Librem 5 phone by Purism



  • 3mm taller to fix the antenna problem
  • mold is now open (but can't find the files for it)
  • Release is, why not, in 2 months... (sounds familiar?) I kid you not:

    Based on current projections, we will start shipping Evergreen to customers mid-to-late November 2020
Based on this, it is still a mistery if the Librem comes before Pyra (although my bets are on Pyra)
 
Librem 5 seems pretty cool. It's even more libre than the Pyra.

I haven't followed PinePhone development but on the order page it says "Estimate dispatch in early November 2020". I guess in 2 months is the release date for all GNU/Linux devices. Just 2 more months and then every GNU/Linux device ever will be released. The problem is, 2 months in the future never comes because it always stays the present. But maybe there is a timeline where they're 2 months ahead of us and MS, Google, and Apple are dead; everyone uses GNU/Linux; and RMS looks like a greek sculpture of the ideal male physique.
 
From article said:
The Librem 5 has unique hardware features including a user-removable cellular modem, WiFi card, and battery.

Another unique feature of the Librem 5 is convergence: the ability to connect the Librem 5 to a monitor or laptop dock and use it as a desktop computer running the same full-sized desktop applications as on Librem laptops.

"Unique"
 
Well, yes, lots of laptops of old had removable wifi cards if you removed a plastic flap. It's only the cellular modem that I've never noticed being removable before on a phone.
 
To be fair, I've never heard of a user removeable cellular modem before, but to be fair to myself, why would you need that on a phone?
For when one eventually (if ever) exists that’s open source?
For when travelling to the US, or Asia Pacific and wanting to get the best local signal with a local SIM on the local bands?
For when the handset will support 5G but with the infrastructure there to support it like there is for 4G now and you want to be able to purchase a compatible 5G modem rather than a whole new phone?
 
For when one eventually (if ever) exists that’s open source?
For when travelling to the US, or Asia Pacific and wanting to get the best local signal with a local SIM on the local bands?
For when the handset will support 5G but with the infrastructure there to support it like there is for 4G now and you want to be able to purchase a compatible 5G modem rather than a whole new phone?
To answer your questions, those are all possible use cases for that feature.
 
True, those are all good reasons for that kind of feature on a phone I guess. FWIW if you're counting China as asia pacific when I travelled there, my hosts bought my a local sim to put into my european phone and it worked fine. I didn't test data though, and that was all pre-4G so I don't know if that's changed.

But yeah, maybe I'm wrong that it might somehow occasionally be useful. But I've still never heard of it in a phone, which was my main point.
 
Can you add any others? It’s quite an interesting approach :)
I think this is about it. IIRC Purism was forced to use a non-libre modem due to a good libre modem not existing so they instead seperated the modem from memory so that unlike most phones it has no direct control over memory and they made it replaceable so that it can be swapper later on if a good modem becomes available. IIRC then that was the main reason. The modem is one of the few parts of the Librem 5 that's not libre.

Though I vaguely remember some talk about the modem not being allowed to upgrade formwire because upgrading with blobs would disqualify the Librem 5 for some FSF certification. So I guess that could count as another reason.
 
I think this is about it. IIRC Purism was forced to use a non-libre modem due to a good libre modem not existing so they instead seperated the modem from memory so that unlike most phones it has no direct control over memory and they made it replaceable so that it can be swapper later on if a good modem becomes available. IIRC then that was the main reason. The modem is one of the few parts of the Librem 5 that's not libre.

Though I vaguely remember some talk about the modem not being allowed to upgrade formwire because upgrading with blobs would disqualify the Librem 5 for some FSF certification. So I guess that could count as another reason.
Yup and of course the socketable nature of it means that it can be disconnected by hardware switch, which is obviously one of the main selling points. Certainly looks a lot easier to manage than the equivalent switches in the PinePhone
 
Can you add any others? It’s quite an interesting approach :)
λ the β-Redex Reducer is right, that's about it, but if you want to stretch the imagination, you could conjure up future extensions.
For instance the Librem 5 doesn't have FM or LoRa. Maybe one can imagine taking out the modem and plugging in a FM card (with some kind of antena ?), or a modem+FM card, or take out the Wifi card and plug in some LoRa gear, or whatever.
I'm not sure the interface would make it easy (would the software have to send an AT command to dial an FM station ???) and the effort could easily be much more than it is worth however you look at it, but crazy people make crazy things, so who knows...
Looking at docs it seems some interfaces are MDIO or I2S, but I don't know... I guess it would make even less economic sense than technical sense.
 
λ the β-Redex Reducer is right, that's about it, but if you want to stretch the imagination, you could conjure up future extensions.
For instance the Librem 5 doesn't have FM or LoRa. Maybe one can imagine taking out the modem and plugging in a FM card (with some kind of antena ?), or a modem+FM card, or take out the Wifi card and plug in some LoRa gear, or whatever.
I'm not sure the interface would make it easy (would the software have to send an AT command to dial an FM station ???) and the effort could easily be much more than it is worth however you look at it, but crazy people make crazy things, so who knows...
Looking at docs it seems some interfaces are MDIO or I2S, but I don't know... I guess it would make even less economic sense than technical sense.
However crazy, technically or financially, I love the sound of that xD
 
If you look at cultures like Cuba, they keep those old analogue cars running with everything they can. And because these cars do not rely on microtechnology, you can get your old piece of metal forged, duplicated and retro-fitted.

For the LibreM I can imagine duck-taped breakout devices. :D

I would stlll like something like LIAM or DAISY (Apple iphone recycling robots) for total recycle; or at least a place where we can send them in to be dismantled by humans.
 
If you look at cultures like Cuba, they keep those old analogue cars running with everything they can. And because these cars do not rely on microtechnology, you can get your old piece of metal forged, duplicated and retro-fitted.

For the LibreM I can imagine duck-taped breakout devices. :D

I would stlll like something like LIAM or DAISY (Apple iphone recycling robots) for total recycle; or at least a place where we can send them in to be dismantled by humans.
Completely agree! I think it would be really neat if Purism and Fairphone collaborated on their initiatives and if such work became mainstream. Not just for phones - in India they strip machines down completely to their component parts, whereas in the West we don’t really do anything like that
 
Last edited:
Back
Top