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Qubes OS will ship pre-installed on Purism’s security-focused Librem 13 laptop

(arstechnica.com)
154 points walterbell | 4 comments | 15 Dec 15 07:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.85s | source
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bechampion ◴[15 Dec 15 09:29 UTC] No.10736756[source]▶
the base model is 1600 usd? for an i5? It looks pretty neat but i feel like it's over priced right?
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TuringTest ◴[15 Dec 15 09:44 UTC] No.10736805[source]▶
Where else can you get a security-focused preinstalled laptop with higher specs for less money?
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dogma1138 ◴[15 Dec 15 10:05 UTC] No.10736869[source]▶
This is security theater marketed for a steep markup.

Until they can get get an oss version of all the firmware it's just as secure as any off the shelf laptop with a clean install of the OS of your choosing.

If you want more security get an old Lenovo/IBM think pad mod the bios chip and get libreboot.

The cpu, graphics card, hdd, Ethernet and more have more lines of code in them than your OS kernel most likely and that code rarely gets audited even internally.

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1. random778 ◴[15 Dec 15 10:14 UTC] No.10736910[source]▶
True (to an extent), but take into account how much more expensive putting together a small amount of units (compared to say Dell) is. One really needs to go through the costing of something, even a simple PCB, to realize the orders of magnitude difference there is. Unfortunately the firmware issue is also true. If a million people bought this laptop (at 2x the price of a XPS 13) they might be able to convince someone to open up some of that firmware. But that's not going to happen.
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2. dogma1138 ◴[15 Dec 15 12:08 UTC] No.10737315[source]▶
They more likely than not using a chinese OEM laptop, i really doubt that they spin their own motherboard even peripheral connectors require a ton of RF compliance these days.

You can get a decent core i7/i5 OEM laptop made for about 500$ these days http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Quad-core-ultrabook-i7...

Add to that some case customization and build in their specific features like wireless "kill switches" (AKA that switch all laptops used to have when wireless used to cut your battery time by half and you needed to use them on planes) and you can still get it made well under 600$, 250-300% markup is very steep in the current hardware industry.

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3. nickpsecurity ◴[15 Dec 15 17:59 UTC] No.10739263[source]▶
I'd wonder about the quality of that one. Copy-cat chips and components are a huge problem with Chinese suppliers.
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4. dogma1138 ◴[15 Dec 15 20:09 UTC] No.10740104{3}[source]▶
I know at least 10 people that buy customized OEM laptops from various local shops in the UK the quality is on par with Dell/Lenovo upper tier products.

The OEM vendors don't make this in some basement in Shenzhen it is done very professionally and the level of customization that those laptop give the user is unparalleled today.

The PCSpec laptop's I've seen are about the same quality as my Dell XPS 15 (2014 model), some of the Macbook Air style laptop's (https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/lafiteII/ a UK startup that my friend works in bought this for the 20 or so hires they got once they got out of the incubator they are pretty flawless) I've seen are almost indistinguishable from Apple (with the exception that they are usually not unibody) and if you stick an Acer logo in the front and call them the C97somthing I would not be able to tell that this wasn't a brand product.

Now don't get me wrong if you pay peanuts you'll get monkeys but if you are paying 500-600$ for an OEM laptop you will get good quality including IPS screens and capacitive trackpads with large enough orders (10-20+).