Purism equips ‘open source laptop’ with Core i7-7500U and 4k screen

The Purism company has announced generation four of its Librem laptops. The laptops distinguish themselves with the use of open source software and a focus on privacy and now get a more powerful processor. The Librem 15 will have a 4k screen.

Purism ships the fourth version of the Librem 13 and 15 with an Intel Core i7-7500U, a dual-core Kaby Lake generation clocked at 2.7GHz and boosted to 3.5GHz. Intel introduced the processor in 2016. The company equipped the previous generation with a Core i7-6500U from 2015.

The laptop also runs coreboot with the new processor, the alternative to closed bios and uefi code. As an experimental option, Purism allows disabling the Intel Management Engine. That is part of the goal to achieve a truly ‘free’ bios. The laptops run PureOS, a Linux Debian-based operating system.

The Librem 13 has a matte IPS screen with a screen size of 13 “and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. However, the 15.6” laptop now gets a matte 4k screen instead of a 1080p display. Purism supplies the laptops with 4GB DDR4, with the option to expand this to 16GB, and a 120GB SSD. The laptops come in an aluminum housing and include a physical button to switch off the camera and microphone.

Prices are unchanged. The Librem 13 and 15 are available for starting prices of USD 1399 and USD 1599 respectively.