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Comment by mciancia | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if/when they will release more powerfull version

I'm not quite sure what the destination is with this phone. This particular model seems to be for hobbiests who will use it as a second device for development, or purists who value privacy over all else.

I would prefer to pay double or triple for a phone that has all the opensource and privacy goals but also competes in performance and build so it can be my daily driver. I realize that we also want open standards and privacy for the masses but they will be the last group to adopt not the first.

If this is the secondary 'dev device' now because the platform isn't complete enough to be a primary, the price point makes sense. Can't wait for when it can be a daily driver. How far can you get with a good phone+contacts (voice calls), sms, and excellent web browser? Pretty far. Other apps are nice but they can be the add-ons.

Well, it works fine as a phone. With Mobian it is stable enough for me to be a daily driver.

When I need performance I usually turn to real computers or specialized gadgets.

I guess with the current state of even simple static website/apps we seem to often need performance. I hadn't even thought about compatibility of the web browser. Might any WebKit based browser (with user-agent overrides) be close enough?

Here you go: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5.

This is about the Librem 5 (not from Pine64), which is multiple times the price.

Cool if the PinePhone didn't exist, but against it it doesn't look that good, I would say.

A Pinephone 2 / Pro wouldn't be that much more expensive.

That said: They are funding a lot of phone software development, especially libhandy seems to come ... in handy pretty often.

If all you need is more power, Librem 5 should be the perfect choice. Don't you expect powerful hardware to cost more?

There is no information when Pinephone 2 arrives and how much it will cost.

> Cool if the PinePhone didn't exist, but against it it doesn't look that good, I would say.

Yes, it does: https://social.librem.one/@ozmik/105939468751642844

I've read conflicting reports on how much more powerful it is in practice. I've seen only one direct review that said the Librem is clearly much faster, but I've also seen a few comparisons that show little to no difference in daily use tasks.

The problem might be that we don't have a quality comparison yet (or I haven't found it), but I wonder if there is a performance bottle neck in the hardware. Maybe the software is still better optimized for the pine and the Librem will start to pull ahead as more developers get a chance to work on it.

Librem 5 has much more powerful hardware regardless of software optimizations: https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-p....

It just depends on what your "daily use tasks" are.

In term of CPU, the hardware is similarly shitty. For the GPU, the Librem 5 has a better GPU. In plasma mobile, the current bottleneck is on the GPU side, so maybe the Librem 5 can offer better performance but I'm not sure the improvements are worth $600 more.

In practice, the biggest difference comes from RAM speed, which Librem 5 has almost three times as fast as PinePhone. Then, the CPU is clocked at 1.3x the speed and it has twice the L2 cache. eMMC is faster too. The difference in every day usage is easily noticeable even just by how fast applications start and, indeed, the GPU performance difference is drastic: https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767475144787918

Recently I've compiled GTK4 on both phones and it took my PinePhone almost twice as long as my Librem 5.

Disclaimer: I work for Purism on the Librem 5, although I'm very excited with the PinePhone as well - I'd say it's good for its price.

Startup times will probably change quite a lot for apps that use the GPU. I've noticed some performance work being done recently around startup times.

Sure - there's a lot that can be done there; but that will also make it faster on L5 :)

Some of this is lima specific, so not really.

Ah right. Almost none of the GTK3 apps use the GPU though (but GTK4 does use it, so that's going to be relevant for GTK apps soon).

$1999 woah https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5-usa/

This is the made-in-USA edition. How much alternative phones from the USA cost?

Standard edition costs $800.

I get it, I'm all for it. Objectively, it's still a lot of money even for middle class Americans.

Such is the cost to produce electronics in America...

I mean, it's not out-of-line compared to other prestige smartphones. This one's just a different kind of prestige. And you're paying for a different kind of organization and effort behind it.

Either way, there are enormous numbers of people happy to drop $1000 on a phone, maybe more. It's a lot of money in that my first car was cheaper, sure..

you're just lying yourself that you are middle class I see, nothing to be ashamed of to be lower class. I am also lower class. politicians made us this way.

I really appreciate your attitude. And I agree with you.

Allow me, however, to go one step further. You're 'working' class. You're not 'lower' than anybody else.

This is still 4 times more expensive than the biggest Pinephone, which of course is a lot more limited in computing power, memory, storage and other areas, but sometimes people just want the bare minimum to enter the world of open phones. I wonder what's the reason behind Purism ignoring the low end market completely.

The reason is Purism are trying to make as free (as in "free software") smartphone as possible: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

Purism is paying a team of full-time developers to build software for their devices.

Pine64 sells their devices at rock bottom prices and lets the community develop software.

I personally would buy the Librem5 if they solved the battery life issues.

Whats the average battery life with moderate useage?

In my experience, battery life of the Librem 5 is currently in about 10-16h range depending on usage. Could be better, but it's not as bad as it used to be (and actually easily beats the PinePhone when it comes to active usage time).

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