Is there anyone here who has used or is using the Librem 5 smartphone? I have a few questions about it:
* How is the the mobile version of PureOS? Do you like it?
* How responsive are apps on the phone? Do they feel snappy?
* Are you able to sync your email and calendar on either Google Apps or Outlook for offline access?
Personally I like it. Phosh is pretty and snappy.
> How responsive are apps on the phone? Do they feel snappy?
Reasonable by Linux phone standards. Sometimes an app can take 2 or 3 secondds to load, but it shows a splash screen instantly so it still feels like its working. A mobile CSS firefox tweak (preinstalled) makes it work and it is very responsive and snappy.
> Are you able to sync your email and calendar on either Google Apps or Outlook for offline access?
Yes. Well Imap email works and CalDav calendars. I think Google calendars work. I use a generic Imap email provider and Nextcloud for contacts / email.
But the battery life is abysmal. I got between 4 and 8 hours battery life. Apparently suspend is now working so that should be fixed. The camera app wwas awful (but that is now fixed).
But the biggest problem was that the modem constantly dropped out meaning I would miss calls and messages makimg the phone useless.
I now use a OnePlus 6 with postmarketOS and I haven't looked back.
Also fixed now. Fun fact: it turned out to be a deficiency of USB 2.0 spec (race condition between a suspending hub and a device signaling remote wakeup) and it's in no way specific to the phone - it may happen on any USB host with similar topology.
Apps are fine, performance feels more than adequate. It's not Android so most of the apps I'm used to aren't available, but the ones that do exist are snappy enough. That's kinda the point, though, so that's not a complaint, just an observation.
I haven't poked at either of those emails, sorry. Regular POP/IMAP email works just like you'd expect.
My main complaint is battery life. It gets warm just sitting there, and it charges really slowly even using my best PD-compliant charger. If I forget to plug it in tonight, it'll be dead by morning, and I can't put enough charge back into it briefly during breakfast for it to be useful tomorrow daytime. As long as I'm fanatical about making sure it's plugged in every night, it's fine.
The Pinephone (not pro) I got was slow and the software was very alpha, but I've heard it's better now. Again, not sure about the Librem as I got stuck in the queue and gave up eventually. I heard there were Librem5 overheating issues and I'm not sure if that's been adequately addressed.
Phosh on the Pinephone definitely wasn't snappy. Maybe it will be snappier with Pro and a new update since I haven't tried it out again in years. I never got around to syncing things too much, but there are definitely email clients on Linux that'll work though how "mobile" their UI is, I'm not sure. Purism created libhandy[0] that's now managed my GNOME to mobilify these things and again I'm not sure about the status, but I'm sure Email was a high priority.
I have no troubles with overheating on my phone, I can even compile things on it. Some people living in warmer climates report that it may be challenging to charge the phone when it's on as it has a thermal threshold where it stops charging. Should get better with system suspend, which was very experimental until now (still not enabled by default, but it got reliable enough to actually use it on a daily driver).
When it comes to perceived performance, Librem 5 is definitely closer to PinePhone Pro than the original PinePhone, which was very slow.
This phone is being sold for $1300 and whether you can charge it consistently depends on your latitude and experimental software.
> Librem 5 is definitely closer to PinePhone Pro
The PinePhone Pro is $399 and I can have it next week. I could buy three PinePhone Pros and wear them out a year before one Librem 5 with difficulty charging ships.
* it's good. works well, apps reflow nicely, can run a lot of stuff simultaneously without memory issues. There is a nasty kernel bug relating to suspend and the wwan modem, but that's not pureos specific.
* depending on the app, ranging from snappy to so-so. Especially flatpaks tend to stutter...
* I don't use those services but it should be possible via gnome-accounts. I do sync a caldav and carddav and that works flawlessly.
written from librewolf on my librem5
I'm honestly almost always near a charger, which I also realize is just a cope.
https://forums.puri.sm/t/modem-draining-the-battery-very-fas...
I've had the phone for a while and the battery has gone through many cycles. It has definitely lost some capacity.
[0] https://forums.puri.sm/t/status-of-suspend-for-librem-5/1391...
[1] https://forums.puri.sm/t/status-of-suspend-for-librem-5/1391...
[2] https://forums.puri.sm/t/status-of-suspend-for-librem-5/1391...
Recent progress: https://social.librem.one/@dos/110180625035442292.
An update that makes communication with the modem after resuming from system suspend reliable has been deployed today (previously it would often fully reenumerate and cause various troubles in the process, now it's instant).
Thanks for your hard work to get this fixed!
The early batches shipped with early software, and that was actually the biggest contributor to bad battery life and (now long solved) overheating issues.
Early backers who explicitly opted in to receive early batches from before mass production have smaller capacity batteries, and that's about it.
Not sure what's so "ouch" about it. People also bought devkits which didn't come with any battery at all. Only some people were presented with the opportunity to receive a phone from the earliest revisions and only some of those people chose to - presumably those who cared more about getting a platform to hack on as early as possible than things like battery life.
It sounds like they’re still not ready.
The mass produced phones that started shipping mid-2021 have 4500mAh battery and, with current software, reach about 20h in suspend with modem on and connected. Due to component shortages and other delays it's still shipping through backorders, although the queue is near its end right now.
I may run a test this summer to see how it goes.
Purism has a long history of making grand promises and not delivering them.
They make sketchy things like promising a possibility to refund and then gaslighting customers that such promise did not happen.
(For clarity: It still runs, but Mastodon from 2019.)
It wasn't initially as the idea was to disable things like direct messages and rely on blocking (IIRC some blocking features were even improved upstream as part of the Librem One project), but that was quickly scrapped as it's not something that works with federation very well.
If they hadn't managed that, they would be indistinguishable from a LARP preying on FOSS enthusiasts' hopium and dollars in the phone context.