First Purism Librem 5 "Aspen" batch shipped

Purism's Librem 5, arguably the first modern privacy-oriented Linux smartphone, has just started shipping its early Aspen batch to their earliest users. This very early batch of Librem 5 devices is still almost prototype-grade, featuring the very first mechanical and hardware design, with hand-crafted switch caps, initial apps and basic power management.

The full list of batches is the following:

Aspen (24/09/2019 - 22/10/2019)

Initial mainboard. Individually milled case, loose fit, varying alignment, unfinished switch caps (hand crafted). Initial release of core apps: contacts, basic web browsing, early power management, software updates from the PureOS Store via the terminal.

Birch (29/10/2019 - 26/11/2019)

First revised mainboard design. Tighter fit, improved alignment. Improved setup, improved web browsing, improved power management.

Chestnut (03/12/2019 - 31/12/2019)

Improved capped switches. Final setup, improved web browsing, improved power management.

Dogwood (07/01/2020 - 31/03/2020)

More hardware refinements. Core apps improved, additional applications, refined graphical PureOS Store.

Evergreen (Q2 2020)

Molded case. Long term support release.

Fir (Q4 2020)

14nm next generation CPU. Version 2 mechanical design.

While this means that developers and reviewers will be able to get their hands on the Librem 5 almost immediately, the best choice for end users, if possible, might be to wait some more weeks to get a more mature and "finished" product.