Librem 14 units appear to have been modified by a 3rd party

The forum entry linked in the post has a much clearer image of the weirdly amateurish modifications:

https://forums.puri.sm/t/new-post-librem-14-in-pictures/1314...

This looks like it's still developing, and thankfully the user who posted this (u/jaylittle) appears to have posted significant details and evidence.

This matters imho, because from my point of view as a lurker on r/Purism (due to their work on phosh/mobile Linux), that jaylittle easily has the most heavily anti-Purism bias I've seen on that subreddit, and is very consistent about it.

So, while I'm definitely interested and am curious what the end result looks like, it's a bit tricky for me to take their comments/investigation at face value. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what else comes out.

[Small edits for grammar]

EE take: This is just a rework of an early spin with flaws discovered late in the design[1]. Anyone shocked probably never looked at electronics before. Iv seen $xxK precision instruments with more egregious bodges. Could it look better? maybe. Would it make a difference to the operation of the device: nope.

[1] added caps for stability, most likely manifests under rare load scenarios.

TLDR: Meh, at least its not shoe rubber shim pushing on a GPU voltage regulator in your 2013 15 MBP - yes, Apple did this instead of resoldering chips.

I don't see evidence of the boards being modified by a 3rd party per se (other than a poor soldering job when compared with the rest of the board).

The most obvious modification appears to be passive capacitors (1206), wire, and globs of solder.

It would be more probable that the supplier made a mistake or wished to improve the circuit and did a hack job instead of iterating the PCB, which would be a more expensive operation for the supplier.

The money quote:

In any event regardless of what happened here, Purism is likely going to take a hit. If they aren't checking the hardware they get from their subcontractors and suppliers for obvious modifications such as this, then how can you trust that the hardware they deliver to end customers hasn't been modified in some way? It strikes to the very core of their reputation as a privacy respecting provider of reliable PC hardware.

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It just seems that the reputational hit rarely happens, at least with big corporations. And often they even thrive after exposure. So many examples come to mind ranging from RSA, Citrix to Juniper etc.... There is some value to infamy.

From this perpective, paying extra for something to be produced in USA (they had an option for this in Librem 5) starts to make sense...

I hope it's just someone screwed up without malicious intent.