I do hope they work all of this stuff out in the end. I'm still hopeful we might end up with an actual private phone on the market, that would be a nice thing. But it does sound like they should have done more testing and fine tuning before shipping.
The phone was never intended for you. It was for the spooks all along.
Quote from Todd Weaver on November 28:
We are delighted to share that early yesterday we shipped the first Librem 5 Birch devices to backers. US backers should start receiving their devices throughout the day and international backers can expect theirs within a few days.
None of the backers that I follow have announced via video or tweet that they received their device.
Is it that..
1) The American postal system is even worse than what we have here in Potatoland. (I hope not!)
2) The backers have indeed received the phone and as it turns out, it's a brick.
3) The Purism CEO is lying. (Highly unlikely)
Backers have started receiving their phones. Ars Technica summarises it well: "you are not placing an early order for an existing retail product—you're getting in on the ground stages of producing a product."
Right, but that just sounds like BS. What exactly is it that you are "getting in on"? What you actually get, is a retail product - and a warm fuzzy feeling if you are lucky, if not a I've just been ripped off feeling. Therefore, exactly what you are doing is "placing an early order for a
non-existing retail product". Which is exactly how scams work, so it is almost impossible to distinguish between a legit but incompetent startup and an out and out fraud.
These new tech companies are quite clever at exploiting legal loopholes, and therefore gaining an unfair advantage over existing companies. Crowd funding platforms don't have to follow consumer protection laws, nor investor protection laws, so basically they are a law unto themselves. The law will catch up eventually.
Warning. This guy fucking swears a little bit...
Holy smokes! A unboxing/review.
I was looking forward to the Librem 5 , but jumped off the wagon when it got above $650.
Too bad they went to $800 , could have been a nice challenge to Google/Apple.
/Bingo
I ordered one. I hope it comes. However I still don't know which carrier I'll *actually* be able to use it on. I'm hoping that getting in early means getting in before the FBIfacebookCIAgoogleNSAamazon force them to install backdoors. Then I can look at bird memes in privacy. These nuthatch are so cute they should be ILLEGAL!
Too bad, I'd love to have a somewhat modern Linux based phone device, or even a 7" tablet. (Hacking/Rooting older tablets/phones isn't quite what I'm looking for)
Pinephone might be a bit too under powered for me.
A Linux tablet would be fantastic but I see zero chance of financing this on kickstarter. I just thing people grossly underestimates what is required to do stuff like this. This especially when it comes to software and hardware integration. You would simply need a large full time development team to get anywhere and even with a couple of hundred you would still be constantly trailing Apple and Samsung.
Nice video. Even this developer edition is much more of a phone than a Purism. Kinda highlights that the developers had experience developing hardware. By the ite my current iPhone dies this might be in a condition to be worth buying.
The pain of being obligated to talk-up this dead duck.
I finally stopped at "I wish the cameras worked". It was painful already up to that point.
It's too bad really. Would be nice to have a decent smart phone without having to be tied to the cloud, and with privacy actually being in mind by the makers, instead of spying.
Pinephone postmarketOS Edition Unboxing
Purism now getting into the phone carrier business.
It's too bad really. Would be nice to have a decent smart phone without having to be tied to the cloud, and with privacy actually being in mind by the makers, instead of spying.
Your best bet here is to Go Android with a modified ROM image. This is not ideal of course but is the only phone option I see that is half decent.
HEAD TO HEAD - The Librem 5 vs. PinePhone Manjaro Edition
And this guy..
The first 15 seconds is all you need to see. Phone runs Line--ux.
