On: Librem 5 phone shows the cost of being different

[stamps]

$150 for the PinePhone is a lot cheaper. I'm not sure how much cheaper you want it to be.

[jokoon → stamps]

There are cheaper phones, it's not hard to find pretty good phones that are around 70 euros.

[ta999999171 → jokoon]

Why don't you use those ones, out of curiosity?

[jokoon → ta999999171]

Because they're often full of malware or bloated with other stuff.

[ethbro → jokoon]

> Because they're often full of malware or bloated with other stuff.

I wonder why they're able to be sold more cheaply?

[dylz → ethbro]

One thing of note is that many of the cheapo Android phones that are also high-spec don't necessarily come with malware from the factory - that $79 price is the real price, running AOSP. They will happily sell you it for the real price!

But if you live in a different country, your only choice might be through reshippers/resellers, who will root the phone and install their own malware onto the system partition for $1 in profit, seal it back in its box, without the factory's knowledge. This happens somewhat-frequently.