If you order Librem 5 right now, you get it "in a few months", so the software will be much more mature (while hardware already is). Pine64 currently accepts preorders only for the "Beta-version" of Pinephone.
I see. It seems as though the price tag has gone up compared to the dev versions. With that price I imagine they’d want things to be stable. I haven’t looked to see if they have a vcs or chats to see what types of issues are being addressed.
Pretty much. They really don't want regular consumers to be buying the PinePhone from them. They've been very upfront about this: the phone isn't priced for, and they aren't equipped to provide end user technical support. It's priced to get it in the hands of people willing to take some pain and help with the work of getting Linux where it needs to be on mobile.
If the phone hardware arrives defective/broken, that's one thing. If the issue is the state of whatever Linux distro you're running (including missing features/applications), that's not their problem.
Mine is from the first batch of 'final' hardware (i.e. the UBPorts CE) for over 6 months and the hardware is solid. The distros (all of them) have come a long way but still have a very long way to go.
