I’ve just gotten my Librem 5 USA back from the support team earlier this week, after having cell modem difficulties. So far, everything seems to be working stably and consistently. I am able to make and receive calls and SMS messages, and dial my voicemail box as needed. The data network connection over LTE has also been stable and consistent. This has now crossed the threshold of viability for me and I cannot fully express my excitement in words. Huge thanks to Mladen and the rest of the support team for getting things to this state.
I’m writing this post using the L5 and a Bluetooth keyboard. I haven’t tested Bluetooth audio yet but will soon. As the days roll on I’ll continue to report on how testing turns out.
Yes, it is a great accomplishment by Purism and volunteer supporters. Now that so much is working well on the Librem 5, I feel it would be easy to take that for granted, but those of us who have witnessed the drastic improvement over the past few years know better than to do that. Without Librem 5, what other options are available for running GNU/Linux on a new mobile device? Almost nothing. Shift6mq seems to be promising, but SHIFT does not ship that phone to America, only other markets such as Europe.
The Librem 5 is truly a unique product from a unique company. Glad you are having a good experience with it!
I’ve now tested Bluetooth audio a bit by connecting a Shure 50 headset to the phone.
The initial pairing process was a little slow. The L5 recognized the headphones immediately but it took the headset a little while (~90 seconds or so) to decide that it was connected. Audio from the L5 system passed just fine. One test phone call worked as expected. However, the next call resulted in no audio transiting in or out of the Shure 50 - the far end could not hear me and vice versa. Following this I disconnected the headset and attempted to use the internal speakers and mic on the L5, but was unsuccessful. After a reboot the L5’s hardware audio has been stable. I will start looking into what processes and log files I need to monitor to find out what became unstable when a Bluetooth source and sink are connected and then disconnected. More to come.
Next Bluetooth audio test: my 2012 Toyota Prius. Pairing was straightforward, but attempting to connect it as a phone the car’s screen flashed the message “Handsfree noncompliant” before connecting the L5 as a standard audio player. Playing an mp3 with Lollypop, the audio seemed to perhaps be having caching issues - a half second of audio would play followed by a second or so of silence, and then the next bit of audio would play. It was interruptive lag rather than complete dropouts.
My bluetooth did this during the holidays on my phone too when I used it to play audio to a 10-15 year old speaker system in the chill-out family room.
Honestly, I think if Purism made a Liberty Phone Plus that had a faster processor but cost double like $5000, I would probably be the comedian who buys it.
It’s worth mentioning too that there have clearly been some major milestones hit in code optimization between when I sent the L5 in and now. Many of the changes are subtle but the overall experience is that a lot of things seem more responsive, stable, solid, and elegant. Way more things Just Work. And between the brand new release of Thunderbird and the usability boost to Firefox that the mobile-friendly improvements @Emma has been refining provide, I can now do a good 70-90% of my job on my L5. Wild times.
This afternoon I did 100% of the work I needed to do from the L5 in docked mode. I decided to try out an external cooling case (designed for mobile gaming) and that has made a vast difference in terms of the device’s capability to handle more significant load, multitasking, and fuller memory use.
This is my portable setup, as I’m on a job site, but it is similar to how I have things at home. The monitor is a 15" 4K display, set to 200% in Gnome Settings. The L5 is sitting on a little magnesium fold-away case, and I’m using the Hoyoki dock I got from Purism with a little right angle adapter so it routes behind more cleanly. Then there’s the wee iClever fold-up Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad which is quite a useful on-the-go input device even without a monitor attached.
Here is a shot of the cooling case, which is a Black Shark FunCooler 3Pro. Apparently one can download an app for 'droid or iOS to control its lighting scheme and possibly cooling behavior, but… no. It requires a 20W 5VDC power supply and has a USB-C connector on one edge.
As I type this, I’m seeing the following temperatures reported by Mobile Settings > Librem 5:
CPU - 34.00 C
GPU - 35.00 C
VPU - 35.00 C
Fuel Gauge - 30.50 C
Battery - 24.50 C (it is fully charged though)
Under heavy load and active charging I’ve seen these go as high as 48.00 C but no higher so far.
Nice setup! I didn’t know that mobile cooling was a thing ! I will definitively check it.
I also have a iclever foldable keyboard but without trackpad. I have it for 5-8 years and use it all around the world paired with a Bluetooth usb mouse.
