Purism Unveils Liberty Phone, World’s Most Expensive Linux Smartphone

Purism, known for its laptops and smartphones based on linux, announced a new phone model – Liberty Phone. This is an upgraded version of the Purism Librem 5 that costs $2199 and comes with exclusive accessories and services.

Liberty Phone has a 5.7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1440 x 720 pixels, an i.MX8M Quad processor with four Cortex-A53 cores, 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, two cameras (13 MP main and 8 MP front), 4500 mAh battery, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC and USB-C. The phone supports GSM, UMTS and LTE networks.

The special feature of the Liberty Phone is that it runs on the PureOS operating system, which is based on Debian Linux and uses the Phosh graphical interface. Users can run any Linux application on the phone, as well as install other Linux distributions. In addition, the phone has hardware switches to disable the camera, microphone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and tethering.

Liberty Phone differs from the usual Librem 5 not only in price, but also in the bundle. The set includes:

• Leather phone case with Purism logo
• Librem AweSim Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones
• Librem AweSim subscription for a year that provides unlimited calls, SMS and data in the US
• Librem One subscription for a year, which includes VPN, cloud storage, email, chat and social network
• Librem Tunnel subscription for a year, which allows you to create secure VPN connections
• Librem Mail subscription for a year that offers encrypted email
• Subscription to the Librem Social service for a year, which is an alternative to Facebook and Twitter
• Librem Chat subscription for a year that supports encrypted voice and video calls
• Priority technical support from Purism

Purism claims the Liberty Phone is “the world’s most secure and private smartphone” that doesn’t track user activity or contain proprietary software. The company also promises to update the phone within five years.

The Liberty Phone is now available for pre-order on the Purism website. Deliveries will begin in the first quarter of 2024.