The Librem 5 is another price point and I think its trying to achieve another goal. I dont think they are in any real competition. For the pinephone, if one of your main goals is the final pricepoint, how much % of your devices cost (and development time) are you going to invest into a (unfortunately) niche feature? And are you risking the robustness of your phone for it? I think the way its done is the cheapest, yet still functional way, which this phone is all about.
The Pinephone is at its core a proof of concept made cheaply available to jump start development for open source linux smartphones. Once its shown to be working we can talk about every day competitors to existing smartphones, but thats at least a generation away. Librem is trying to achieve this to begin with by marketing it to privacy and security conscious users. I am really curious if that will succeed, but i fear people will expect it to match the comfort of their current smartphones at that price, which is a really difficult thing to do. Looking at history, it took a while till Linux became a realistic option as an OS for a home computer for people who dont consider them self geeks. The pinephone isnt reaching for the moon but makes the first step.
To the other point, this will be my first smartphone as well and is intended for daily use, just not with GPS, LTE and SMS.
The Pinephone is at its core a proof of concept made cheaply available to jump start development for open source linux smartphones. Once its shown to be working we can talk about every day competitors to existing smartphones, but thats at least a generation away. Librem is trying to achieve this to begin with by marketing it to privacy and security conscious users. I am really curious if that will succeed, but i fear people will expect it to match the comfort of their current smartphones at that price, which is a really difficult thing to do. Looking at history, it took a while till Linux became a realistic option as an OS for a home computer for people who dont consider them self geeks. The pinephone isnt reaching for the moon but makes the first step.
To the other point, this will be my first smartphone as well and is intended for daily use, just not with GPS, LTE and SMS.