Liberty Phone touts made in the USA electronics but costs $1,999
A California-based company has come out with a smartphone that is almost entirely manufactured in the US, although it uses outdated parts and its technology can’t compete with the iPhone — and it costs $2,000.The privacy-focused Liberty Phone by the tech startup Purism is assembled, tested and packaged in the US, with its printed circuit board (PCB) also manufactured domestically.Software development, including the PureOS operating system, is handled entirely in the US.The mainboard, which is the central circuit board that allows communication between all the major components, and the key circuit board modules are made domestically.However, key components like the chassis, camera, modem and WiFi/BT modules are sourced from overseas suppliers, primarily in China and India.
The screen and battery are imported from China while the camera is made in South Korea.“I’ve been working on this for 10 years and we’ve done everything we possibly can to build from US manufacturing,” Todd Weaver, founder and CEO of Purism, told the Wall Street Journal.The processor is made by a Dutch firm while the chip itself could be manufactured either in South Korea or elsewhere in Asia or Europe.“There are just some parts that don’t yet have a supply chain.We’re gonna keep incrementing there until we can get to that point.”Weaver, whose assembly line consists of four people screwing phones together by hand, told the Journal that Purism is capable of producing Liberty Phones at a rate of about 10,000 per month.Thus far, he said his company, which was founded in 2014, has sold fewer than 100,000.
Weaver told NBC News that it took Purism six years from initially conceiving the phone as a vision to actually producing it and selling it.By comparison, Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn is said to be capable of producing up to 500,000 iPhones per day during peak periods — which translates into 10,000 iPhones per every 12 minutes at maximum capacity.Purism emphasizes its...