Librem Laptop RAM and Storage Bump, 32GB Max RAM | Hacker News Reader

Librem Laptop RAM and Storage Bump, 32GB Max RAM

puri.sm

40 pointsjrepinc42 comments

Is it just me or do the hard drives on this thing seem weirdly expensive? The RAM is the same price as System76, but it's $999 for a 1TB NVMe drive vs $335.

Any idea for the reason on that? Otherwise it would be price comparable to a darter or galago pro.

might be a premium for drives with open-source controllers.

Huh, I didn't think about that. I know they do open boot loaders, but I just figured they'd leave the drive alone. Afaik, even Richard Stallman doesn't care about drive firmware, but I could be wrong there.

But that is a valid reason. I've thought about buying a Librem laptop, but the price always turned me away. I know part of this is scale issues, but it feels bad to pay 2x more for something with worse performance, and the hardware switches and open boot firmware don't seem like enough to justify it. But I guess they won't be able to drop prices until they get enough volume, so maybe that's the answer.

Can we please also have a track point with 3 buttons? Thank you!

Has anyone outside IBM/Lenovo ever managed to ship a TrackPoint that worked as well as the "real" ones? I love TrackPoints, but my experiences with them on non-IBM/Lenovo machines have been disappointing at best.

(Which is bizarre, since the first TrackPoint machines came out in the early '90s, so you'd think any patents IBM/Lenovo lean on for their great implementation would have expired long ago by now. Unless there's some patented discoveries they made after the first versions shipped.)

Lenovo have, in the past five years, stopped implementing the things that elevated the experience, and now use the same modules that Dell uses. It's a shame, but at least we can still get three buttons.

My Tex Yoda 2 keyboard's trackpoint is really good. It's not identical to a standard trackpoint, it has much more "throw" since it needs to be a lot taller to clear the full size switches/keycaps, but you get used to it.

I've been thinking about making my own with load cells, but I guess looking up those patents and seeing how IBM/Lenovo did it is a good idea before I start.

It really doesn't seem hard though. It seems to me the trickiest part is getting the acceleration curves set correctly so that it feels nice to use. But that should be a matter of software/configuration, not hardware. High resolution readout from the load-cells seems essential, so that you can have precise readout of very low forces, giving the trackpoint a light and airy feeling without compromising precision.

This is the sole reason I have not purchased from them. As long as Dell and Lenovo are the only three-button pointing stick vendors, they'll be the only ones who can sell me computers.

As a replacement I can mention following tip: in Linux (in Hackintosh as well) pressing left and right trackpad buttons at the same time results with a pressing middle button. I remember I found it when once I left mouse at home and I had to make few changes to my 3d model in Blender during labs at university.

Exactly. I've been in need of a new laptop, so I've been looking at ThinkPads because of exactly this reason, and honestly, it's one of the things stopping me from getting a laptop from a Linux-friendly vendor.

Also, I think 14" is there perfect size for a laptop. 15.6" feels too big, 13" feels too small. I'll get the 15.6" if there's no other option, but I'm not going to give up my TrackPoint and middle button, which I maintain is the best way to browse the web.

I must be losing my mind, because Puri.sm is charging $1,599 for the following laptop:

- Dual-core Intel Core i7 7500U

- 250GB SATA (yikes)

- 802.11n (not ac) wireless

- 8GB of RAM

- Intel HD Graphics 620

- USB 2.0 ports

And for the "best" offering which is $3,997:

- Dual-core Intel Core i7 7500U

- 2TB nVME (not dual-SSD)

- 802.11n (not ac) wireless

- 32GB of RAM

- Intel HD Graphics 620

- USB 2.0 ports

This is a joke, right? 802.11n is completely unacceptable in 2019, as is charging $4k for a computer with Intel HD 620 on-board. What a joke.

Finding hardware with solid open source drivers (or writing them if they don't exist) and disabling Intel's backdoors is hard work, as is ensuring that everything works with an open bootloader. And they have to do quite a bit of this themselves since they need hardware switches to disable the camera and WiFi.

I'm guessing prices will come down if volume of sales goes up, but they're always going to lag the competition because they have to do more work than the competition (every new Intel line has differences in how to disable their backdoors).

I would totally buy one if they only charged a $300 or so premium and if they had a TrackPoint and middle mouse button.

802.11n? It's 2019, for crying out loud, I can understand not having WiFi 6 yet, but this is way too retro...

I was looking at a ThinkPad X! Extreme yesterday. Better specs (8th gen Intel CPU, dual M.2 slots, GeForce 1050, 802.11ac of course) for less money. The System76 laptops also look more modern.

It's easily replaceable. They choose it because ath9k works without blobs. You should know what you are buying. Not the wifi card, the ram or the storage. Not even the cool-aid. You are buying a laptop that comes without bootguard enabled and can run coreboot. That's it in a nutshell. system76 is also a decent option since they have also started working on coreboot (https://github.com/system76/coreboot/), and you can hack on it if it interests you. system76's products look more polished since they are clevos made for a wider audience.

That processor is really old 6th gen and underpowered. I got a faster and newer quad core 8550U in a Lenovo T480 with 9 hours of battery life in dual batteries. Plus, I have a 1 TiB Samsung 970 Pro. Sure, they do better on firmware tracing and privacy, but if it's not a competitive and good value, it's risking not being a survivable business model. The PC business is competitive and runs on slim margins, so if they shirk or shrug at keeping up, their business is going to die.

People that care deeply about privacy aren't nearly as price conscious as the average consumer. You just can't find many options that come out of the box with Intel backdoors disabled and completely open WiFi firmware.

I want a Librem, but I'm finding that the price premium is a little higher than such a small risk is worth to me. I hope they can bring prices down so people like me can justify it, but that probably won't happen for some time.

I want one, and am willing to spend a bit more for the work they do, but not having a ethernet jack is a deal killer. I don't want to carry around an adapter.

I'm really hoping they up the CPU (are newer AMD mobile CPUs any good?) and drop the SATA drive for another/a larger battery in the next rev. Only things making me hesitant!

I really do applaud their efforts though, I really dig the company and am even giving PureOS a spin (only complaint so far is their frankenbrowser vs. not just using Icecat). The price/performance just isn't where it should be.

Could this be something that everyone who is dissapointed with recent hardware offerings be switching to?

Upgradability and fixability is there, though the price is a bit steep.

Price at least feels the same as a MacBook and I imagine the touchpad on this is horrendous in linux.

I don't understand why everyone keep saying touchpad works bad in linux. I have 2 laptops:

* Acer Chromebook 720 with pretty bad hardware touchpad, but it works with linux OK (I prefer using mouse)

* Thinkpad T420, good hardware, works with linux really well. Supports vertical and horizontal scrolling, some gestures (laptop is from 2011, I prefer using touchpad).

I suspect it's because Apple line of products don't have good linux synaptics support or something like that?

Here is a guide on how to set up touchpad on linux for most desktop environments, xorg along with some troubleshooting tips -- https://wiki.debian.org/SynapticsTouchpad

In fairness I have not used the touchpad in linux in a couple years. I think its always been a picture of Apples touchpad tech being lightyears ahead of everyone else, or at least the patents keep everyone behind and the default support in Linux was also iffy.

No, it's because Apple's touchpad hardware is superior, and the industry benchmark. I say this grudgingly.

I have given up on Apple's laptops for a host of reasons. The touchpad is the main thing I miss.

It's not a question of a driver update. The perfect precision of their touchpad hardware has not (yet) been matched.

It really isn't. I'm a GNU/Linux user, but I have access to a Macbook and, what's more, have the Magic Trackpad 2 right in front of me. It's just a regular touchpad hardware, comparable to one in my Lenovo laptop, but with "force touch" - which if you don't care about silent clicking is just a gimmick that doesn't make much of a difference.

(if you do care about not making clicking noise without having to "tap", then well, it is somewhat exceptional - that's why I own it)

The "secret sauce" is simply in the application support for gestures. Even the driver isn't that exceptional (just well tuned), it's all toolkit and app support. On GNU/Linux you have several ways to support multitouch gestures, but all of them work as simple triggers - a completely different experience that what software on macOS usually provides.

Unless we come up with some objective criteria to compare touchpads, this may be a subjective judgement.

Nevertheless, there are a large volume of people who subjectively believe Apple's touchpads 'feel' better and more precise, beyond just multi touch gestures.

You could compare it to the handling of a car. There is some consensus luxury cars feel better to drive.

From what I gathered, it's actually another thing: there is a large volume of people using misconfigured or simply bad software with their perfectly fine hardware touchpads. Apple ones, that are actually well configured out-of-the-box, then "feel" better and more precise, and clueless people incorrectly blame their hardware for sub-par experience.

Been there, done that. I've blamed a touchpad of my work machine (which was actually a higher model of the same line as my personal laptop), but it turned out it used a different software driver (accidentally - I've swapped their SSDs and it turned out that the quality of their touchpads swapped as well :D). Also, both of these touchpads felt simply awful on Windows. After that I've spend some time figuring it out and it turns out that these days it's actually hard to get a crappy touchpad (unless you pay really crappy money for a whole machine). It's all in software.

I have been happy with my Librem. I like not having any issues with drivers. I like supporting a company that is making as-close-to-free-as-possible hardware.

Great news, now I know what my next laptop will be after 17 years of macbooks :P

Until they fix that weird off-centre trackpad, I'd continue suggesting people go Dell XPS, also the only PC laptop with a trackpad response even approaching that of a Macbook

I just noticed that. Weird placement.

I guess it has to do with the layout of their hardware below it?

My guess is that it's to keep it center-aligned with the main part of the keyboard. The Librem 15 has a built-in numpad on the right, which pushes the letter and number keys over to the left.

Personally I'd have them just ditch the numpad entirely and center everything, the way they do on the Librem 13. USB numpads are cheap and widely available for those who need them, and typing on an off-center keyboard feels weird.

The keyboard has a numpad, so the trackpad is actually centered between your hands when you're typing.

I will not buy a laptop that doesn't have physical buttons on the touchpad. The reliability of knowing that my clicks are exact, saves me time and frustration. Sadly this is my only reason to not own a Purism.

But if you are considering the Dell XPS, I recommend you instead check out their Latitude 7xxx series. (On the website you find them under "For Work" instead of "For Home"). Like the Dell Latitude 7390 or 7490. Yay for real buttons. And pretty good in other areas as well, such as the keyboard quality, and ports.

It doesn't have touchpoint though. I just want a touchpad with real buttons. There aren't many options for that anymore. Another nice and relatively unknown option is the VAIO (no longer from Sony). https://us.vaio.com

I would LOVE to get a Purism if only it had the buttons.

Isn't it a clickpad (the whole touchpad being a big button)? I despise tapping, but I don't mind clickpads with softarea versus separate buttons.

Not sure. I hate the Lenovo style "the whole clickpad moves so much when you click that you're almost certain to miss" thing. But I also hate the soft "you have no idea if you just clicked or not, do you" thing too. So I really need my buttons and don't remember which variant the XPS has :)

The off-centre trackpad is especially awkward to use for those of us with centred arms.

Can I please redesign your entire ecommerce experience? This laptop looks awesome and is actually price competitive but the discover and purchase experience is abysmal.

>discover and purchase experience is abysmal.

  0. Home page
  1. Select product: https://puri.sm/products/
  2. View prod descs, select product: https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/
  3. Scroll down, view prod desc, click shop now
  4. At product configuration page: https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-13/

Seems pretty normal to me... now normal isn't "great" but abysmal is a bit strong.

Serious question...

How did this submission make it to the #10 slot, after being posted 38 minutes ago, and with a handful of comments?

This is a very boring update about some product specs. I cannot see how it could be interesting enough on it's on to merit such a rapid response. It's not even remotely interesting on its own (it's essentially a boring advert).

I noticed the same happened with a Purism advert yesterday.

I'm a natural cynic, so perhaps I'm fooling myself into seeing what I want to see, but is this an example of shilling? Does HN have a history of promoting adverts masquerading as content (Reddit style)?

Your reaction is understandable, but there are many topics that HN readers are just personally really into. When those interests don't line up with our own we usually look for some explanation to bridge the gap. But shillage is not that bridge; it's just a quick and easy move to resolve the cognitive dissonance.

> Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No. There are just a very large number of us who want Purism to continue their work. Even many of us who don't feel like we can afford their products yet.

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