cell service in your area as I did. You need to take a chance that it won’t work and that if not, that you will get what you can from both the Librem 5 phone and from the experience, even if the L5 can’t be your daily driver phone. If you’re not already familiar with Linux, the risk goes up also.
Until the Librem 5 reaches mainstream status, it’s not a phone for someone who lacks a desire to learn Linux and to support their own phone themselves or unless someone else you know can support it for you. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Linux power user or a Linux newbie. The L5 should be a great tool to learn on. But when it comes to being your daily driver, think back to when you first learned how to swim. Was your first venture in to the water a swan dive in to the deep end of the pool? Even as someone who is familiar with Linux, I have a backup plan in case my L5 goes down for a week or two before I can figure out how to fix it.
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I’m not worried about anywhere, but would like to know when it arrives who among the big four U.S. firms will support it? Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile? USCellular?
Or other MVNOs.
(I know Purism put out a table somewhere, I didn’t want to have to dig it up or putting on my senior-citizen hat, interpret it.)
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I understand all of that. What I find hard to get past others, is I’d like to know a few things before throwing $1,000.00 (L5) at something that might look good, but ends up a pretty paper-weight.
Added value, as I see it, is the statement “The Librem 5 is a phone built on PureOS” on the L5 site. Huge incentive, if I understand PureOS correctly.
To learn more about the Librem products, I wanted to try PureOS - That, is a work in progress.
Librems could walk on water and maybe even turn it into wine, but until I know more, and can get a hands-on with PureOS but more importantly know the L5 will work in Canada/US/Europe (I travel), I can’t justify a total of $2,400.00 Euro/US/CAD/Ruble(?) plus fees etcetera. If others can do that; buy based on pictures and specs, I have shares in a bridge I could interest them in.
Thanks for your excellent input. I had to read through it twice to soak in the info. It’s appreciated. But I cannot justify the risk of tossing that much money at something I’m not sure will work in my area, let alone country on a operating system that I’m unable to test-drive and requires a good working knowledge of Linux programming. I want to spend my time using the devices, not trying to fix them.
~s~
Against all odds, I am not giving up on L5 or L15 - it’s a big universes - somewhere, someone will hear my signal and answer my questions, sans the greekineze.
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that is ONLY a requirement if you plan on developing or improving things on your own … i.e contributing free-software code … that is hardly a requirement for everybody … you are free to spend your time as you wish …
what MIGHT be a requirement is following updates/progress and when things BREAK be able to report back on what has gone wrong (provide accurate and detailed information specific to the particular hardware/software YOU have an interest in)
also being ABLE to follow others and learn from how they do things of the same nature (language, style, format they use, etc.).
an ability to incorporate into your own workflow best practices that come from others etc.
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I know its been said, but why don’t you just wait until someone in your locale gets one? A lot of gnashing of teeth here for issues that can’t be solved by people here.
I’m in Australia and there has been a lot of posts about bandwidths in our regional areas, would there be carrier problems etc, but there are now some Aussie users who can relate their experiences.
Maybe you’re just too early in the cycle of Librem 5 releases right now. Maybe give it 12 months monitor the list and see how it unfolds. I don’t see you resolving anything just now.
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I agree! But if there is grown-up intention/wish (involves money transfer) to support Purism financially as of today and at the same time protect his/her investment that includes particular country/region certification (the market approval of products with radio technologies) for Librem 5, and if I were @Sharon I’d choose to pay $749.00 for Librem 5 ASAP and inform them about (her own) preference to wait until Librem 5 batch Fir is ready to be delivered. @Brad, @StevenR, am I proposing something that we didn’t purposely accepted already, proud of to provide support to?
I hope so and wish you all the best!
You won’t need to be a programmer to use the Librem 5 any more than you would need to be a programmer to use Windows 10. But to be a real Linux power user, you’ll probably want to learn how to compile other people’s programs (not that hard to do). Under Windows, the operating system never changes and one common installation program works on all Windows PCs. In Linux, the varieties of different Linux versions are so different from one distribution to the next, that those who write the programs just publish the source code so you can compile the program yourself, customized to run on your given version of Linux. When you compile the program yourself, the compiler automatically builds a version of the installation program that is customized to work in your specific version of Linux. But when you install from Purism’s app store for their own products, you probably won’t ever need to compile anything yourself since Purism will verify that the pre-compiled installation files there will work on your L5. Linux is definitely significantly different from Windows. You’ll need to get comfortable with a command line. But Linux is no more difficult to configure, troubleshoot, and use than Windows 10 is. Just don’t forget that before you got good at Windows, there was a painful learning curve that did take some time to master. Linux will be the same to learn. Your Windows 10 experience might be helpful to help you understand error messages or why hardware may not be working (if that happens). But for the ‘how to fix the problem’, your Windows experience does little to nothing to help you unless you can find a familiar GUI tool somewhere in the vast graphical environment, or that you can download and install. Linux can be an a’ la carte operating system compared to Windows. Things can be found in odd places where you wouldn’t think to find them until you figure out that the environment is the product of several developers working somewhat independently and even then, you may not find a GUI that typically exists in Windows. Sometimes, it’s easier to ‘Google’ the issue and to just type-in the exact command line solutions given by someone somewhere on some forum you’ve never seen before. That works often, especially if there is no GUI to do what you want or need to do.
My advice regarding PureOS on your phone is that we don’t need to sample and use it before we buy it, unless you plan to be a developer. There are several reasons:
1.) The user experience of PureOS may be significantly different on your PC than on your L5. For the programmers, they will only need to develop the software once and it will magically work on either platform. But the GUIs can be expected to look and act significantly differently from one platform to the next, thus rendering your look at PureOS on your PC, somewhat irrelevant to the experience you are likely to find on your phone.
2.) As someone who wants to learn more about Linux, I am really looking forward to getting my L5. But as a mobile platform, I have to trust that Purism will just do a good job on the Operating System. I’ve never had any other option in Android and Apple. If PureOS doesn’t work for me, maybe another OS will work out well. You can always install a different OS yourself. But the mobile linux OS market hasn’t become competative enough yet to be very pickey. Hopefully we’ll be pleasantly surprised. But there are only a few other options.
3.) Linux is always still Linux, regardless of the distribution. If I don’t like graphical interface, I can probably still find a way to make the phone do what I want it to do in the way I want it done. If I can’t figure out how to do it myself and there are others that have the same problem, it won’t take long for someone else to build the solution and post it in the app store. Based on the technology, culture, and the proven history of Linux itself, I anticipate that PureOS on your phone is likely to eventually be far superior to anything available in either Android or on an Apple phone. Typically, commercial interests come along and take brand new (never-seen-before linux features) and implement them commercially in their proprietary products, much later after Linux has proven both the product or feature and its accompanying demand. Where it exists, Linux has always led the way. Once there is a reliable Linux phone, this should become true in the phone market also (after we catch-up) which won’t take long after initial adoption by the Linux community.
4.) It appears to me that Purism is trying to compete with Android and Apple. Unlike most Linux distributions, the customer is not typically the geeks and programmers who are typically Linux experts. Their ideal customer is not just me. It’s my mother, my sister, my non-techie friends, and everyone else who needs a mobile phone. I think that Purism is gearing-up to make all of them happy also, as soon as is possible.
But I don’t think your L5 will be a good phone for routine international travel. You could buy several different modems (probably 3 or 4 total), and by slipping-in the right modem for your given location, the phone should work anywhere in the developed world. But that is a bad strategy. After swapping the modem three to five times, the modem slot in the L5 will begin to wear-out and that will cause problems. Changing the modem in your L5 is somewhat like upgrading the RAM on your PC. You do it once or twice for the life of the machine and for that reason, the slot doesn’t wear out. The modem slot in the L5 is not designed to accommodate more than just a few changes of the modem and there is no work-around for that limitation.
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we do NOT YET know if this is the case in reality but i assume that fiddling with it all day long will lead to some problems … nothing beats burner phones though 
I think this is this key point to emphasize for non-technical users. Phosh is being designed for normal users and Purism will have an PureOS Store, which is just as easy to use as Apple Store and Google’s Play Store. Sure you can always open a terminal and use the command line, but the goal is to be a system that provides security and privacy and software freedom to average users. However, I expect that it will be mid-2021 before PureOS/Phost offers most of the basic software that people expect in a smartphone and 2022 or 2023 before the PureOS Store is viable replacement for the Play Store and Apple Store for the average user.
For the early adopters who have preordered the phone, we know that we are going to get a system whose software still requires a lot of work. @Sharon, I doubt that you will ever need to compile programs on your own or learn much about Linux if you don’t want to, but you should be prepared for frequent software updates and reporting bugs.
We have been discussing creating a table on the community wiki, where people can post what cellular providers work in each country. I expect we will have pretty good information for Canada within a couple weeks after Evergreen is released. You save $50 by ordering now, but I suspect that you will be happier waiting until after Evergreen is released and reading some reviews, and then paying $799 for the phone. The other option as @Quarnero mentioned is to preorder at $749, and tell Purism that you want the Fir batch. By the time Fir arrives, I expect that all the major software issues will have been resolved and Fir should have better battery life, as well.
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i still believe we should encourage users to buy Evergreen FIRST and Fir SECOND if they have enough currency for ONLY one L5 (one piece). Fir is acceptable for people that have ordered MORE than ONE L5.
i say this because the future is UNCERTAIN and what you get in your hands SOONER is always going to be more valuable than waiting X amount of years for the next-best-thing to arrive and just ASSUME that it will … i say this only when referring to technology gadgets so don’t read anything else into it 
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I want more people to preorder Librem 5 (Evergreen) because Purism needs more funds to hire more programmers to finish the programming work faster. If Purism can rehire people like Bob Ham, we will get to a working phone sooner for normal users like @Sharon. However, you can help Purism just as much by preordering the Fir now as preordering Evergreen, because Purism gets the funds now.
Evergreen is the better choice for people who want to be early adopters or want better GPU performance (gamers and convergent desktop PC users). Fir will have better hardware for people who want decent battery life and good camera performance.
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Puri.sm should be able to cut a better deal with Epic than they did with Apple. I think puri.sm would be happy with just a one percent commission!