Librem 5 Will Begin Shipping In The Weeks Ahead, But Varying Quality Over Months Ahead

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Librem 5 Will Begin Shipping In The Weeks Ahead, But Varying Quality Over Months Ahead

As we approach the end of Q3, Purism has been quiet whether they will make their revised target of shipping the Librem 5 Linux smartphone this quarter after passing their original plan to ship at the start of 2019. Well, Purism has just published an update and they will begin shipping the phones in batches beginning at the end of the month but the quality isn't yet up to scratch...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-Shipping-Batches

[wizard69]

Basically they are almost a year behind from having a phone that is in good general condition. That is based on their September target which they have obviously missed. Missed that is unless you where expecting a prototype cell phone instead of a production model.

The other thing that needs clarification here is how long will the software stack work on these early phones? The way this article reads it sounds like software will only be focused on later releases.

It it looks like they have fundamentally underestimated the required effort to get this device out the door. Further I now have no confidence that they will meet any of these new deadlines.

[L_A_G]

I thought the title had a typo and was supposed to read "Quantity" rather than "Quality" and refer to having to pick up whatever manufacturing/fabricator capacity they can get with most companies being busy with orders for the Christmas season. After all I have previously speculated that if they can't make it for a proper Q3 release every fabricator/manufacturing subcontractor is going to be busy filling orders for the Christmas season placed well ahead of time.

Sounds to me like they're so desperate to avoid another delay that they're going to start shipping out what would normally be early pre-production devices only meant for internal use. I suppose a sizable portion of the people who back this device are fine with this, but with all of the refinements they've announced to be on the way it's starting to look like the release state of the device will be one that makes the release state of the Jolla 1 look rock solid.

Don't get me wrong, I do absolutely wish them all the best and they've put way more effort, by a country mile I might add, into ensuring the privacy of their users than any hardware vendor out there that I'm aware of. Even at the cost of delays and otherwise sub-optimal implementations which I can absolutely respect even if I keep criticizing them for not having fully understood how much effort it would be to deliver on their promises. Actually being able to deliver on lofty promises is always commendable even if you're a bit late because you didn't seem to fully understand how much work it would be to properly deliver on those promises.

For those not familiar with the release state of the Jolla 1; The device was supposed to based on a Texas Instruments SoC and was even ready for mass production, but months from launch TI announced they were pulling out of the smartphone market with no warning. As a result Jolla had re-engineer the device based on a Qualcomm SoC in a crazy rush leading to the device releasing in a state that was even officially a Beta state. Particularly wireless connectivity was an absolute mess for months after launch.

[brent]

WTF? So you paid 600 USD and what you'll likely get is a shoddily made prototype. Are you serious, Purism? This is ridiculous.

[Barry]

I really like the concept of the phone, and I appreciate the challenges of bringing a crowd-funded, idealistic product to fruition. But at this point, I'm not at all confident that this will ever be a phone that I will want to purchase, given the difference between the hype and the reality. I hope that Purism will bring new management to this project and rethink how it engages with the many people interested in seeing a successful product.

[brent]

brent Nobody cares about your 600 USD. Freedom and Privacy is paid with effort and principles.

Purism? Effort and principles? LOL. That's a pretty good one. Particularl the Librem 5 is 90% marketing and little else so far. Just like this stunt they're pulling right now. Make end-users test your unfinished prototypes for hundreds of dollars? Yeah, effort and principles! /s

[R41N3R]

I believe this is not a bad decision. For all the goals that they try to achieve it is more than clear that a day 1 release would not be perfect anyway. So better release early and ask who want to be part of it than waiting again and again for the perfect final product, which is impossible anyway. They never will make everybody happy, but this approach will allow them to scale and improve the product (hardware and software) together with the early adopters and app developers.

[dos1]

The other thing that needs clarification here is how long will the software stack work on these early phones? The way this article reads it sounds like software will only be focused on later releases.

From software point of view, all of those batches (maybe except the last one) are esentially the same device.

[Danielsan]

They may have underestimated the effort to create a phone from scratch without the necessary know-how, however this is the most promising "pure" Linux phone we have seen so far, they are also building a ecosystem around it which is not secondary in terms of importance. This may be the corner stone to get rid off for ever of any crappy Android-like OSes that exist just to spy on you...

[Toggleton]

maybe for People to better understand what the Motivation and challenges are to build the Librem 5 watch that talk about it https://media.ccc.de/v/Camp2019-1023..._freedom#t=682