from Hacker News

Why does the Librem 5 phone cost that much?

by fghtr on 11/28/19, 11:24 AM with 249 comments

  • by bo1024 on 11/28/19, 3:47 PM

    Sidenote: I got my Librem 5 in the mail yesterday! Below is a video of unboxing.

    https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/55eece8c-2d6c-4da3-8c8c-...

    This prototype version is definitely not ready for mass market due to (1) known overheating issue (so far I've observed it get quite warm sometimes, but not uncomfortably hot), (2) a bunch little software things to work on. But it's really exciting to be able to `ls` and `cd` and `ssh` on a phone, and know that the software updates are coming.

    Purism's accomplishment already is pretty incredible on both a hardware and software level. For me, well worth the price. Congrats to them even if there is a ways to go yet.

  • by 95014_refugee on 11/28/19, 5:37 PM

    "We had to design the hardware from scratch"

    Er, no. You bought a bunch of silicon off the shelf, and you had to integrate it. Several orders of magnitude less work.

    Fifteen developers, and two years? Not mentioned, but this means you didn't write the telephony stack either.

    iMX8M bringup, driver development, software integration. This is real work, but it's a tiny fraction of what goes into making your own phone.

    Hoping you sell enough of these that you manage to attract adversarial attention. Because how you deal with that will be the true test of your commitment...

  • by DyslexicAtheist on 11/28/19, 12:09 PM

    They are an SPC not aln LLC. Does anyone know what is the difference between a Washington SPCs and LLCs? Is it true that as mentioned here[0] that:

    > I think the story is that Washington SPCs are LLCs in pretty much every aspect besides shareholder-board disputes.

    and, why

    > have they never made a Social Purpose Report available despite the fact that they've been an SPC for two and a half years?

    from the bottom of the article[1]:

    > It is also worth keeping in mind that Purism isn't actually incorporated as a typical LLC (Limited Liability Company). They are actually incorporated as a SPC (Social Purpose Corporation) in the state of Washington. The primary difference between an LLC and an SPC in Washington is that SPCs can do things that are in the best interests of their customers rather than always doing things that are in the best interests of their shareholders. It is also important to know that in Washington this status comes with some extra regulatory requirements ...

    ----

    if formed as an SPC, shouldn't they be transparent in how they allocate budgets to internal projects (as proof that they do what is outlined in the Social Purpose Report (SPR))? It's a shame they don't produce a SPR which could be used to verify the claims about price in this post.

    [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371573

    [1] https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...

  • by oefrha on 11/28/19, 12:55 PM

  • by lnsru on 11/28/19, 12:04 PM

    This great Dev Kit design is available for everybody: https://kicad-pcb.org/made-with-kicad/librem_5_dev_kit/ Amazing piece of open source hardware. While I am not interested in cellphones, I might use for robotics project.

  • by riazrizvi on 11/28/19, 4:29 PM

    Thanks for explaining all the work your team is doing to create this innovative privacy phone, truly groundbreaking, I eagerly anticipate mine arriving in March. Meanwhile Hewlett Packard, with $5bn in net income and 50k employees, is advertising their latest innovation on my YouTube feed: a physical switch connected to the camera.

  • by awinter-py on 11/28/19, 6:16 PM

    I love how their values-based pitch allows them to miss operational deadlines and still maintain their user appeal

    When android devices have a major public video permission hole, everyone exhales and mentally checks out. When purism is late, it sucks but it's not the same

    Pre-sale customers are along for the ride. If the lesson for other startups is 'if you're really innovating, your users will be there when you're ready', I think that's a really good outcome.

  • by pferde on 11/28/19, 11:54 AM

    "Trust in closed non-auditable complex computer systems is something everyone has learned the hard way we should not have. The news is full each day of zero day bugs and exploits throughout the stack–from applications to operating systems and even down to the very silicon the whole stuff runs on."

    If only. I suspect that only tech enthusiasts are aware of these issues. In the meantime, non-technical people only give you weird disbelieving looks when you mention this to them, and then continue ignoring it.

  • by cjg on 11/28/19, 1:51 PM

    Most of the things that they say have caused the high cost are sunk costs in design.

    Given that the design is open, it should be possible for another company, who doesn't have these sunk costs, to deliver the same phone for less.

    Does this mean that they have the price wrong? Can selling open designs ever recoup such design costs?

  • by strooper on 11/28/19, 1:59 PM

    It would all make sense to me, if they wouldn't charge $800 and $1000 for 24" and 30" monitors (with keyboard and mouse) respectively. Are they designing the monitors from ground up as well?

    Business around privacy is a thing going on for at least a decade. However, we often forget that our data flow is controlled, monitored, and stored by those who we try to protect our data from.

  • by GordonS on 11/28/19, 6:02 PM

    A bit OT, but I didn't know Librem made laptops - does anyone here have any experience with them, especially the 13" model?

  • by Pmop on 11/28/19, 2:28 PM

    Well, they could say that it's expensive but at least you get to really own the phone, not the other way around. Technical wording works best with technical people.

  • by 131012 on 11/28/19, 12:30 PM

    Has anybody received them? Last time I checked, deliveries were suspiciously late.

  • by DCKing on 11/28/19, 1:07 PM

    This blogpost propagates what I'd like to describe as an urban legend about baseband processors and main memory. The story originates from old times where even fancy phones allowed the baseband to write everywhere in main memory. The myth then becomes that you need the baseband physically separated from your main application processor.

    But the world's moved on since those reports were made. It's FUD: https://www.reddit.com/r/CopperheadOS/comments/6wtul0/on_sen...

  • by kulahan on 11/28/19, 5:50 PM

    I'm glad they put out this article - I've been thinking about picking one of these up, but the price surprised me. I wonder if the same reasoning holds true for their laptops? They're really nice, but the $1400 starting price is pretty steep considering the specs.

    Side note: this is the strangest font I've seen in a long time. Why is the lower-case "t" smaller than every other letter? It almost looks like one of those fonts designed for dyslexic readers, but with no variations in the width of the letter strokes, I don't think that's the case. Anyone know if it was just a really strange choice, or if it serves some greater purpose?

  • by Aeolun on 11/28/19, 1:56 PM

    I don’t think a $700 phone is terribly expensive. I mean, yes, it is, but as long as they stay below iPhone pricing I don’t see how anyone can complain.

  • by gorgoiler on 11/28/19, 12:00 PM

    Naive question, but with a commercial product like the i.MX8M from NXP Semiconductors, is there really not enough in it for them to develop Linux support for their product, rather than leaving it to other parties? Presumably some OS supported things like the i.MX8M’s accelerometer from the launch date, or are these chips shipped to OEMs on the basis that the low level functions work, but all OS support has to be created by someone else?

  • by skinnyasianboi on 11/28/19, 2:35 PM

    I love the software part in the article. Basic GTK apps just need a few changes and they start working seamless on both Desktop and smaller displays.

  • by baybal2 on 11/28/19, 6:28 PM

    You can definitely make a cookie cutter 65nm SoC under $1m.

    SoC has a gigantic cost advantage over discrete parts, let alone PCIE cards.

    The only showstopper is the 4G radio. There are no IP vendors for it at all, and that is very much a result of things antitrust regulators should've been taking care of.

  • by shmerl on 11/28/19, 9:01 PM

    > and that we would never make it with GNOME. Well, here we are, we are shipping with GNOME / GTK+

    What's the reason not to use Plasma Mobile though? I'd prefer investment of effort into that.

  • by cryptozeus on 11/28/19, 4:14 PM

    Its only $699, why are they calling it expensive? I paid $1100 for unlocked iphone.

  • by ForFreedom on 11/28/19, 1:40 PM

    I need bitcoin to purchase the phone

  • by cryptozeus on 11/28/19, 4:06 PM

    Great idea but man what a missed missed opportunity on the naming? I do not want to but a phone called librem.

  • by jokoon on 11/28/19, 2:29 PM

    How about you make a cheaper product without software bloat? I don't think a smartphone requires 3GB ram to work. Those smartphones are not high end, but they have incredible specs and yet I don't see any logic that justifies them.

    There should be a market for electronics that goes against planned obsolescence. Build a device that runs a good enough OS, with low specs, that doesn't require fast hardware, make it sturdy and last at least 3 years, and I would buy it.

    I refuse to spit more than $200 for any of those devices. People say "but I used it everyday, it is my main computer", well with all due respect you are addicted to your phone.

    The smartphone industry is bizarre. Of course you can accuse Apple and google ecosystems, but still.

  • by gwd on 11/28/19, 12:44 PM

    This is an amazing effort, but I think...

    > Well, here we are, we are shipping with GNOME / GTK+

    ...this point is I think quite unfortunate. I tried to write a GTK+ program a few years ago and it was completely impossible. Using GNOME / GTK+ will surely limit its attractiveness of a development platform. It's too bad they couldn't have done something based on Qt instead.

    EDIT: Rather than downvoting, why don't you post your contrary experience with GTK+?