The $1,999 Liberty Phone Is Made in America. Its Creator Explains How | Hacker News Reader

The $1,999 Liberty Phone Is Made in America. Its Creator Explains How

wsj.com

12 pointsawongh8 comments

The mostly-made-in-US version costs them $650 to manufacture, and they sell it for $2000, while the made-in-China version costs them $550, and they sell it for $800 [1]. They inflate a $100 difference in cost to a $1200 difference in price. Chinese anti-on-shoring propaganda wouldn't be this blatant.

[1] https://www.404media.co/how-a-2-000-made-in-the-usa-liberty-... - search for "You can look at our concrete numbers."

Purism is a scam company. I preordered their Librem phone in 2017 and waited YEARS for it to be ready. When I finally gave up and asked for a refund--which they had allowed per their original terms--I was told I had to wait until my spot came up in the shipping queue to receive it. When my spot came up a few more years later (!), they refused to refund it and instead offered me "store credit". They had scrubbed the original terms from their website (the Internet Archive had receipts though).

And this is completely beside the fact that the phone was actually unusable for day-to-day usage, for multiple reasons. I'm not sure if they ever fixed those issues on that phone, and now they're selling another overpriced piece of junk. No thanks, Purism the company cannot die fast enough.

I decided to receive my Librem 5 I ordered in August of 2019 and shipped in April 2023. From the reports by the people who received the first non-test batches of phones (the "Evergreen" batch), I knew this was never going to be a daily driver. Their software team just isn't up to the task of pounding a Linux system into the shape of what people expect from a cellphone. The type of person who is using this daily only needs phone and SMS, charges it most of the day (or carries extra batteries), and can contort the rest of their needs into a ten year old hardware platform with immature display support. So mine just sits in my drawer of curiosities.

Should say "Made in America*", since:

  Not all of its parts are U.S. made: Other components come from China and other Asian countries. [...]
  The screen and battery come from China and the rear-facing camera comes from South Korea.

Also, what is this bit at the end about tariffs?

  Tariffs likely won’t affect his costs at his current production rates
  because he ordered a large batch of parts when he started and still has
  them in supply at his facility. Weaver says that a long-term tariff on
  imported electronics could make the Liberty Phone’s manufacturing cost
  more competitive, since the cheap components would only see marginal
  increases, and more components are likely to be built in the U.S. soon.

They won't affect his costs because he has a huge stockpile? That's like when people said "I don't need the government to force me to get health insurance. My husband is a doctor."

Also "more components are likely to be built in the U.S. soon" - says who? How much is "likely," and how soon is "soon?" Lazy reporting at the end with practically no push back from the WSJ writer.

Simple. They claim it is despite the fact that it's not. If I learned anything from the smartereveryday attempt to make a simple mechanical product in the USA it's that the suppliers are going to lie and say $part is from the USA. It's not. But when the original project is itself a scam that's of little importance. The importance is not the thing, or the ideology, but the public perception. They need not have made any phone at all. Just announcing it would do.

It's a shame to see a real company like Purism get wound up in all this though.

Smarter Scrubber video, for those that aren't familiar:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

Per some of the other comments. I’m not sure if Purism is much of a “real” company

https://archive.is/2025.06.21-100511/https://www.wsj.com/tec...

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