This is still 4 times more expensive than the biggest Pinephone, which of course is a lot more limited in computing power, memory, storage and other areas, but sometimes people just want the bare minimum to enter the world of open phones. I wonder what's the reason behind Purism ignoring the low end market completely.

Purism is paying a team of full-time developers to build software for their devices.

Pine64 sells their devices at rock bottom prices and lets the community develop software.

I personally would buy the Librem5 if they solved the battery life issues.

In my experience, battery life of the Librem 5 is currently in about 10-16h range depending on usage. Could be better, but it's not as bad as it used to be (and actually easily beats the PinePhone when it comes to active usage time).

Whats the average battery life with moderate useage?

The reason is Purism are trying to make as free (as in "free software") smartphone as possible: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

I get it, I'm all for it. Objectively, it's still a lot of money even for middle class Americans.

I mean, it's not out-of-line compared to other prestige smartphones. This one's just a different kind of prestige. And you're paying for a different kind of organization and effort behind it.

Either way, there are enormous numbers of people happy to drop $1000 on a phone, maybe more. It's a lot of money in that my first car was cheaper, sure..

you're just lying yourself that you are middle class I see, nothing to be ashamed of to be lower class. I am also lower class. politicians made us this way.

I really appreciate your attitude. And I agree with you.

Allow me, however, to go one step further. You're 'working' class. You're not 'lower' than anybody else.

Such is the cost to produce electronics in America...