Librem 5 phone by Purism

[Eight Bit]

• "pyra-phone without keybord"
• "pyra-phone with keyboard"
• "Librem 5"
• "PinePhone"
• "none of all"

I'd be interested in getting any of those though something with smartwatch functionality in the shape of a phone, as a pyra add-on would be the most awesomest.

A dock would be nice too to make daily home usage more comfortable... It lacks a nice dock adapter though, the seperate connectors on the Pyra make it fragile :-/
But... Together they would create some sort of Pyra Eco-system...

I pushed my Pandora in a block of clay once....

 

[levi]

Wouldn't a Pyraphone with keyboard just be a pyra? Or are you talking slider keyboard?

Different form factor I expect, one with the screen visible on the outside of the device. Where the keyboard would fit if required would follow on from that design decision, and would end up either being below the screen or on a slide out layer I'd expect.

 

[Swordfish II]

Different form factor I expect, one with the screen visible on the outside of the device. Where the keyboard would fit if required would follow on from that design decision, and would end up either being below the screen or on a slide out layer I'd expect.

I could get behind that

 

[hns]

@hns Better focus on some Pyra accessories like docking station/port replicator or usb removable camera with xenon flash.

AFAIK, ED has already planned those. And, people keep asking for a Pyra-Phone, so this doesn't answer their needs.

Post automatically merged: Oct 26, 2019

Different form factor I expect, one with the screen visible on the outside of the device. Where the keyboard would fit if required would follow on from that design decision, and would end up either being below the screen or on a slide out layer I'd expect.

Yes, people expect a slider keyboard like Nokia N900 if they talk about a phone with keyboard. But they heavily underestimate the mechanical complexity of this. This is why I doubt that it should be asked at all. Would stay a dream that can not be fulfilled.
The Pyra clamshell approach is much easier to develop and build in high quality. And still needed a lot of time to get the keymat right.

 

[levi]

I wonder if you could combine a keyboard and battery bank, so you only need a battery in the phone part that will last a day or two* like most phones and people are used to carrying around a battery bank these days. You could either connect it over bluetooth or plug it in if you needed to charge while you typed.

* We need to see how long the pyra battery can be made to last before we can spec that out I think.

 

[elvissteinjr]

Would stay a dream that can not be fulfilled.

My F(x)tec Pro1 is supposed to ship soon... hopefully for real this time without additional delay, but I'm kinda used to waiting on devices. It does not have the same extent of freedom as a Pyra-device, but it has a sliding keyboard (N950 angled style), which ranks higher for me in priority.
Even if I wanted a clamshell phone with keyboard (not something I could warm up to, tried the Gemini) there are options.. or at least one alternative to choose from already.

What makes a clamshell Pyra phone that much different from a fully fledged Pyra anyways? Slightly slimmer design from lack of game controls? It's not going to get much thinner, isn't it? Last time this was brought up I had the impression it wouldn't even come with a hardware keyboard at all.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask either way since I'm really not in the market for a Pyra-phone. I do think that there needs to be more clarity around that project to see if there's really interest.

 

[levi]

A clamshell pyraphone would be quite similar to the pyra but nobody's talking about a clamshell pyraphone.

 

[elvissteinjr]

I might've mis-interpreted that then. A phone without any hardware keyboard is even less enticing though.

 

[Swordfish II]

AFAIK, ED has already planned those. And, people keep asking for a Pyra-Phone, so this doesn't answer their needs.

Post automatically merged: Oct 26, 2019

Yes, people expect a slider keyboard like Nokia N900 if they talk about a phone with keyboard. But they heavily underestimate the mechanical complexity of this. This is why I doubt that it should be asked at all. Would stay a dream that can not be fulfilled.
The Pyra clamshell approach is much easier to develop and build in high quality. And still needed a lot of time to get the keymat right.

I guess it could be clamshell if you could rotate the screen around when closed (would just look like a thick phone then) there was a phone way back when that was the same.

 

[cinaeco]

The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5 : Part 1

Today I’m going to tell you a sad tale of a device called the Librem 5 and the company behind it, Purism. As of right now, this story does not have a happy ending. I am writing this series of articles as a protest against the behavior of Purism, a company which claims that transparency and...

jaylittle.com

A concerning read.

 

[docbroke]

This wasn't expected from purism. If true this will be huge setback for linux phone movement. I will wait for more details/articles to appear before making any conclusion about purism though.

 

[cinaeco]

Indeed. They have done well in so many other respects. Regarding this venture, trials and delays should be expected when trying something completely new. I am still hoping to seeing the Librem 5 delivered eventually.

 

[erico]

but...what they promise with this product is impossible to reach imho. (not that I don´t like the idea though)

 

[Swordfish II]

This wasn't expected from purism. If true this will be huge setback for linux phone movement. I will wait for more details/articles to appear before making any conclusion about purism though.

Seems a little biased in that he wants companies to give him products to review.... Almost coercion..

 

[CommanderB]

but...what they promise with this product is impossible to reach imho. (not that I don´t like the idea though)

Why is it impossible? The challenge in terms of hardware is approximately as large as the Pyra project (maybe even less complex) and ED has proven that it is possible...

 

[FBnil]

When I backed them, years ago, it was more for helping FOSS than for getting a phone (or I would have bought one from a brick-'n-mortar shop. So I'll keep my money in the project, and expect nothing. Shame though. So close...

 

[cinaeco]

Just to be clear, the linked blog posts are not saying there will not be a Librem 5. The problems that Jay Little has with the project are more to do with mismanagement, rather than saying that there is no way the project will be finished - though he's not optimistic for near-future release of a competent product.

His takeaway, is that even if the project gets finished, Purism's leadership's behavior has been unethical and have transgressed in this project too many times to continue to be rewarded. He notes that his own evidence is speculative (how can one get completely solid proof?), but correlates with the testimonies of some others, including an ex-CTO.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

I think that they might release the Librem 5 someday, but it's too much money for me to put on the line right now. Also, Purism has been too dishonest about the Aspen batch for me. I'm fine with waiting a long time (as is evidenced by the fact that I am not even considering asking ED for a refund) but the team behind the project needs to be upfront about it. Purism acted for a while as if the Aspen batch is going out to paying customers while in fact it seems that was not the case. Recently they made a post admitting that the Aspen was shipped to almost no customer but that's after many people found out for themselves and they did not mention anything about their deceptive marketing.

I'm not saying that the Librem 5 will not be made. Purism definitely has put a lot of work on this and they have achieved a lot so far, both in hardware and software. The Librem 5 project is a serious project and not a scam. To me it seems like they are putting in an honest effort but accidentally took on too much work and now they're afraid that the delay will turn people away and thus they are trying to cover the delays up. It seems they just have really bad marketing. Either way I'm poor and thus do not have enough money for a gamble like this.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Thanks for the link to the blog @cinaeco. I think Jay does seem to be of the inclination that they can't make it work financially with the situation as it is currently. True, if enough believe this, then it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it looked to me that Jay has already come to the conclusion that the Purism phone is doomed to fail. I've subscribed to his rss for any updates though.

I do hope they can succeed though as what they are doing is essentially laudable, even given whether or not there may have been a couple of management missteps along the way.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Somthing I was thinking at the beginning of this project and regarding PinePhone... The PinePhone looks uglier, less well-done but for some reason, it always looked more realistic in terms of fabrication capabilities than Librem5.

Let's see what happen next.