Purism Finally Announces The Firmed Up Specifications For The Librem 5 Smartphone

It still remains to be seen if Purism will be able to ship the Librem 5 Linux smartphone this quarter as is their current revised target, but at least today they are publishing the finalized specifications for the phone's hardware.

While we've long known of their plans to use the i.MX8 SoC and other components, items like the phone's cameras, battery capacity, and even RAM were not known until now. The specifications that Purism is announcing any moment on their blog are:

- 5.7" IPS TFT screen @ 720x1440
- i.MX8M Quad-core up to 1.5GHz
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB eMMC internal storage + microSD expansion
- 802.11abgn 2.4GHz / 5GHz + Bluetooth 4
- Gemalto PLS8 3G/4G modem with one SIM
- Teseo LIF3 GNSS GPS
- 8MP front camera
- 13MP rear camera
- USB Type-C port
- User-replaceable 3,500 mAh

The screen remains one of the biggest disappointments for 720x1440 for a high-priced smartphone in 2019. The rest of the specs also really aren't worth getting excited about like 802.11n and 3GB of RAM, but it is what it is. The pricing of the Librem 5 remains at $649 USD for now but is going up to $699 USD soon.

Purism's specifications also talk of "OpenGL/ES 3.1, Vulkan, OpenCL 1.2", but that's rather odd considering they are using the Etnaviv driver stack where there is no OpenCL or Vulkan support at this point. The Etnaviv Gallium3D OpenGL driver is still also largely bound to GL2. So unless they are planning on switching over to using binary drivers, these specifications are wishes for the future.

A draft of their blog post does mention the Librem 5 is still set to begin shipping in "Q3" but anything more definitive wasn't provided in advance and still seems like a stretch considering they haven't even shown any phone prototype (short of the bare developer kit) in action and their software stack is still quite rudimentary. But we'll see where it goes.