I like what Purism is doing in regard to disabling the Intel ME and having more open source boot components, but there’s something about the company that rubs me the wrong way (especially with the continual overpromising on the Librem 5, and really, releasing it in its current state at all).
It was not actually released to the general public yet. Only limited batches with opt-in.
It says it’s a great choice for parents, enterprises and businesses of all sizes.
It’s got a shop now link and you can add the phone to your cart, shipping in 6 months. The batch FAQ says that every phone shipped is a high quality smartphone despite the “loose fit” components.
> Q: If I receive the Librem 5 from one of the first batches, will I have a fully functional phone?
> A: Yes! Even the very earliest batches will be capable smartphone, including a modern web browser and core cell phone functionality.
In contrast, reviews from as recent as March 2020 state that the phone can’t make phone calls and the battery lasts for about two hours maximum:
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/librem-5-review-the-lin...
Look, I want this kind of phone as much as the next person, but that doesn’t mean I want to buy it from a company that is misleading at best about its capabilities. I know that smartphone hardware, especially smartphone hardware with custom open source components, is not easy. But this is a prototype-level device that shouldn’t be marketed in this way. It should be called the “Librem 5 preview development kit“ at best.
A counter-point:
I, and many others, ended up funding puri.sm to actually undertake this project. Which included hiring a bunch of people full time to work on the software on all layers of the stack.
Today we have a much different landscape with pinephone and others working to slowly release phones too.
My take is that we needed this kickstart of the libre-phone movement. They started it, before them there was nothing relevant going on. They obviously didn't do it alone, far from it. But they showed there was real money to be made, they pushed consistently and had actual people do the hard work.
So, even though I have not actually received an actual piece of hardware, I'm still happy I funded their campaign. I may not get a great piece of hardware, but I did get a lot of worth for my money.
Battery life is definitely still a problem. But software updates should significantly improve it. The main problem is that all CPUs are constantly on even when the screen is off...
Otherwise, in 6 month we indeed expect the final batch usable by "parents, enterprises and businesses of all sizes".
"The goal is clear, make the Librem 5 last at least a day of regular use. "
https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-power-management-improvements...
The imx8mq has a USB download mode so the device can be flashed via USB-C. You can completely corrupt the eMMC including u-boot and still recover it.