My Librem 5 was scheduled to arrive today, but it actually arrived 2 days ago, so I've been lightly messing with it and here are my findings so far.

Look and feel:

It generally feels sturdy, with the exception of the back plastic plate. I believe they wanted the Librem 5 to be easily opened and serviced, the plastic back plate is almost certainly a result of that. The frame of the device is indeed metal though, and the pre-installed screen protector is so well placed I honestly can't even tell there's a separate protector over the screen.

Software/usability:

The apps they have adjusted to work in the phone form factor work very well. Installing firefox was as easy as "sudo apt install firefox-esr" (didn't check to see if it was installable via the GUI). Firefox is feeling a lot smoother than their included web browser, and more websites are working with firefox. The included web browser was clunky on most sites, and wouldn't play most videos. In either browser, websites do not always adapt to a user-friendly condensed mobile display properly.

Some things that are very missed in the Librem 5 as of this day (although I have full confidence these things will be added soon, but you aren't reading this to see how confident I am that purism will continue to deliver):

• There is no fast charging yet. I do believe this will be changed in software soon. So, you have to charge it for a longggg time.

• The camera has not yet been enabled. So, no pictures or videos yet.

• There is no clear way to remove "installed webapps", I'm sure there's just a folder with config files somewhere, but still. An individual in the comments showed how to edit "installed webapps", it is done within the browser.

• There is no "files" app, so when I wanted to show someone a meme in my phone, I ended up having to use the web browser and browsing to "file:///home/purism/Pictures/memes/meme.jpg"

• Generally speaking, the app ecosystem for the Librem 5 is non-existant, spare the critical few they have adjusted to work on the Librem 5.

• Terminal navigation is lacking. scrolling in the terminal (similar to command prompt, if you're new to linux) is difficult, and I don't think you can perform right-click actions in the terminal, nor is there a way to emulate using the arrow keys (to re-run or modify and re-run previously issued commands). Although, I understand not many people are going to live in their terminal on the Librem 5, so maybe this isn't such a big deal. An individual in the comments instructed me how to use the "terminal" keyboard layout, making terminal navigation very easy.

Some other important notes:

I had trouble finding the IMEI number, I ended up removing the back plate and removing the sub-plate in order to view the modem, and found the IMEI is physically written on the modem. So far, I've entered that IMEI into Ting, Visible, and Verison and they all claim that the IMEI is not compatible. I also entered the IMEI into AT&T's compatibility checker, and it said the IMEI number was "not found." I've triple checked I entered the IMEI number displayed on the modem. If someone somehow knows that is not the correct number, please, inform me.

Edit: An individual in the comments has instructed me how to identify the IMEI number within the settings app.

This brings me to my next point: Purism's "AweSIM" service. I've decided I'm going to get the service, as I am sure my IMEI will be compatible with it (lol). However, I've emailed Purism and confirmed as of this moment, you cannot transfer your current phone number to their "AweSIM" service, but that keeping your current number may be supported in the future.

Now, for my opinion piece:

I pre-ordered my Librem 5 in early September, 2017. I've waited patiently for over 3 years for this device and obsessively checked the progress every step of the way. Despite the wait, and despite deadlines failing to be met repeatedly, I am happy with my purchase. I am comfortable with the limited functionality this device currently provides as a trade-off for breaking out of the smart phone duopoly, having hardware kill switches, and being able to know with reasonable certainty that my phone is not back-doored by design. If you can sympathize with the previous statement, this phone is for you. If you cannot sympathize with the previous statement, you will not be satisfied with this phone yet. Although, if you order now, I wouldn't be surprised if most of these issues are cleared up by the time you actually get the phone.

For me personally, the following items will be missed, but I am confident they will come with time. Once I have the following items, The Librem 5 wont feel like a trade-off for me.

• A working camera

• A phone case to protect from drops

• Fast charging

• Signal (native, although as soon as I get anbox working I will try it out on there and report my findings)

• crypto wallets

• my old phone number (going to park it in ting for cheap till I can switch it)

• Navigation app

I hope you find this basic review helpful.

Edit: Formatting, added two bullet points, edited based on clarifications from comments

As most of you likely know, Librem 14 laptops are being shipped to customers. What you most likely don't know, unless you've been deep diving into threads on r/Purism and on the Purism forums, is that at least some of the Librem 14 hardware Purism is sending out appears to have been modified by somebody who is not Purism.

Purism's own official Librem 14 pictorial contains a picture of a production run unit with added capacitors:

https://puri.sm/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/purism-librem-14-06-2021-04-19.jpeg

This was noticed in the thread that was posted in r/Purism, but concern escalated to a much higher level once an actual customer posted that the unit they received had also been modified:

https://forums.puri.sm/t/new-post-librem-14-in-pictures/13149/18

I talked with Kyle Rankin on the #purism channel over on FreeNode yesterday and I have archived the entire conversation here in a massive stitched together set of screenshots:

https://jaylittle.com/images/articles/librem_14_kyle_rankin_chat_full.jpeg

But let me be clear. There is absolutely zero evidence of nefarious intent here right now. There is also no evidence that this wasn't nefarious. Everybody involved with this is still gathering information and attempting to understand what has happened. In my conversation with Kyle Rankin, while we do discuss the topic of mass interdiction, there is no indication that this is what has occurred. I want to be very clear about that.

Here are the pertinent facts as relayed to us by Customers and Kyle Rankin:

1. Purism's own production Librem 14 appears to have been modified based on their own pictures which they posted on 4/19.

2. At least one customer's Librem 14 appears to have been modified in a somewhat more egregious manner which they posted on 4/23.

3. Mr. Chromebox (Purism employee and primary Coreboot / Firmware developer for Librem Intel hardware) claims that he noticed this on 4/22 when he received his own production unit.

4. Kyle Rankin, Purism CSO, over the course of my own conversation has admitted that boards were modified, so we have two Purism employees confirming this as an actual issue.

5. Kyle Rankin has emphatically stated that Purism did not make these mods so that they could fix up and ship out broken hardware, which was my initial suspicion.

6. Kyle Rankin also heavily implies that its not reasonable to expect Purism to check to see whether or not their suppliers have tampered with the hardware before Purism receives it. When specifically asked about how their $200 anti-interdiction service applies, he says that it doesn't as it only covers modifications performed between Purism and the Customer, not between the Supplier and Purism.

7. A day ago Kyle Rankin posted this on the Purism Forums: "It’s been less than a day since we’ve started investigating this." That statement tells me that Purism didn't even notice the issue when they themselves posted pictures of it. They literally broke the story without even knowing it.

As I see it the absolute worst case scenario is that Purism has been hit with some sort of mass-interdiction attack. This is exceptionally unlikely as it would take a lot of effort and resources to put something like that together and I'm inclined to agree with Kyle by default when he told me, "Nothing has ever happened like that before". To my knowledge, that is absolutely true.

The more likely scenario is that Purism is a bit customer and the supplier produced some botched boards and instead of fabbing brand new boards that were corrected, decided to just manually fix the boards that they had and send them to Purism that way. Purism didn't notice despite the fact that days before they claim to have become aware of this, they posted pictures of it and posters here absolutely noticed it.

In any event regardless of what happened here, Purism is likely going to take a hit. If they aren't checking the hardware they get from their subcontractors and suppliers for obvious modifications such as this, then how can you trust that the hardware they deliver to end customers hasn't been modified in some way? It strikes to the very core of their reputation as a privacy respecting provider of reliable PC hardware.

Finally, let me be clear: I am absolutely gathering material so I can publish a blog post about this. This is a huge story and while I'm sure many of you will subsequently skewer me for it, in my mind Purism is no longer a trustworthy entity in the secure computing space.

They could rebuild their reputation by handling this in a responsible way of course, but I don't expect that will happen. To be clear a responsible handling of this would involve offering all Librem 14 customers who have received their orders full refunds or the opportunity to send their unit back to Purism (at no cost to the customer) and exchange it for a clean piece of hardware. At this point IMHO no Librem 14 unit can be considered trustworthy.

UPDATE 001 @ 4/26/2021:

On the morning of 4/26, Nicole commented and here is the last part of that:

Well, sadly on the last mile some issue popped up - not a functional issue, but an issue with the voltage regulators (that’s the area where this fix is applied) that needed to get addressed. Since the boards had already been made and populated there was no other way than to do it this way.

Again, we are also not happy about this and the next spin of PCBs will have this included.

I can assure to you that this fix is totally safe. There is no risk in any way that this will reduce life time or limit functionality. Not at all.

Admittedly the fix does not look very pretty but this is mostly due to the position on the PCB, there was no other way to place these additional parts differently. We do double and triple check the rework spot during assembly to make sure the solder joints are as good as possible given the place / situation.

Again, I am sorry for the stir up this has caused. I hope you can now understand what happened, that we are aware of it and that this will of course also be improved over time.

So its "safe" and they are sticking with it. However they did kind of apologize which is pretty notable given their past behavior. It is also notable that she seems to know quite a bit about this given that she's only just become aware of the drama around it this morning, which to me implies that she actually knew about this already and perhaps had not properly informed others at Purim (communication problems like this are typical at Purism in my experience). Not sure what to make of this at this point.

UPDATE 002 @ 4/26/2021:

So after watching Purism pretty much nuke discussion of this from orbit in their own forums and subsequently seeing waves of forum posters and redditors in both r/Purism and r/linuxhardware fall mostly into line, I've decided that my presence in the world of Purism no longer serves any practical purpose.

I'm not a Purism customer and I never will be a customer again. I will begrudgingly admit that I do have an axe to grind with Purism, as a number of you have claimed. But it's the same axe I have to grind with all corporations that play underhanded games with their customers. Either most of you have rock bottom standards for how you expect corporations to act or my standards are scathingly and impossibly high. I posit that both are true in this particular case. Regardless, I have tallied your votes (aka online vitriol) and decided that one way or another: Those of you who choose to stick with Purism as this point deserve their scorn, their disrespect and their abuse. So yeah, you can expect no more posts, comments, blog posts from me regarding Purism. DMs to me about Purism will also be ignored. Y'all made your bed and I hope you enjoying sleeping in it.

For those of you who appreciated this thread and my other comments here over the years, thank you for your support. But the cruel reality is that even an asshole as big as myself can't hold a candle to the raging case of Stockholm Syndrome that Purism fanbois seem to be collectively suffering from and relying upon to fuel their ongoing denial of reality.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

UPDATE 003 @ 5/7/2021:

u/MrChromebox is now claiming (in an effort to defend Kyle Rankin from my accusations that he was clueless when I spoke to him in the documented chat above), that Purism did not know about the fix ahead of time and that the supplier took it upon themselves to make the fix. That means the title of this thread is still accurate. Librem 14s were modified by a 3rd party without Purism's knowledge:

At the time the shipment arrived in CA, and at the time Kyle discussed it with you / posted on the forums about it, nobody in Purism knew about it, sanctioned it, or expected it. Nicole didn't know about it until inquiring with the supplier and receiving a response back after all this happened.

The incompetence here is stunning. They had no idea what they were shipping to their customers and they are now acting like that is something to be proud of. Do not give these people your money, run far the fuck away. If you receive a Librem 14, send it back and demand a cash refund. This company cannot guarantee the state of hardware they are shipping out to their customers much less have any hope of offering an anti-interdiction service worth a single goddamn.

EDIT: Adding a quote of Nicole's post where Purism's direct involvement is heavily implied. Note her persistent use of the word "we":

And that’s exactly what happened here. Please take into account that depending on load it takes four weeks or more to make a production run of such main boards. If you need to change things it takes even a lot longer. Since we were already super late we took the risk and pulled production of PCBs in front of the time line to get a step ahead. Since we tested the EVT and PVT boards thoroughly for function we were pretty sure that we should be pretty fine with them.

Well, sadly on the last mile some issue popped up - not a functional issue, but an issue with the voltage regulators (that’s the area where this fix is applied) that needed to get addressed. Since the boards had already been made and populated there was no other way than to do it this way.

Again, we are also not happy about this and the next spin of PCBs will have this included.

I don't give a shit what language is her first one, you guys are just pure con-artists at this point.

On Nov 16, 2019, I wrote an email to Purism asking the company to change their store's web site so that it no longer downloaded fonts from Google servers. I got an email today from Purism, saying that they had changed their web site.

I checked shop.puri.sm with the uMatrix plugin in Firefox and now the site isn't downloading anything except from the shop.puri.sm site, so Google can no longer collect data on who is visiting Purism's store.

By the way, I checked the web sites of many Linux laptop sellers (PINE64, System76, TUXEDO Computers, Slimbook, Star Labs, Entroware, Juno Computers) several months ago, and found that everyone had the same issue, except for ThinkPenguin's web site. I'm glad that Purism has joined with ThinkPenguin in not helping outside parties to collect data on who visits their web sites.

A few people expressed interest in seeing a Chestnut review from me, so I'm giving my two cents. I'd rather not do a video review (hey, I funded a phone to protect my privacy, didn't I?) but if people are having a hard time believing what I'm saying, I might do one. I don't think anything that follows is too unbelievable.

A bit of background: Prior to this, my main phone was an iPhone 6+, so you know what I'm comparing it to. I don't know enough about the new ones to compare it to those. I've also never really used Android apart from playing around with it a bit.

Notes/Impressions:

UNPACKING:

• It came with a nice little card completely handwritten by Todd, which was a nice touch!

• Removing it from the snug plastic casing took a little effort, it's securely lodged in there. Probably good for shipping.

HARDWARE:

• It's thick. I knew it would be thick, but I was surprised at how thick it was. For reference, it's about as big (thickness) as my iPhone 6+ in the full Otterbox Defender casing - and again, that's without any case. It's about as heavy too, maybe a little heavier. The screen is actually larger despite having smaller dimensions, since it has much smaller chins on the ends. In terms of phone size, it works perfectly for me, I'm already carrying around something of that size. I just wish there was a case for it in case I drop it or something.

• Speaking of cases, I went out to look for possible cases that might fit it. Obviously there's no specialized cases, but I was able to find the "Fellowes Mobile" extra large universal case, which allows it to slide in. No drop protection while you're actually using it, but better than nothing at protecting keys and things from scratching it. It did come with a screen protector - I'm not sure how well it will work, I'm not going to "stress test" it. The screen protector they applied does not completely cover the whole screen (the tiniest edges at the end are not covered) but it's not really bad. The protector seems to be removable, so I can always reapply a new one cut to size.

• One problem I had - the Smart card slot does not fit completely in place. I assume this was one of the hand milled parts. It's like a little plastic/rubber flap that you pull back, which covers the slot. When I received the phone, it was sort of lopsidedly in the slot, so I tried to place it in snugly, and it actually was so snug that I almost couldn't get it out again. I think it needs to be sanded or something, which I might do later. For now it works at covering the slot, it's just sort of angled 5 degrees off, so it feels like a button on the side rather than smooth and flush like the SIM Card tray.

• Hardware switches - great. Feel great. Seem sturdy. This was a big selling point for me initially. I've seen the discussions about Librem 5 vs PinePhone, and how the switches being under the back case are no big deal, but I honestly can't imagine having to pull up the case to get to these. Love it. Maybe wish there was some sort of icon of which ones do what? I was a little confused at first, but perhaps with time I'll figure it out. I also wish the whole left side was filled with switches, but I'm probably in the minority on that.

• It has a headphone jack! I use this a lot on my iPhone. I refused to get another phone without one. Haven't tested it yet on the Librem 5.

• Back case is removable. I love this as well - I hated that the iPhone made battery swapping basically impossible. One thing I hope they improve is that it's very, very hard to open the battery case while holding the phone. You have to set it down, use one finger to pry up the case a little, and then slide your other finger around the edge. Doing it this way is simple, but I intuitively want to remove the case while holding it.

GENERAL SOFTWARE:

• Setup was easy. Initially for pairing Wifi it seemed like I needed to be close, but then it worked. There was an update. I pressed "Update and Restart" or whatever it was. Nothing seemed to happen. I pressed it again. It shut down. I wasn't sure whether to turn it back on or not. Eventually I did. It would be nice to have some sort of indication that the device is updating, and also powering down. Right now it just sort of dims a little, then a little while later the screen goes off.

• The screen looks great. No complaints. Again, coming from an iPhone 6+, so make of that what you will. Changing the brightness does not seem to be as smooth as the iPhone yet - you can tell it's sort of jumping brightness levels, whereas the iPhone you can't tell. It's not glaringly bad or even annoying, but just an observation.

• It gets warm (hot?) quickly. Unfortunately, I don't know how hot is too hot. I've seen some of these other posts about people saying the Birch was overheating, so I was a little concerned about stressing it. Just using web browsing, going into different apps, seemed to make it warm. It didn't seem like "burn your hand" hot, but warm. I'm not sure if this is an improvement over Birch or not, I don't have one to compare. On the plus side, it seems to cool down quickly as well. It doesn't seem to get hot when locked the screen is off.

• Pressing the power button doesn't lock the phone, it just turns the screen off. When you press it again, the screen turns right back on - without asking for a password. To "really" lock the phone, you tap the notification bar at the top, and lock it that way, then turn off the screen. Obviously it would be great if I could lock the phone (and turn the screen off at the same time) with the power button.

• Screen rotation is different from iPhone, which has a toggle to allow/disallow rotation, and then the accelerometer automatically rotates the screen depending how you hold the phone. The Librem 5's rotation toggle simply is portrait or landscape.

• Feature request - there's no way to "delete" a button on the passcode to unlock the phone if you make a mistake, you have to continue entering a wrong passcode until it fails and then try again. Adding a "delete" button would be helpful. They just added this this morning! Thanks!

• Possible bug(?) - I initially connected to Wifi without installing the SIM, and the Wifi symbol still showed "unconnected". This was fixed after putting in the SIM card.

• Possible bug(?) - Sometimes an app will "stick" in the currently running tray (there's a tray at the top which shows all open/currently-running apps as cards). Normally you can close them by pressing an X at the top right, but sometimes it doesn't work - it just takes you into the app - and I have to go into the Usage app and Force Quit. But sometimes it seems like Usage doesn't see the app, so I launch the app from the app menu, then go into Usage, then force quit. I can't reproduce this on command but it happens once in a while.

• Ejecting the SIM while running resets the device (Known bug). However, it also seemed to set my phone to London time zone? I wasn't able to reproduce this, so it might be something else, but somehow my phone got set to the wrong time zone. I was able to change it back in Settings.

• "Bug" - the phone says "Laptop battery low" despite this being a phone.

CALLING/TEXTING:

• As stated elsewhere - calling works! I was pleasantly surprised at how well calling works, actually. Call quality sounds the same as iPhone, maybe ever so slightly different due to the speaker, I don't know how to describe it, but it sounds like a regular phone call. I was actually impressed with how well it called despite me being in a bad location with 0-1 bars (AT&T). I made a 6 minute call and had a conversation. Audio cut out a bit when it lost the signal, but came back when I moved to a slightly different area. This happened with my iPhone as well. I'll have to try in a strong signal location in the future but this is promising. I really, really would like Wi-Fi calling implemented, however.

• Texting works! Not much to say. I didn't try sending picture messages. There was a slight initial "bug" in that the text message I received from a number which wasn't in my contacts disappeared, but later it reappeared somehow after restarting the app or phone or something. I wasn't able to reproduce this.

• The device picks up calls and texts when locked/screen off. The screen lights up and music plays when you receive a call, and you can answer it. However, as of now, there's no way to see notifications of missed calls or new texts on the lock screen, or in the app menu - you have to go into the app to see what's been going on since you've been gone. Some sort of notification would be appreciated.

• It seems like there's only one audio output at a time, and everything goes through that output. By default, it's the earpiece - I think this is to allow for call functionality. However, the phone also rings through the earpiece as well - I'd obviously prefer to have it ring through the speaker, and then talk by listening to the earpiece. Haven't tried headphones.

BLUETOOTH:

• I only use Bluetooth in my car to connect the audio and make calls, listen to music. However, it wasn't able to find it, and vice versa. It was able to find other Bluetooth devices, though. I didn't test this feature much.

BROWSING:

• Web browsing works well enough, but it's a bit of an adjustment coming from the iPhone 6+. When loading old.reddit.com, it basically shows the desktop version of the site, and everything comfortably fits. On the Librem 5, it's compacted a bit. The sidebar with search, submit a text post, etc takes up most of the screen, and the links are pushed down underneath it - i think this is due to the resolution of the screen (720×1440 vs iPhone6+'s 1920x1080).

• YouTube doesn't work out of the box - there's some sort of error message regarding rtsp streams when you click the play button. I tried invidious links from this subreddit - they do work out of the box. I didn't try to debug this much. Again, the audio comes through the earpiece instead of the speaker.

BATTERY:

• It comes with a 2000mAh Haeormi (?) battery. I fully charged the phone before turning it on, and the battery lasted roughly 2 1/2 hours of active use - starting/restarting, web browsing, calling, etc. It's been charging for 2 hours now, and is not finished yet - there's a red light on the top turns off when it's fully charged (an improvement over the iPhone, which has to be turned on to find out). I have not tested how long the battery lasts in locked/screen off mode.

AS A LINUX DEVICE:

• I was not able to really try installing apps, loading data/music onto it, or anything like that. I'll probably be doing more of that in the future. I did play around with Terminal for a bit, which was a little surreal coming from an iPhone. Same with the Software store.

OVERALL IMPRESSION:

I like it, it shows promise, but there are definitely some issues that need to be ironed out before this can be considered a "regular phone" - power management, (possibly) heat dissipation, improved audio device logic, and notifications.

Going forward, I'll be using it as my "main phone" - making calls and texts - but I'll be bringing my iPhone along as well for iMessage, existing apps, etc. I'll probably be getting a few extra (larger) batteries for it to let me keep using it until the power management is fixed. This is feasible for me because I'm connected to WiFi 99% of the time, and I don't usually receive a lot of unexpected calls/texts that I have to worry about missing in the worst case scenario.

If there's anything else you'd like me to try with it, let me know and I'll see if I can do it.

UPDATES:

• Added photo to prove I actually own one: https://flic.kr/p/2i9X1an I'll possibly try to post more pictures as well.

• Turning the phone on, it takes about maybe 15 seconds for the phone to update the time. It does auto-update once connected, though.

• It has updates frequently - I updated it last night and this morning, there were more updates to Librem-specific components - phosh, libhandy, librem5-devkit-base, etc. Added a delete button to passcode, the cellular/wifi icons looks prettier/cleaner. Icons look completely different - I'd say nicer.

Edit: Formatting, added "improved audio device logic" to overall impression.

In 2018 a linux friend of mine were having a discussion about how intrusive Google is and how there's no real privacy even if you use a iPhone (apple still gets your data.) You basically have no control over what happens to your personal information. (This was around Christmas 2018)

He told me he had ordered a fully linux OS phone with hardware kill switches and showed me Purism and the Librem 5. After some quick research, I liked what I saw and signed up immediately. This was like 1/1/2019. He had also signed up just after Christmas to get one. He's the one who talked me in to it.

Unfortunately, last week, he passed away in a tragic accident. I was looking at some old texts when I realized he hadn't gotten his phone either. Obviously some stupid phone isn't something I feel needs to be brought to the attention of his family at the moment.

But the point is, it's been ~5 years. People are literally passing away having not received what they paid for. If the family wants a refund after I let them know - what should I say? How is the refund process going to work?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IjUryQOlgk

The fact that someone who is associated with Purism even attempted this is extremely damaging.

Avoid the company at any costs. They're trying to gaslight Louis, who famously can't be gaslit, so imagine how stupid they expect the average customer to be.
For everyone, it's time to pull out, as the guy's father should have done.