- What throws a lot of people off about me
is that my daily driver smartphone is an iPhone 11 Pro Max.
And people are like, "Well, why don't you have an Android?"
And I'm just like, I don't really want to
have to mess around with my phone all the time.
The last Android phone I had was pretty terrible.
So I just kind of been sticking with Apple.
If you know me, you know that I use Windows
on my VR machine, Mac OS on my laptop,
and Linux on my desktop.
So basically I am the definition of the anti-fanboy.
That might change with this.
This is the Purism Librem 5 phone.
This phone doesn't run Android.
It doesn't run iOS.
It runs Linux, just straight up Linux.
From what I understand, it's a stripped down version
of Purism's PureOS, which they ship on their laptops.
Which, from the look of things,
is kind of just a relatively standard NOME/GNOME.
I don't like calling it GNOME because that's weird.
But yeah, it's kind of a standardish Linux desktop.
But the big thing is that it's always been
geared for privacy.
I don't know what this is going to be like,
but if it's anything like regular Linux,
then you should be able to install and run
pretty much anything you want on it,
which is kind of mind blowing.
So let's take a look at the phone itself.
There's really nothing on the box here.
It just says Librem 5, version 1.
This box can be recycled.
Cool.
Couple of certifications.
And yeah, it's a very plain box.
And there.
Right off the bat, we've got a quick start guide,
which most people probably will need,
from what I understand.
Enjoy your Librem 5, from Todd.
Todd Weaver is the CEO.
Next we have the phone itself, which that,
that feels very substantial.
I don't want to look too closely at it right now.
I want to dig deeper into the box.
But as you can see, it is a thick boy.
- [Jono] Oh, jeez.
- (laughs)
Let's see what we've got here.
This is a USB type C to C cable.
What is this?
Oh, international plugs.
Cool.
Semi jack tool, just kind of hanging out down there.
Oh man, it's been a while
since I've had earbuds included in a phone.
Actually, they're in ears.
These might be okay.
And the charger, that's it.
That's the unboxing.
Thanks for watching.
No.
Oh, I don't know if you can see that or not,
but there are like three slider switches
on the side of this thing.
The one on the far right here towards the top of the device,
this one is to disconnect physically the cellular modem.
The one in the middle physically disconnects
Bluetooth and wifi.
Towards the bottom of the device is
microphone and webcam cutoff.
So that's really cool.
I don't think you can do that in pretty much
any other phone that I am aware of.
Tiny camera on the back there though.
With a flash, looks like a dual flash.
Headphone jack.
That's how you know that they're lacking courage.
Supposedly the battery is replaceable in this thing.
I'm not sure how to get the back off though.
Just like that.
Oh, okay.
It's got a micro SD card slot as well.
It's under the battery though.
So you need to pull the battery in order to get at it.
Very cool.
Okay.
So let's just power this back off then,
because I don't have any real desire
to talk about the operating system
until I've talked to you about Vessi.
Vessi footwear is known for being waterproof
while also being lightweight and comfortable.
The Dyma-Tex material makes it breathable too,
so it'll keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
With everyday styling, you can keep your feet dry
for the wet future months.
Save $25 with our offer code, ShortCircuit
at vessi.com/shortcircuit.
Let's fire it up.
Oh, it's got a notification LED.
So this is Linux on a smartphone.
Interestingly, it looks a lot like old school Android.
But we have a terminal.
You don't get that in Android by default.
One moment.
Oh, we're not connected to the network.
So I will need to do that.
No Bluetooth found.
Oh, did I not?
Oh, they're all turned off.
Ha, ha.
- [Jono] (laughs) The switches work.
- They do work.
There's wifi.
That's why wifi wasn't there.
There's also, yeah, mobile showed up too.
Oh, is there a way to like gesture the up arrow now?
Ah whatever.
Okay, so (laughs) just like any other Linux machine,
I managed to install a piece of software.
Add Neofetch.
It has no idea what this is.
(Jono laughing)
Yep, PureOS, it's got Bash.
It's straight up using the Adwaita GTK 3 theme.
Terminal is KGX.
We've got a quad core CPU of 1.5 gigahertz.
So we've got an NXP quad core Cortex-A53 processor.
The GPU is a Vivante GC7000 Lite, three gigs of RAM, yep.
32 gigabytes of EMMC and internal storage.
a micro SD card slot, we saw that, with two terabytes max.
The screen is a 5.7-inch IPS at 720 by 1440,
which frankly looks perfectly fine.
So a lot of companies that I don't really recognize
as far as chip manufacturers go,
but that kind of makes sense.
Purism would have sought out companies
that are willing to work with them
as far as like firmware and drivers go
to make it as open as possible
and to enable things like this here hardware shutoff switch.
One thing that's kinda missing in this UI
is launch feedback.
Like if I were to, say, launch the calculator,
it takes a second, and that's fine,
but there's no feedback that it's doing anything.
So you're kind of guessing as to whether or not
it's actually gonna launch.
Let's check out the app store.
Let's go shopping for things that are
going to be pretty much free, because that's how this works.
I don't think they ever claimed
that this was going to be the fastest phone in the world.
The point of the phone is that it's very privacy-focused
and you can do what you want with it.
And yeah, the email client is even Geary.
If you want something to tinker with,
then this is going to be amazing.
However, it is not without compromise.
It isn't very fast from what we've seen.
The software, it's fine.
It's a lot better than I would have expected
out of a Linux smartphone, to be honest with you.
But it's still got like some clunk to it.
So like, if I were to change to a different application,
you can see that it's, oh,
it doesn't seem to be focused right now.
But if I touch it, it's focused.
Kind of a weird blend.
From that perspective, it's really difficult to recommend
to somebody who's not either willing to put in
the time and effort to learn it for, for example,
privacy reasons, or for someone who doesn't mind it
because they're going to tinker with it anyway,
and they want to run whatever apps they want to run.
I mean, it is just straight up Debian base.
So yeah, like it doesn't really have that many limitations.
It's just clunky.
One thing that I'm noticing is
as I'm scrolling, I don't think this is
hardware accelerated at all.
So this is like software-rendered scrolling.
So like think Android Froyo.
Like, it feels like there are still things
that need to be done to really
make this experience whole, you know?
They say that this is going to have lifetime updates.
And since it's just running a Linux distro,
I have no reason to doubt that.
So as time goes on, the Librem 5
is going to have updates that, you know,
improve the UI and make it so that it's a lot smoother
and make it so that, you know,
you don't have like a long wait between
opening the clock and actually seeing,
you know, your clocks.
What I do want to see is if there's like a YouTube app.
No, not really.
What about like Firefox?
(laughs) IceWeasel.
Of course it would be IceWeasel.
Yeah, let's look at this smartphone with a hidden camera.
Your browser does not currently recognize
any of the video formats available.
(Jono laughing)
And this is a problem too.
See, video formats, generally speaking, have patents.
Open source and free software in general
aren't really fans of patents.
Part of what they say to do with this
is if you need an app that you don't have
like access to here, but has a web version,
you can pin a web version as an app.
- [Jono] This is actually the perfect example
of what you sacrifice for privacy.
- Yeah.
It's always a trade off.
Oh, hey, SuperTuxKart installed.
Your graphics driver appears to be very old.
Oh man, it's got on-screen controls.
Is this actually gonna work?
(Jono laughing)
Oh no, these controls are terrible.
Let's test these out then.
Not a good seal.
These actually aren't bad.
- [Jono] (laughs) Oh, really?
- Like these are actually legitimately not terrible.
Like, they've got good bass, they're clear.
They go loud.
Actually wait, wait, wait.
I need to know, I need to know.
If I open up TuxKart.
Oh no, the task switcher is like not happy either.
(mellow rock music)
It's like, it's not doing too bad.
CPU is not pegged or anything.
(sighs)
This is kind of what you get
when you try to take a full fat desktop operating system
and squeeze it down into a phone.
The experience is not great.
It's usable, for sure.
Like I could use this.
I don't know if I'd want to.
The keyboard's fine.
The interface is fine for the most part.
The hardware itself is fine.
The, especially the toggle switches back here,
although it is getting kind of warm.
Yeah, like, it's fine.
But at the same time it's held together
by, like, twigs and glue.
Oh yeah, the price.
How much is this thing?
Holy sh(beep)!
- [Jono] (laughs) That's expensive.
- It's $799 U.S.
- [Jono] They have a Librem 5 USA version for $2,000.
- Yup, they sure do.
(Jono laughing)
Librem 5 USA, a premium version of the Librem 5 phone
that focuses on security by design
and privacy protection by default,
with a secure supply chain and electronics made in the USA.
I don't see what's different about it.
Oh, oh, I get it.
The Librem 5 USA is fully made in the USA.
That is the cost of Made in USA.
Meanwhile, this one is made somewhere else,
presumably China, and costs $799.
Whoa, did I just change shirts?
Yeah, it's a different day.
We kind of forgot to test the camera.
And there's not a camera app installed by default.
One moment.
Um, hmm, uh, hmm.
As far as I can tell, the camera,
both front and rear, actually, the cameras, plural,
they don't work.
Like they just straight up are not implemented yet.
Apparently this is a problem
with documentation from the SOC's vendor, NXP.
So that's where we're at.
They released the phone.
It's, I guess, still a beta product.
It's been over a year.
I hope I'm wrong about that,
but everything I'm reading seems to suggest exactly that.
Maybe the microphone will work.
Get something out of this.
But there's no audio recording app built in,
so I'll have to do something with that.
Can I really install Audacity?
I really don't think I can.
Let's do it anyway.
Did that launch at all?
Oh yeah, there it is.
That's a full desktop app right there.
All right.
Let's record some audio.
We'll see, see how that works out.
It looks like it's, like, working.
We'll see, see how that works out.
It looks like it's, like, working.
Let's just export as WAV.
Interesting.
That's how the full desktop app works.
That's actually, this is how I expected the experience
of a Linux-based phone to be.
So the fact that the rest of the UI is actually fine
and this is, this is usable.
That's actually astounding to me.
All right, now I need to ingest this somehow.
Oh man, I want to like it so much.
It's got a lot of really good ideas.
As for the usability though,
I feel like unless you know Linux
and you're like willing to, I dunno,
get a little dock or something
to set up with a keyboard and mouse, maybe,
like the touch interface just isn't there yet.
So I don't know if I'd buy one today,
but it is definitely something that I would keep an eye on.
Just like I would keep an eye on "Short Circuit,"
because there's always more videos like this one.