The Ball and Supply Chain Part 2

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Todd Weaver

Founder and CEO
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Latest posts by Todd Weaver (see all)

• Hardware Encrypted COMSEC Bundle by Purism - April 29, 2024
• Purism Differentiator Series, Part 14: Surveillance Capitalism - April 23, 2024
• Purism Differentiator Series, Part 13: Modularity & Right to Repair - April 23, 2024

This is part 2 published 2022-07-25. Part 1 published 2021-04-30.

[Edited 2022-07-27 to clarify Librem 5 shipping goals]

Nearly every person on earth has experienced some impact from the supply chain in the past two years. As we wrote in part 1 in April of 2021 “Prices will increase for consumer goods” and time has proven that accurate. We also declared the problem: “Parts, price, and lead-time” along with the solution: “Pay, price, and persevere.”

Perseverance

Manufacturing innovative and unique hardware is very challenging, we have consistently pushed boundaries into the near impossible, even with Manufacturing in the USA for the most secure supply chain possible. But investing in the software that drives those innovations is the most expensive part of producing our Librem line of products. All the early backers of the Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA fully understand that their support was funding the software and hardware to see a fully functioning phone that respects their freedom, privacy, and security. The millions of software development dollars spent on the Librem 5 running PureOS pushed upstream innovations that all the supporters of Purism should be proud of.

The Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA utilize the quad core I.MX8M Quad CPU that can offer 10+ years of operation and improve with time (due to our millions more of investment to continue to improve the entire software stack within PureOS and upstream). While many components that make up the Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA have had supply chain disruptions, the CPU was among the most significant, with long lead times and no alternatives. This CPU is now back in stock and production is ramping up accordingly.

The CPU

The Librem 5 USA (with Made in USA Electronics at our facility) will be in-stock and at shipping parity within a week or two. If you order today it will arrive within 30 days, in another week or two the lead time will drop to 10 days. We expect to keep the Librem 5 USA in stock and available going forward.

With the main component of the Librem 5 phone available again we are resuming manufacturing of the Librem 5 in China for delivery to all existing orders. The Librem 5 will begin shipping in larger quantities starting in a month or so and continuing throughout the rest of 2022. We have set an internal goal to ship all existing orders before the end of 2022 and are working hard to resolve the remaining supply chain issues and coordinate everything else necessary to hit that goal. We will begin updating more orders on our site with shipping estimates in the coming weeks.

The early backers of the Librem 5 who supported the project will be pleased to see all the investments we have made to making PureOS on the Librem 5 convenient. With near weekly releases of Purism authored Phosh (the GUI), Phoc (the Compositor), Squeekboard (the Keyboard), Calls (for calling), Chats (for texting and messaging), and libhandy/libadwaita to make the large swath of existing GTK based applications adaptive for the small screen size of mobile devices like the 5.7″ Librem 5, the Librem 5 customers will be proud to show off their device and know that they contributed to create a product that can replace iOS and Android as their daily phone with integrated convenience.

Convenience

Purism has repeatedly stated that creating convenient products is our long term goal, and the journey to get there is challenging. We produce hardware, software, and services that are designed to be fully integrated so when you first power up your device the defaults “just work” and the more we sell the better the product and ecosystem gets. The primary reason why we continue to solve the near unsolvable problems plaguing the hardware, software, and technology sectors is our supporters’ strong backing of why we exist as a social purpose corporation.

Creating laptops, servers, mini pcs, security tokens, and phones that are convenient to use that fully respect your freedom, security, and privacy is only possible because of the immense support of customers who desire the same outcome as we do, to create a digital future where individuals are in control of their digital lives.

Thank you

Thank you all for persevering through the supply chain challenges with us, and we look forward to growing with your continued support in the future with new products new software releases and new services.

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