[newnewpdro]

> Many users would likely be unhappy with having the buttons pressable on the outside due do being prone to an accidental disable-able

The Purism Librem 5 addressed this while still having the kill switches easily accessible externally, with recessed switch bosses appropriate for regular external use.

On the Pinephone it looks more like an afterthought to try get some feature parity with the L5.

I'm excited to see more Linux phones on the market with non-android user space. But it's about 15 years too late for me to jump to buy anything running Linux without actually wanting to daily drive the end result, like back in the Zaurus days (I had three different models). I basically don't use a smartphone because of the current situation, not since my Nokia N9 broke, and that Linux phone was incredibly disappointing on the hackability and security/privacy fronts, though I did enjoy using it.

[cf141q5325]

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.