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"For the people complaining about the price/specs ratio: this phone is no standard off-the-shelve system, it had to be designed with user privacy and openness i

"For the people complaining about the price/specs ratio: this phone is no standard off-the-shelve system, it had to be designed with user privacy and openness in mind while having a ridiculously small market. I'm amazed they did it so cheaply." How does that affect the price tag? Would it be less secure if they charged less?

MayeulC 7y ago
Well, using an off-the shelf system like many of the cheap smartphone companies do allow you to keep development costs down, and leverage economies of scale even for small batches. For one, they are bringing up a stack that's quite different from the one usually found on smartphones, which sounds quite costly. From the security point of view, I am not sure it would be less secure on the sw side, but it would be less open. On the hw side, they have kill switches, isolated the firmware on ROM chips (RYF-compliant), and have a pretty strict security-first approach. Unfortunately that places it out of reach for me, financially-speaking. I'll continue with postmarketos, and keep an eye on the pinephone.
hedora 7y ago
> How does that affect the price tag? Would it be less secure if they charged less? Price = cost of goods sold (hardware) + (profit + development overhead + marketing + ...) / number of units sold So, yes, if they didn’t bother spending r&d resources on security, they could charge less. Also, the marginal price of security is much higher than with the big two, since the number of units sold is smaller. I wish them well, but they picked a tough fight.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  Isn't it mostly all off the shelf hardware and software though? I think they're going to discover that a lot of people say they want security but when push comes to shove when they're buying a phone they first and foremost want a good phone. If you were really bothered about security and privacy on a phone you'd just use tracking blockers, a disposable (google) account, not log into facebook, turn off location, use tor, or existing encrypted chat software to talk to other people who are also using disposable (ie not their main email accounts to sign up to google) accounts etc. But do all this on a regular phone. I'd always been concerned about timely security updates, software that's been written by people with no experience with security and who have no reputation to damage by cutting corners.
gibba999 7y ago
If you constrain yourself to non-NDA hardware, rather than lowest-cost vendor, you've just notched up price quite a bit. Take out mass manufacturing economics, and the price seems quite economical, actually.

MayeulC 7y ago

Well, using an off-the shelf system like many of the cheap smartphone companies do allow you to keep development costs down, and leverage economies of scale even for small batches. For one, they are bringing up a stack that's quite different from the one usually found on smartphones, which sounds quite costly. From the security point of view, I am not sure it would be less secure on the sw side, but it would be less open. On the hw side, they have kill switches, isolated the firmware on ROM chips (RYF-compliant), and have a pretty strict security-first approach. Unfortunately that places it out of reach for me, financially-speaking. I'll continue with postmarketos, and keep an eye on the pinephone.

hedora 7y ago

> How does that affect the price tag? Would it be less secure if they charged less? Price = cost of goods sold (hardware) + (profit + development overhead + marketing + ...) / number of units sold So, yes, if they didn’t bother spending r&d resources on security, they could charge less. Also, the marginal price of security is much higher than with the big two, since the number of units sold is smaller. I wish them well, but they picked a tough fight.

iamnotacrook 7y ago
Isn't it mostly all off the shelf hardware and software though? I think they're going to discover that a lot of people say they want security but when push comes to shove when they're buying a phone they first and foremost want a good phone. If you were really bothered about security and privacy on a phone you'd just use tracking blockers, a disposable (google) account, not log into facebook, turn off location, use tor, or existing encrypted chat software to talk to other people who are also using disposable (ie not their main email accounts to sign up to google) accounts etc. But do all this on a regular phone. I'd always been concerned about timely security updates, software that's been written by people with no experience with security and who have no reputation to damage by cutting corners.

gibba999 7y ago

If you constrain yourself to non-NDA hardware, rather than lowest-cost vendor, you've just notched up price quite a bit. Take out mass manufacturing economics, and the price seems quite economical, actually.