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Murena launches phone with open-source /e/OS and privacy focus (hardware kill switch) (murena.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The HIROH phone is apparently launching with /e/OS exclusively or before there is an Android version (which is great :)) ♥️

  • 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage expandable up to 2TB, giving you room for everything that matters.
  • A 6.67-inch AMOLED display and a camera system pairs a 108MP Samsung sensor with a 32MP Sony front lens for crisp, striking detail in every shot.
  • A hardware kill switch; disconnected completely the microphone and cameras at the circuit level, leaving nothing open for intrusion.
  • A software-based switch, to easily turn off all your radio signals, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC.

https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/hiroh-phone-powered-by-murena-pre-sale/

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[–] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Price:

How the PRE SALE works for you:

  • Pay 99€ today to reserve your device.
  • You’ll receive a 299€ coupon. (Prepaid 99€ + 200€ discount) by email.
  • Use the coupon in January/February to buy the device for 900€ instead of 1199€, retail price of the device.
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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Pay for a coupon that might not be honored

    haha, no.

    Why not call it a deposit? Is it due to the word 'deposit' having legal basis?

    Considering where Murena is based I'd expect the price to go up a few hundred dollars before release. Probably negating any 'coupon' if it's even honored.

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    • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    I noticed today that you can also get fairphone 6 with eos

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    [–] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

    1200€???

    ok.... i guess privacy is only for the rich

    edit: privacy via this phone model is only for the rich. you nitpickers happy now?

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  • [–] [S] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    To be fair making a phone is likely not a cheap endeavor

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    More to the point. Making a cheap phone is not an affordable endeavour.

    Linux phone makers such as pine have discovered this in the past. As your first products are going to be low demand. Running a business on the profit margins of lower priced phones becomes hard. It seriously limits your ability to gain investments. Making competition with similar priced products insanely complex.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    The cost of the device is not being subsidized by all of the bloatware installation income, selling of personal info, etc. I think a lot of people don't realize that inflation really shot through the roof on the last decade and it's only because products are subsidized by the sale of your data and other unethical practices that product prices didn't go up. Food uses shrink-flation to hide inflation, tech uses selling your personal info.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Fairphone doesn't have any bloatware either (besides base google apps), yet their phones aren't priced 1k+

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    But the specs aren't comparable. The Murena phone is a higher-end device than the Fairphone. And the Fairphone does get incentives/subsidies for the Android version which is one of a few reasons the Android version is cheaper than the version sold with /e/OS.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The /e/OS version of Fairphone 6 is still almost 50% cheaper, while providing slightly higher IP rating, 3 years longer warranty, schematics for board repair and a guarantee of 8 years of software updates. In addition to that, the phone is built ethically.

    Murena phone has a faster GPU (2x) and up to 36% faster CPU, but only 2 years of warranty and 5 years of spare parts. Fairphone still has spare displays on sale for Fairphone 2, which came out a decade ago.

    Hiroh phone also has a "sustainability" field in the specs, which is nice and empty

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    I'm just talking pure cost to manufacture for each. The cost of the hardware is higher: faster CPU, faster GPU, additional RAM, additional storage, higher end cameras, etc. That is where the cost of the phone comes from, so you can't compare cost of a Fair Phone to this one any more than you can compare the cost of a Pixel 9 to the Pixel 9a. Both have basically the same software, warranty, parts availability, etc., but the 9a was about half the price of the 9 because the "a" series is a lower-end phone overall.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    yeah, no doubt, it's not being subsidized.

    low income privacy supporters don't want it subsidized either.

    at the same time, they are in fact excluded from this model of phone.

    in the universe of possibilities, it's possible to have an affordable phone with privacy intact that serves more communities, at some time in the past or future.

    but not from murena, not right now.

    tl;dr no duh.

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    • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Limited offer: Pay 99€ now and receive a voucher to buy your HIROH phone powered by Murena for a total of only 999€ !

    Ouch, im not sure what i expected but im not dropping a 1k on a phone.

    I know the point of this is privacy, which you can't get through google but that's an awful lot of money.

    For reference: My current phone cost me <£170 in 2022 (second hand) and i really have no reason to replace it yet.

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    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Does it have a high refresh rate display? That'd pretty much the only quality of life feature I really care about.

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    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Ugh, why is it so big?

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    [+] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)
    [deleted]
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    • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Only want to talk about a headphone jack. It's not the most important feature, but it's essential to showing the mindset of the builder.

    Once we've talked about that, we can examine ANY other feature.

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    [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    it is sad to see people falling again and again on the same traps.

    Murena is not our friend, it is very much business-minded, and /e/os is also lacking in privacy and customer respect (going straight to the worse of AI company with OpenAI, pushing/forcing you into their VPN stuff)

    Here we have a 1200€ phone (who buys that? Tesla owners?) with 2022 hardware (Mali g615, really?) and amoled screen we never asked for (maybe Linux tech tips kinda folks want that yeah).

    I like privacy indeed, give me linux please, don't sell me half-decade old hardware for insane price just because "hardware kill switch" (librem guys came back?). Don't shove amoled in my throat and give me my reliable audio jack. Then we're talking

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