3 ms·

I have an iPhone 6s, just looking for something in the ballpark to replace it. I've seen this Librem before but thought the company's approach was impractical.

I have an iPhone 6s, just looking for something in the ballpark to replace it. I've seen this Librem before but thought the company's approach was impractical. As in perfect is the enemy of the good. They seem to be focusing on things like secure supply chains and local manufacturing—resulting in one/two thousand dollar+ devices. Don't get me wrong, sounds nice... five to ten years from now? I need a mostly working mobile today at a reasonable price. Something like an updated Pinephone Pro at $400 and I'm willing to throw in an extra ~$200 for R&D. Believe they would be much better served by the common mobile strategy of, get a shitty phone out, sell them, reinvest profit, and improve every year. That probably means hardware built in Asia first. But on their site I see a four year old phone at $999 with lower specs than the Pinephone Pro. Maybe someone would like to start a company reselling Pinephone Pros with various value add, and capture that two or three extra hundred dollars per device? Might get a discount in bulk.

fsflover 3y ago
> But on their site I see a four year old phone at $999 with lower specs than the Pinephone Pro. Software optimization are much more important than the specs, unless you're going to run some heavy applications.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  One of my use cases is to have my music on device. 32GB is not enough. And the PPP hardware is already a ~decade behind, not a high bar at all.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    I keep music on my Librem 5 on a 512GB microSD card.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Now we’re talkin’ :-)
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        However, am I ready to pay $1k for the privilege?
        fsflover 3y ago
        This is the actual cost of a smartphone, without subsidies of the targeted ads and walled gardens.
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        ...and without economies of scale, which is probably the biggest factor. There was a significant investment in R&D and software, but it doesn't really smear that much over the number of devices produced; and production costs skyrocketed after COVID-induced shortages which resulted in splitting production batches into smaller ones.

fsflover 3y ago

> But on their site I see a four year old phone at $999 with lower specs than the Pinephone Pro. Software optimization are much more important than the specs, unless you're going to run some heavy applications.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
One of my use cases is to have my music on device. 32GB is not enough. And the PPP hardware is already a ~decade behind, not a high bar at all.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  I keep music on my Librem 5 on a 512GB microSD card.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Now we’re talkin’ :-)
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      However, am I ready to pay $1k for the privilege?
      - fsflover 3y ago
        This is the actual cost of a smartphone, without subsidies of the targeted ads and walled gardens.
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        ...and without economies of scale, which is probably the biggest factor. There was a significant investment in R&D and software, but it doesn't really smear that much over the number of devices produced; and production costs skyrocketed after COVID-induced shortages which resulted in splitting production batches into smaller ones.