Librem 5 USA Review

After waiting for 2.5 years, I finally got my hands on my Librem 5! I have been daily-driving it for about 4 months now, and thought it might be fun to do a review. Reliability has improved substantially since I first got my hands on it.

Context

Until just around the time I ordered the phone 2.5 years ago, I was a long time hardcore Apple fanboy. The 12 months prior to receiving, however, I had been using a PinePhone as my daily driver. Keep this context in mind while reading.

I apologize if this seems short and choppy, but I am tired and this PinePhone keyboard is feeling cramped tonight, both of which are making me grumpy.

Convergence

Plug it into a monitor, and it's a desktop. A NexDock transforms it into a laptop with touchscreen, or a tablet if you fold the dock. Many apps take advantage of this. Think responsive web, but applied to the whole sytem.

Laptop Replacement

With very few exceptions, this has replaced my laptop.

Size

Very chunky. Around the size of an iPhone + OtterBox. This may be a turnoff for some people, but I find it makes it easier to hold onto.

Bluetooth

Still flaky, but less so as the months go on. I've found that if I restart the bluetooth service a couple times, connections are more likely to succeed. The alternative is toggling the hardware killswitch a time or two, or even an occasional reboot. Things I've successfully paired:

Headset

Keyboard

Mouse

Vehicle

The keyboard is the most reliable.

Headset was originally so unreliable I switched back to hardwiring via the headphone jack, which was initially annoying but I grew to like it. Now this is much better, but oftentimes I still prefer the tactility of plugging in the jack.

Mouse: originally worked great, no longer connects so I have given up. Not sure if this is a faulty mouse, or maybe I just need to change the batteries?

Vehicle: I have given up here. It does connect, but audio is flaky. Purism (the manufacturer) tells me that the Bluetooth tech is different when connecting to vehicles, but development is ongoing for it.

The phone refuses to connect more than 2 Bluetooth devices at the same time.

Calls

In the very first call I made with it, the audio output sounded amazing. Though in reality that was just because I had grown accustomed to the even lower fidelity of the PinePhone. On the other end of the call, I am told I am muffled and very hard to understand. A headset in the headphone jack usually resolves this, but Bluetooth audio in doesn't seem to affect it at all, at least for my headset.

Modem

This is still flaky. It also was immediately more reliable than the PinePhone, but still dropped a lot. Then Purism walked me through installing some custom firmware updates (pretty sure that was for the modem? it has been a while), and it was fixed. Since then, it's become less reliable. Especially noticeable when driving moderate distances, which sometimes requires a reboot to get the modem to even appear at all.

Kill Switches

These seem to work as advertised. Sometimes you need to toggle one to get the system that it toggles to start responding again.

Speed

Not a topspeed developer machine, but it is fast enough for my purposes. Web browsing brings down the performance and has even made the whole system choke a time or two. All the more reason to avoid the web, I say. Overall, it is subjectively many times faster and more responsive than the PinePhone was in January 2022.

Keyboard Bug

Sometimes the on-screen keyboard stays visible on the home screen and lock screen with no way to toggle it without opening an app and hiding it via the system button, or toggling it system wide via a script. Annoying, but not a showstopper.

Re-locking Bug

I've noticed this to be less intrusive lately, but when locking the phone when docked, when you come back to it and re-unlock it, it'll automatically turn the display black after several seconds. Tapping the lock button brings it right back.

OS Crashes / Freezes

Happens occasionally, usually when under heavy load, like when web browsing with too many fully loaded tabs.

Battery

Battery life isn't very long, I need to charge it at least once or twice a day, and then again overnight. If the battery gets too low, one of 2 things happen after it shuts off: quickly plug in and it's back up and running, no reboot; or if not quick enough, it will refuse to boot when you plug it back in unless you remove the battery and re-insert

Verdict

Despite all the quirks I mentioned, this phone -- no, this desktop computer with a cell modem -- is awesome, worth every penny. If you're a normie (not a geek), then it's not ready for you yet, as it is definitely not a drop-in replacement for Android nor iOS. Otherwise, though, highly recommended.