Linux

What’s not to like about a device sporting a 5 year old CPU paired with a 720p display and 4GB of RAM costing 2.2k usd?

I would love a Linux phone but so far graphene OS is the way.

This is just ridiculous. $2200 for a phone with only 4GB Ram.

I would love a Linux phone but so far graphene OS is the way.

This is a tragedy.

• entry-level Librem 5 sells for $1,299
• made-in-the-USA model $1,999
• Liberty Phone also made-in-the-USA with more memory & storage $2,199

One of my harder earned life lessons is it’s structurally impossible to run a company that develops and sells a product based on this kind of soft values and buying devices from them is almost always a recipe for disappointment. It doesn’t even have to be the fault of the company (though it often is)

As the article says, I'm not denying that Purism has contributed greatly to the fully OSS Linux mobile ecosystem. But it's not like they're the only one, and they're relying on a lot of other people's work as well.

But this is becoming more and more outrageous in terms of price/quality.

All the electronics of the Liberty Phone are made in our USA facility, and the entire phone is assembled at that same facility.

I suppose that this is the reason for the high price. It's built all in one single factory in the US (I was too lazy to research if it's their factory). I hope that their target groups are real and that they can afford the phone.

Lmao. At this point buy any android phone and just put a custom ROM on it.

And they continue pestering anyone who ever bought from them to "invest"

They honestly think that phone is worth more than a fucking foldable?

I'd love to use Linux on my smartphone, but unfortunately it isn't viable yet and I'll keep using Android instead :/

This feels like a very bad joke.

You could buy one of those embedded CPU/RAM motherboard, 3d print a tablet like case for it + design a screen for that case, install linux with a GUI supporting touchscreen and you created a much better product for the fraction of the cost.

How do they even find customers to buy this thing?

I'm not sure why anyone would buy a Linux phone from Purism these days. Buying one from Pine64 seems like a better option in every way.

I don't see anyone addressing what should be the main concern: purism as a long history of internal toxicity and screws up. There were problem and their CTO left a long time ago, since then everything went downhill. Their communication is also one of the worse I've seen. They don't mind lying, it feels borderline scam sometimes.

Whatever the price and the alleged goal I would not get behind a shady organization.

Nothing is perfect but Purism has been way passed the limits for me a long time ago.

It's good they are improving their phone, but wtf are those pricing?

I like what Librem is trying to do, but their way of doing it is completely impractical. No phone is worth $2199. The PinePhone is a much better option, it's basically trying to do the same thing but it comes in at a practical price.

I get it that they need to find a way to fund their R&D team.

I get that there is also some people willing to pay top-dollar for some specific features which can not be had on commodity phones Linux-based, fully assembled in the US, etc. Which is going to be impossible to fulfill at scale.

What I don't get is: why can't they offer something that makes this explicit? I for one have no interest in a $2k phone, but I would gladly give them $50 per month and in exchange I'd get the right to participate in some periodic (monthly, quarterly, yearly?) dutch-style auction when they had a new update to their phone. Perhaps a percentage of the money that I had given could be used to pay for the device, etc.

now, are they being greedy fucks, or is the price difference with other brands indicative of how much money other manufacturers make on data-mining you ?

Bummer, I thought people on Lemmy might be excited. I agree its pricey but voting with your wallet isn't always cheap. (Typed from my Librem 5 :))