this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Buy it for Life
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Unless you find a phone with an upgradable modem there is no „buy it for life” one. We’re now at 4th/5th gen networks and many places switched off everything older to reclaim wireless spectrum. LTE and 5G will be replaced too eventually.
Librem 5 has an upgradable modem, originally came out with 4G and people have gotten 5G working. WiFi/BT can be upgraded the same way, like a Nintendo Switch cartridge. Can use Waydroid to download WhatsApp, has a headphone jack, plays music, replaceable battery, spare screens for sale in case it ever breaks. Fairly repairable, but not to the level Fairphone is with all their easy, modular pieces.
This is cool as hell, thank you for sharing. I’d still be wary of any company promising perpetual support because the true test will be if in a few years down the line there’s a 6G modem you can replace old one with. It’s very hard to have some sort of universal computing device that would be supported forever because eventually there’s no one supplying parts or new ones are not compatible.
Wireless chips use a standard M.2 interface, same as SSDs, it would be weird if companies didn't support this in the future. 4G - > 5G I think was already proof enough that it can be done.
The operating system is open source, so anyone and their AI agent can add support in the software/firmware.
M2 is standard now but there were many before it and there will be many after it. Vibe coding drivers for modems might not be a viable strategy either. Modems are extremely proprietary things that are subject to boatloads of regulations so it’s a bit of a miracle they are running on relatively open systems now.