I'm back. You probably didn't miss me, but I took an unplanned month long hiatus from the world. I did not read or watch the news nor did I read any social media.
Two unrelated things worked together to cause this. I started a new position at work that has kept me pretty busy. More importantly though, I finally got my #Librem5!!!!
Getting the Librem has been a lot of fun. I just today got around to installing tootle so that I can get on Mastodon. Following, will be my thoughts on the Librem.
Second is call quality. Again coming from the pinephonepro, call quality is amazing! I can have long conversations with people and they can understand me without hearing an echo of their own voice! That said, I have had complaints of crackling static on the other end (my end is clear). The crackling seems worse when I am driving, so there might be some interference generated by the car. Also, most people think that I have them on speaker phone even when I do not.
Third is modem drops. Even while typing this thread, I lost internet connection and had to disable the modem and re-enable it to get it back.
There have been times that the modem showed connected but someone standing right beside me tried to call me and the call would not go through. Disabling and re-enabling the modem fixes the issue and I all of a sudden receive a bunch of texts then also.
Occasionally, the modem completely disappears and a full reboot is the only way to get it back.
Finally, I have been unable to get my wifi hotspot to work, and my vpn connects but it doesn't seem as if my internet is going through the vpn when on cellular. I haven't tried it on wifi yet.
The weird thing is that the wifi hotspot kind of works if I tell it to use the vpn for internet. At that point, it seems somewhat like a dns issue, but I am not sure yet.
Now the good.
It runs Linux. Not android, not iOS, Linux.
It is not laden down with spyware. I don't get creepy ads about something I just talked about.
It is convergent also. I was able to hook up a keyboard, mouse and monitor so that I could remote into a clients computer and assist them from my phone.
Hardware kill switches. I can physically turn off the modem, wifi, bluetooth, camera, and microphone using hardware kill switches.
Also, updates that improve the phone rather than slow it down. I saw this with the pinephone also. The updates improved battery life and performance over time.
Removeable battery, wifi card, and modem. The modularity of the phone makes it so that it can be upgraded overtime. Already, I have the upgraded wireless card that they started shipping at first of the year. This is apparently one of the things that they have done that has improved battery life as well as performance.
Overall, I really love the Librem. It is a vast improvement over the pinephone/pinephonepro. I liked my pinephones also, but the librem is just a much better phone.
I am starting my third year with a linux phone and I have no plans of going back. Especially now that I have the librem.
This phone is almost to the point that I could recommend it to some people. I am hopeful that by the end of this year, I might actually could start to recommed it.
@amerika
Does it have to be a goat, my dog ate my couch during last month, I could sacrifice him!
The number of objects I have written off because of critter damage is fairly large. It is sadly part of the landscape of having creatures among us.
But I draw the line at getting a moose.
@amerika
Yeah, same here. The couch was a new experience though.
Inshallah he does not move on to the walls.
@jlcrawf I'm happy to report that updates that get rid of that long-standing issue are now on the way!
@dos
Happy to hear it. Eventually, I will find time to get on the forums and get my vpn and hotspot worked out. Then I should be pretty close to all set up.
Do I sound frustrated already? ;-)
@hans you will receive it.
@jlcrawf Interesting, I like my pinephone pro better. What do you prefer in the Librem5 ?
@fabrice
I never had a good quality phone call on the pro. The people on the other end would hear their own echo which was very distracting to them. Other than that, they are pretty close. I do also like the hardware kill switches in an accessible location. I never used them on the pro.
@jlcrawf I have both a Pinephone and a Librem 5. I found the Librem 5 to run faster and smoother, however it is *heavy* and that did become a problem for me. Also the modem on the Librem 5 is highly unreliable (as bad as the Pinephone modem before @biktorgj wrote new firmware for it). The unreliable nodem meant I missed most SMS/MMS I was supposed to receive.
I have since switchhed to a OnePlus 6 running @postmarketOS and it has been amazing.
@blendergeek @jlcrawf @biktorgj @postmarketOS Is there any camera support on the oneplus 6? I see some work streams on youtube but I'm just wondering if its usable yet with ffmpeg or anything, like the pinephone camera before megapixels.
@silverhax @jlcrawf @biktorgj @postmarketOS Not that I know about. I just go without a camera which isn't an issue for me because I had already given up on phone cameras because the L5 camera app barely worked for me.
First the bad. I start with the bad because overall, I really love this phone.
Battery life. If you are coming from the pinephone like I am, it is great. If you are coming from any other phone, it is abismal. From what I understand, it is tremendously improved from even a couple of months ago, but it still has a long way to go.
#Librem5 #mobilelinux