Hello,
I don't post often, I don't even log in often, but I read these boards every day. I just wanted to drop in to continue to show my support and enthusiasm for this project. Thank you ED for the constant updates and impressive level of transparency and personal responses. Lack of the above is why I cancelled my Librem 5 pre-order last month. You've set a high standard.
On the topic of banning. I see nothing wrong with bumblebee's posts. I may not agree with that persons point of view, but there are several people here who have a point of view I do not understand nor agree with. This makes the place more interesting. Echo chambers are boring. EvilDragon has handled the situation remarkably well, and I hope bumblebee is at least taking into consideration that his posts are being responded to personally by the person in charge himself. This is absolutely unprecedented in this day and age. (unless you count the Pandora of course)
ED carried the Pandora to completion, despite setbacks so severe they make the Pyra project look extremely smooth and easy in comparison. I got my first batch Pandora after a really long wait. After all of my friends and family told me my money was long gone. After ED's former partner took off and left us all hanging. After an enormous amount of negative feedback from people completely convinced the project had failed. All these years later and my Pandora is still the most useful device I own. My much newer and more powerful smartphone is already so obsolete that I cannot download new apps (requires an OS upgrade beyond what my phone allows), cannot browse these forums (tapatalk requires higher OS version and the phone's browser wont render the forum), and the non-replaceable battery dies after half an hour away from a charger. Yet my Pandora, though it's much older, far less powerful, and in far worse physical condition, has only gotten better and better over the years. It can browse these forums, run WAY more programs than it could when I got it, sounds amazing when plugged into my huge speakers at work, and the original battery still holds about 85% of its original charge and lasts all day long with plenty left. It can even play Diablo II perfectly despite originally being told that is simply not possible on a low power ARM device.
It's because of the Pandora that I have absolute faith in the Pyra. I've seen all this before. I don't care how "old and under-powered" the SoC is. I will get a Pyra that will be a true upgrade to the Pandora in every respect except perhaps the sound output quality. My Pyra will improve year after year while my other devices get worse and worse. Better yet, it's modular, so the Pandora 3.0 will be far less expensive as I can (eventually) just upgrade the SoC itself. This means it's even more future-proof than the Pandora, and the Pandora is the most future-proof device I've ever owned.
Also if I have an issue with it, I can literally open a conversation with the people that made it. Which is, as I said above, absolutely unprecedented for a hardware device.
I didn't mean for this to turn into an advert or anything, I just think some folks may have lost a little of the big picture perspective here. This isn't some fly-by-night LLC that will crap out some hardware and then vanish. This is a highly experienced, completely transparent, extremely responsive group of people turning their passion into yet another extremely impressive, unique device that will last me a very very long time.
Thank you to everyone involved, including you awesome community of nerds, for doing everything you can to ensure my Pyra is as awesome as it can be! I'll go back to silently lurking now.
