From the Hackdesk: Librem 16

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Jonathon Hall

Latest posts by Jonathon Hall (see all)

• Purism’s PureBoot is Not Affected by UEFI Key Leaks (Again) - July 29, 2024
• From the Hackdesk: Librem 16 - May 30, 2024
• Unexplained Potatoes - April 22, 2024

Today, I’m excited to introduce the prototypes for our latest product, the Librem 16:

We’re polishing the details on the Librem 16 design, which carries signature features from Purism as well as many new improvements.

The Librem 16 features a backlit keyboard, RGB notification LED, and killswitches for the camera/microphone and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, just like the Librem 14.

USB-C is central in the Librem 16.  Both USB-C ports support USB-PD for charging, DisplayPort alternate mode for video output, and USB4 PCIe tunneling.

USB-PD charging can use an adapter as small as 30 W or as large as 100 W.  Librem-EC adapts the system to the available input power.  Compact 30 W adapters are ideal for travel, while a powerful 100 W adapter can run the CPU at maximum power and charge the battery at full speed simultaneously.

Librem 16 can drive up to four displays at once.  With a dock supporting DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport, there’s still a free USB-C port in this setup.

You could use the free port for a USB4 NVMe enclosure:

Under the hood, two sockets each for RAM and SSDs are available.  The right-side SSD socket uses the CPU’s PCIe lanes for maximum throughput.

For firmware developers, the Librem 16 exposes a UART (serial port) as well as the EC I2C bus for debugging.  The BIOS flash has been increased to 32 MB, and we’ve added a connector so you don’t have to fiddle with a WSON-8 probe.  This is the development board, ready for flashing.

Librem-EC received a lot of work for the Librem 16.  Much of this also benefits the Librem 14, such as improvements to the battery charger management, which are merged for the next EC release for Librem 14.

The EC itself is now an IT5570E.  With both the EC’s built-in flash and a discrete flash chip, updating the EC cannot brick the system even if the flash is interrupted.

Librem 16 development is well underway; watch out for more announcements and adventures in our developmental journey.  Availability of the Librem 16 is planned for Q4 2024, so stay tuned!

Want to get announcements? To subscribe, email text@puri.sm with the subject “subscribe newsletter”.

Purism Products and Availability Chart

	Model	Status	Lead Time
	Librem Key (Made in USA)	In Stock ($59+)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5	In Stock ($699+) 3GB/32GB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 COMSEC Bundle	In Stock ($1299+) Qty 2; 3GB/32GB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Liberty Phone (Made in USA Electronics)	Backorder ($1,999+) 4GB/128GB	Estimated fulfillment early November	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + SIMple (3 GB Data)	In Stock ($99/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + SIMple Plus (5 GB Data)	In Stock ($129/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 5 + AweSIM (Unlimited Data)	In Stock ($169/mo)	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 11	In Stock ($999+) 8GB/1TB	10 business days	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem 14	Backorder ($1,370+)	Estimated fulfillment date pending	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem Mini	Backorder ($799+)	Estimated fulfillment November	Learn More Buy Now
	Librem Server	In Stock ($2,999+)	45 business days	Learn More Buy Now