> Electronic-waste neutral: When you buy a Fairphone 5, we give a phone a new life or recycle the same amount of electronic waste. This means 100% compensation for the weight of electronics we put into the market. Making you phone e-waste neutral.
You will be more environmentally friendly if you just don't upgrade from whatever phone you have for a few years. This seems as much of an accounting trick as carbon offsets, which don't really do anything. They could buy a bunch of used smartphones from a reseller market that probably would have been sold anyway, but Fairphone then resells them on the used market. Somehow, this means "100% compensation" for your purchase because they are giving another phone a new life.
I would gladly use my Pixel 4a (5G) another few years but its support ends in two months [1]. Even though I run GrapheneOS, the open source community is not capable of maintaining firmware, kernel and vendor code [2].
Fwiw LineageOS has historically supported various Pixels for many years longer*, eg. the Pixel 2 (2017) which has been updated to Android 13[1]. GrapheneOS on the other hand only supports devices for as long as the manufacturer provides official updates from what I understand.
It should be noted that some security vulnerabilities, such as firmware blobs and binary blob drivers, can't be fixed by LineageOS. Certain Broadcom WiFi chipsets had RCE vulnerabilities in them, for instance, and these devices also run an entirely separate Linux install on the modem chip that rarely receives updates, if ever.
While LineageOS can easily extend a phone's lifetime by several years, it's not a real replacement for manufacturer support. I think GrapheneOS's take makes sense, especially for a security-oriented ROM.
Mmm, for this reason it's worthwhile keeping an eye out for firmware-level issues in case the device is outside the OEM supported range. Eg: CVE-2020-11292[1] which affected Qualcomm chips.
In at least one instance, Google's Project Zero found an RCE vulnerability that could be triggered by just being nearby.
More common exploits target things like the GPU drivers. They require code execution on the device (i.e., an app you've downloaded) but they can be an easy path to root access for attackers targeting specific devices.
Realistically, people use phones long beyond their official software support lifetime. Plenty of unhacked phones going around still running Android 8. Android's fragmentation makes it hard to write a one-size-fits-all exploit chain like on you can on iOS.
Just make sure to only run apps from sources you trust and to update your browser, and I'm sure you should be fine for another few years.
If you want to, you can run ROMs like LineageOS. They won't fix the binary blobs, but they'll patch the open source version of Android and keep you up to date in that regard. My phone stopped receiving updates after an Android 11 update and now it's running last week's Android 13 build, patching a whole bunch of Android runtime vulnerabilities. Many phones in use today are vulnerable to a zero-click Bluetooth exploit that would be fixed by installing LineageOS or something similar to that. The newer Android version also provides me with all of the privacy improvements that have been made in Android 12 and 13. I'm hopeful that it'll run Android 14 as well, though depending on a volunteer project isn't a guarantee of course.
In theory my phone could probably be hacked quite easily though the outdated GPU drivers, but in practice I don't think I'm at that great a risk unless I try to start pirating games or something.
I agree it's a shame that Google didn't do a better job with the older Pixel devices.
It's worth noting, however, that all of their newer flagships (based on a CPU design they have more control over) have guaranteed security updates for 5 years after release.
FWIW I despise Google and do my absolute best to avoid compensating them, but I do think things like their guaranteed security updates are a step in the right direction, and hopefully we can only get further improvements from here.
5 years is too short, it means we need to buy at very least 10 brand new phones from 15yo to 60yo (oldies also need security updated right ?). We need a pocket device that do clock, agenda, media player, camera, web browser and obviously phone. Apps are great but can be replaced with on/offline sites. We’re going in a direction that sacrifice users and resources sustainability in favor of the economy.
I’m not against economy but it should be a tool to empower humanity, not the opposite.
Yes, I agree. In my perfect world, a company is legally required to support ALL products they have ever sold, for an unlimited period of time.
There would still be warranty periods. But the company would be required to indefinitely continue selling replacement parts, provide repair services (or support third party repair services with manuals, schematics, etc), issue security updates for critical vulnerabilities, etc.
> Pixel 5 Updates [...] Ends in 1 month and 2 weeks
No way am I getting rid of my Pixel 5 in a month, it still runs like a champ. Can anyone tell me realistically what are the risks of running a phone without security updates? If it's worth anything, I almost exclusively run FOSS apps from F-Droid.
Same boat. Feels like I bought my Pixel 5 yesterday and it feels like new, no way I'm going to trash it. It's unlikely I will buy (or recommend) another Pixel if they don't extend the security updates period.
Wonder why it is so short: is support that expensive for many models? or simply to force users into unneeded upgrades (F* that).
Oh yes, and when support ends it's practically impossible to use a phone.
I've never understood people talking about "support", still rocking a 7 year old phone (have changed the battery) with fairly recent lineageos. Only really use floss apps though and don't browse weird sites.
I use a computer for serious stuff.
If you really cared about waste you could a) not buy a phone with limited support if for some mystical reason you care for that or b) find ways to use the phone without support.
TL;DR: You might have Carbon Monoxide poisoning which is inducing memory loss and these “hacks” you are experiencing are merely you doing things to yourself that you don’t remember.
I was thinking more of the paranoia than the memory loss when I suggested CO detectors, but my own memory loss might be embellishing the original thread with things that weren't there
Yeah, memory loss and personality changes are both symptoms - so being paranoid fits there... it doesn't help the original person was writing themselves notes, forgetting they did it and then waking up wondering WTF is this??
I'm pretty sure I've managed to do something late night and wake up to it thinking the same (and as far as I know I dont have CO build up lol)
Theres no fire's here, just me smoking, but I've already tried giving up smoking a long time ago and my zyban was swapped for what seems like chalk pills. Not the only med thats been tampered with, my anti biotics were stolen from my bedroom, and the risperidone was swapped for something that left me incapacitated in bed for hours every morning, which was totally different to the experience when locked up in a mental health ward.
I should add, from a very young age I've been drugged by my own parents and made to do stuff naked with what can only be described as something like scopolamine.
But you know the govt doesnt teach you what parents can and cant do to you, just like the legal system doesnt teach law to anyone either!
Refurbished is already a market. Anyone who wants that can choose such a phone. For those who want a new device (you'll need people to buy those, if you want there to be a second hand or refurbished market), there is Fairphone. I don't see that as greenwashing at all.
> You will be more environmentally friendly if you just don't upgrade from whatever phone you have for a few years.
I'm not going to buy a new phone if I'm not in the market, that much should be obvious for anyone? Probably doubly so for the people willing to buy a Fairphone.
"The most sustainable phone is the one you already have".
That's what they said in an email reply to me. Not sure what question I was asking, but they were very upfront about it.
Sure, you can get second hand phones, but:
1. You won't get any security patches (or not for long)
2. I don't think I can trust a 2nd hand device to not be modified in some way. Feels like an easy way to get valuable data.
So if security is a concern at all, I think new phones are sadly the only way to go.
> You will be more environmentally friendly if you just don't upgrade from whatever phone you have for a few years.
I was thinking about getting a fairphone as my 5 years old Huawei P20 Lite was suffering from poor battery life and USB-C and 3.5mm jack not working so well anymore.
A friend told me that a battery replacement and jack cleaning would be very cheap, I went for it and I'm very happy I did, I like my phone a lot.
I'm still on a Nokia 8 I bought five years ago. It works fine, though I have to knock the camera a few times before the focusing starts working.
Unfortunately I've just found out this week that Slack are discontinuing support for my version of Android. As my workplace uses Slack and I need to support the applications I work on, this means I'll need to either get a new phone or install a custom ROM so that I can get a more modern Android version. As it's my primary and only phone, the custom ROM route is a little worrying as it means I could potentially be without a phone if I don't have time to work through any issues that come up. Also, last time I ran a custom ROM, Google Wallet refused to work on my device.
So I'm effectively forced to buy a new device, despite being reasonably happy with the one I've got.
I had a really old phone that I liked, but which slack discontinued support for. The effect was that the slack app would still start and you could even see the channels etc behind the big "not supported" badge that immediately popped up. However, notifications still worked, and that was (and is) my main use case anyway, so I didn't mind. I found it a pretty weird way of "discontinuing" support though.
Unfortunately I had to switch to a newer phone later when my bank app started complaining.
It makes me really sad that some modern apps don't work on older Android versions. For the apps I'm currently working on, I'm making a big deal out of them being responsive and usable on 8 yr old phones.
Congratulation for the 5 years lifespan, you already beat the world average by two!
> I’m effectively forced to buy a new phone.
forced seems a bit strong:
- Wallet: everyone used to carry a 10g credit card in their pocket for the last decades and it worked pretty well and conveniently. There’s some consumers avantages but the biggest winner with phone wallets are Google and Apple.
- Slack: there’s a web based version, even if not very convenient with phone. Don’t know your role and position but most employees can get away with desktop slack. Not having slack on your personal phone is also seen as a benefit for many.
- support the application I work on: stand instead for supporting you own phone with the application you work on. If your phone can handle it, flagships will. As an app worker you can have a real impact on phones durability by allowing others users to continue using your service with their own 5yo phones.
I've had the same email from Slack. My phone is 5½ years old.
It works fine, so I don't want to replace it, but even more than that it's small — 148x73mm. There are no other decent Android phones of a similar size! (I have signed up at https://smallandroidphone.com/).
But back to the point, in Denmark the national identity system relies on either a smartphone app or a key fob for authentication — it's needed for online banking login, online credit/debit card purchases, viewing my medical records, etc. The app supposedly might work, or might be made to work on a custom OS, but from reading around Reddit it looks like a continual hassle to keep it working. I also don't much fancy adding a large fob to my keychain, especially as unlike in the app the number on the fob isn't protected by a fingerprint or PIN.
(I'm on call sometimes, and we use Slack to coordinate, so I may end up with no choice. Whether work pay for the new phone or myself is irrelevant, it's the environmental footprint and size I care about.)
The phone allows me to make purchases over 40 GBP without entering a PIN. If I went back to the card it would be less convenient, because it means I have to carry my cards (risk of loss or theft), would have to get them out and physically insert them and enter PIN for every purchase over 40 GBP. So, yes, it would be possible, just like using cash would be possible, but a loss less convenient.
Slack: I didn't realise there was a web based version. Not sure if I could SSO sign into it, but I'll give it a try. I'll have to investigate whether it supports push notifications. This could solve my problem if it does.
Hmm, just tried web slack and it doesn't seem to exist on the phone, even in desktop mode. Just shows me settings and doesn't show the channels or contacts.
Actually I've battled my way in. Really not the easiest thing to get to run on a mobile but it's possible. You have to set desktop mode in the phone, go to settings and then open the sidebar and select Go Back to Slack.
Replaced the battery in my 5yo OnePlus 6 the other day for exactly this reason.
Apart from the previously low battery life there's absolutely no other reason for me to upgrade. The camera is good enough, the screen is good enough, weight, screen size, expandable storage all good enough.
> You will be more environmentally friendly if you just don't upgrade from whatever phone you have for a few years.
Trick maybe, but also:
Which is why they provide 5 years warranty software updates.
And while there are phone you might be able to use well beyond 5 years for your use-case, after 5 years (and often earlier) many want a new phone, in the end people are not fully selfless and needs can also change.
E.g. I for a very long time didn't need a camera, but now I need one and the one of my current ~4 year old phone just doesn't quite cut it. And if I get a FP5 now I probably will be able to use it for the full 5 years, and them I will check if I can put some alternate OS on it and pass it one to someone who is satisfied with that.
It would be ok to resell, but not all phones can be maintained in terms of security/os.
Fp5 is directed at new customers while fp3/4 users can continue using their devices
You're forgetting the second hand market. If you can give your kid a decent, secure hand-me-down or sell your 2 year old device for 50% of orig. price you are saving both money and environment in these respects.
That said it is a decent reflection 'do I really need a new one' but a lot of people (esp poor ppl) run around with insecure devices, a shame.
My phone is a Oneplus 5T from late 2017, it will probably be fine for another 5 years at least but will probably require a battery replacement at some point. My wife uses my previous phone, a OnePlus One from 2013, still going strong, its 10 year old battery still runs for two full days (LineageOS without Google sh*t draining it).
I wish they would make a 5a version that is smaller and has lower specs and is therefore cheaper. I really like the idea of getting updates until 2031 and being able to just replace the battery.
I really do hope they'll make a smaller and lighter phone.
According to https://specs-tech.com/en/fairphone-5/ this weights 220 grams. It's almost twice of what I deemed to be a reasonable limit for a phone.
It's comparable to the Pixel 7 Pro (212g) or iPhone 14 Pro (206g), but it would be nice to see that number trend downwards. I had a Pixel 4a in the past, and that seemed like a good balance between size and weight.
I feel like a lot of the issue is because the new operating systems are a lot more power intensive and Google play services is always doing so much in the background, you need a super heavy battery just to get an all day battery life whereas older phones could get the same battery life with a lighter/smaller battery and less OS bloat.
I second that. My ideal phone size would allow me to hold it in one hand and scroll/do everything with my thumb, but most are so big now it's kind of impossible.
I'm watching TV on my tablet now and typing this on my phone. As I'm watching news I could watch them on my phone in an overlay player and read HN in the browser.
My phone is about one inch too tall for my liking. I'd cut it shorter and make it lighter. It's a Samsung A40. It's not worth spending more than about 200 Euro when everything more expensive is worst size and weight wise. Featurewise this phone is more than enough.
Agreed. I honestly contemplated the Fairphone when my Samsung s7 finally died in April, but I ended up just getting the newest Samsung because it was smaller and most familiar to me. But oh how I miss the SD card slot.
Lol. I paid 250 euros for the phone I'm typing this on, 240 for the phone before that, and 500-ish for my first Android because then it wasn't a high volume established market yet and that's simply what a good smartphone cost (past tense).
Paying 700 is not "relatively low", that's a huge premium which I'd be happy to pay to get my current hardware (from 2019) again but with ten years of software support and fair material sourcing and manufacturing wages. Unfortunately, the hardware is worse than what I've currently got (unwieldy size, no headphone jack, worse camera probably, no stereo speaker, no wireless charger), and the software downsides of the FP3 that I tried to adapt to for a few weeks were even worse than the hardware downsides. But anyway, that's all besides the point that 700 euros is not a normal price for a phone. If this lasts thrice as long as another 250-euro device then it's still not cheaper because the battery will need replacing.
Is 700 euro really that much? Considering it is probably most used device you have, something you use daily every day. For most people it is the only device with internet connection.
If you keep it for 5 years (until warranty runs out) is it 140 euro per year, 12 euro per month.
I pay 12 euro per month for netflix and I don't even think about it being expensive. Why wouldn't I spend same amount of money on the most important device I have? Except for computer maybe.
Water is vital for life but that doesn't justify paying three times more for water that is only better when doing a side-by-side direct comparison but is otherwise equally tasty (assuming it is also equally healthy).
I'd totally pay 7000 euros for a smartphone if it lasts five years and there are no cheaper options of virtually equal quality, but there are.
Saw a thread on Tildes yesterday where people argued for splurging on basically every necessity of modern life except water. If I tried to spend money on everything people were arguing for, I'd spend a significant fraction of my retirement fund before I'm done, and I'm happy with budget options also (but it takes a bit of time to find the minimum necessary, rather than buying expensive and it's usually fine)
I paid 390 USD (excluding taxes) in 2019 for my phone - Xiaomi Mi9T Pro, I'm from relatively poor country, so i personally wouldn't pay 700 for a phone, it's a pretty high price for me.
What is more interesting actually, is that Fairphone 5's SOC have the same performance as Snapdragon 855 in my at this point 4 years old phone, which is also cheaper. Accoring to GsmArena performance of Qualcomm QCM 6490 used in Fairphone 5 comparable to the Snapdragon 778G which has the same score in GeekBench 5 and Antutu 9 as Snapdragon 855 [1]. At least it has 2 more GB of RAM (my phone has 6)
Maybe it's a bit sad that there isn't that much progress lately (compared to early to mid 2010s), but it also means that i will be able to continue to use my phone for several more years without much problems (Except for Android updates, but I already have custom ROM installed).
The SoC in FP5 is industrial grade hence long term support.
A lot of people think custom ROM is going to give you a secure device but hardware vulnerabilities sometimes have to be fixed on a higher level.
FP5 sports an OLED. Xiaomi devices don't AFAIK.
Its apples to oranges to compare with any Xiaomi device.
Xiaomi is not modular, ever. Xioami have no user replaceable battery or screen. Xiaomi have a proprietary UI (non-standard Android) and many do not allow to run a different OS than it came with. I wouldn't trust Xiaomi or any of that Chinaware with my PII.
FP4 allows all of that and its likely FP5 does, too. The nice thing about repairable smartphone with long software support is akin to iPhones (though from like X till 13 was tough to repair); great resale value and good hand-me-down for your kid.
Samsung sells phones with comparable hardware for half that price, though that model will only be updated until 2028.
The Oppo A94 and the Oppo Find X5 Lite come pretty close for €259 or €294 respectively, with almost no update guarantees. The Xiaomi 12 Lite for €305 should be a bit better in terms of updates, but for the "standard" five years you should start looking at the Samsung models (A34 for €349, A65 for €380).
€700 is cheap for a repairable phone from a small company, but it's definitely not low on the smartphone price spectrum. Android phones that are slow, but honestly better than what I have paid €450 for a few years ago, are going for about €90 these days. Those phones even come with free chargers, something €2126 iPhones lack.
My phone was €150. It does everything I need just fine. The screen is annoyingly big and it sends too much data to Google/HMD/whoever though. I would prefer to have the same phone but with AOSP android (as much as possible).
I don't see how phones have improved at all in the last several years, aside from the camera. In many ways they've gotten worse.
Given that my last 3 phones all died when I dropped them (in part because they're too big and too thin) I don't really want to spend a lot of money on one.
I really wish I could get a slider like an HTC Touch Pro 2 with a modern OS. Or just an iPhone 5C with software updates.
> Given that my last 3 phones all died when I dropped them
Might I recommend a phone case? I don't think I've ever heard of a phone breaking more than the screen visually cracking after dropping, even without a case, besides I think one time my cousin was repairing a phone whose touchscreen didn't work correctly anymore. I'm sure it happens but the amount of luck to have that three times in a row seems odd.
As for most of them being too large (especially the cheapest ones), I agree, that's why I bought a smaller phone second hand.
Exactly. The camera is the only thing I will care about N years down the line when I look at pictures from past phones. It's a realization I've had only somewhat recently ~1-2 years ago.
There are a few too many compromises compared to other phones in this price range.
I think you still have to consider the "Fair" in Fairphone to be a significant selling point. That's not a bad thing, but it's not going to go mainstream until it competes with other phones on everything else at their price point.
Electric cars didn't go mainstream until Tesla (roughly) because before that they weren't competitive with mainstream cars in terms of performance, comfort, or other factors.
Electric cars are mainstream in many countries, and I think a reasonable argument could be made that they are mainstream in the US now.
Fairphone is manufactured in Asia where wages are lower. Most smartphones are not made in sweatshops, so while pay may be low, it's unlikely that Fairphone are paying >2x the wages, and I'd bet it's fairly close to the wages others are paying.
I suspect most of their increased costs come from small production runs, and smaller purchase orders for components rather than paying workers more. These are issues that scale well as they become mainstream.
> They can't do magic
This is unfortunately true. I suspect getting to real scale would require investment of the level that Fairphone are unlikely to ever be able to get with their values. This is a failure of society and incentives, but complaining about it isn't going to fix it.
I feel like a better approach would be for Fairphone to tackle one issue, and make a phone that it much more competitive based on that, and scale up the issues they tackle as the business scales.
Single digit percentage sounds mainstream to me – 1 in 100 to 1 in 10 new cars being sold being electric makes them quite common. Given that there are quite a lot of manufacturers, and many models of car, no one manufacturer or model is much more than that (except perhaps the Ford F150 in the US, but that's a weird exception). This market isn't the smartphone market where 1 company controls a large chunk of the market, and the next 2-3 functionally control the rest.
>Given that there are quite a lot of manufacturers, and many models of car, no one manufacturer or model is much more than that
You're comparing manufacturers and individual models to an entire market segment. That electric vehicle prevalence is for all makes and models. The more accurate comparison in my mind would be to V8 cars from all manufacturers, or diesel vehicles from all manufacturers.
If you gifted them a 350€ phone and said it cost 1100€, I honestly be impressed if they'd notice without synthetic benchmarks or checking how many updates it'll still get. Make sure to pick a model with decent camera and oled screen, those are the noticeable differences, but there's no shortage of good options at that price point. Under 200 is where it gets tough.
A 700€ pricetag is definitely premium for me. I can understand why they have to charge that much for the Fairphone, but personally I have never spent more than 250€ on a phone (smart or not).
because SoCs from 2018 (think SDM632) are easily able to run Android 13 and the production/marketing/buyer capacity so potent, the market and drawers at home are saturated. 4G will stay on the towers for another few years, so 30€ is the real low on the smartphone price spectrum - the device type is now ubiquitous.
A phone that wants to be sustainable but has no headphone jack is an oxymoron. The FP5 just isn't an option like this. Replaceable battery, SD-card slot and headphone jacks are the absolute minimum, otherwise the long software support and fair production just isn't enough. Especially not for the price, a bad compromise for 700€ is a no-go.
What is so unsustainable about bluetooth? It has been around for quite a few years. They even offer headphones with replaceable battery and parts which should last at least as long as the phone: https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds-xl
The battery needed makes bluetooth headphones completely unsustainable.
Their headphones might have a replaceable battery, but headphones do not necessarily need one at all. Their earphones even have a baked in battery that is not replaceable. And in general, not having a headphone jack pushes consumers to buy bluetooth devices, of which almost none have replaceable batteries (the fairbuds-xl are the big outlier). It's an ecological disaster.
I think that people are just assuming the worst case for wireless and best case for wired (in terms of longevity). AFAIK most wired headphones don’t have a replaceable cable, and the ones that do tend to be pricier. Personally I’ve had the same AirPods for 3 years now, and the batteries seem fine. The only pair of wired headphones that I’ve had last that long were $400 sennheisers, and I think I’m pretty careful about making sure that cable ends dog get bent and that the cables aren’t tangled.
Wireless headphones cost more, last shorter, having no wire is not always better than having a wire. You can get cheaper wired headphones with comparable or better audio quality that will last longer and cost less.
it's subject to interference, uses more battery and will just not work if you really need it.
anecdote: had a ten year old premium car with "bluetooth" but could not manage to pair it with anything - supposedly the used bt-standard is outdated or something
There just is no conflict between water-proofnesss, repairablity and having a headphone jack.
Water-proofness/resistance and a headphone jack does not collide at all. There are many devices that proof that. For repairability, I also do not see how this might conflict with the other goals, as quite some devices had headphone jacks that were easy to swap. Look at how the framework laptop puts them on a small audio board for example, the same had been done in phones.
So again, this is just my recollection, but glueing parts shut sounds like it should help prevent water getting into the device. So if you can't do that, I assume you get closer to not getting the certification, and then adding another hole in the device might push it over the edge?
I do remember they explicitly addressed this in the FP4 launch, so it wasn't for lack of want.
Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_S6JaLvDck. It's a teardown of the Xperia 1 II. It shows how easy the audio jack can be removed there. The phone is certified as IP65/IP68.
The phone itself is glued, but the jack does not seem to be. It likely works with pressure and might have a gasket seal - which is not surprising if you look at how watches do it.
But I think you are right - they said something like that when the FP4 came out. But that phone is a matter of principle anyway. If it is possible to get the phone with an audio jack in a good state, but the certification process is broken, then they should not certify it (and publicly attack the certifier). The Sony phone shows it can be done on a technical level, which is what matters.
I was indeed not talking about glueing the jack, but about the rest of the phone. Not doing that will presumably lower your rating, and then adding a jack would lower it even more - and I'm guessing that would lower it beneath the water-resistant certification threshold.
There's a bit of back and forth between whether people consider IPX5 waterproof or not. Personally I think the layman expects waterproof to mean you can drop it in the bath and it won't get damaged. That occupies somewhere between IPX6 and IPX7 which is why it's a bit fuzzy
I'd counter that if you get water inside an IP68, it's screwed. (My Xperia got some moisture under the screen during a long bike tour through the rain, and it never really came back out.)
Water seeping inside an IP55 because you drop it in the bath, sink, toilet, hurricane, etc? Turn the thing off right away, remove battery, get it in a box with desiccant, and it'll probably be fine in a day. If not? Still repairable.
There's a few issues with your statement. IPX1-6 are actually grouped separately to 7-8. Complying with 7-8 submersion doesn't mean that it complies with 1-6.
So IPX8 states that the device can be submersed, but makes no statement about spray/droplets. If you comply to both, then they're both stated, eg "IPx5/IPx8"
The same applies to your IPX5 statement, defined as resistant to spray but not submersible. It makes no guarantee about what could happen if you drop it in water
And finally, even the drip tests only test for 10 minutes. Anything longer than 10 minutes is not guaranteed by IPX1-5
Right. The Xperia is IP65/68. I just glossed over this because I figure most people are unaware of that nuance. It's a pretty well sealed phone, because once the condensation gets in, it does not get back out without cracking the weather seal.
If the FP5 were just a tad smaller with a telephoto (like the Xperia) I'd be all over it---water resistant or not.
For me the main concern is it not breaking if it's in my pocket while I'm out in the rain - that was a failure mode for my FP1 and has not been great for my FP2, I think.
What do you think about this device? I bought an iPhone SE and dropped it onto the rug in my living room and it broke so bad it won't even come on. I'm never buying another all-glass phone again.
I checked out the specs on this phone - I'd love to hear what you think about it.
If we're talking about the XCover Pro, I drop it fairly regularly (not intentionally, just clumsy), and I've yet to break the screen. The reinforced edges seem to do the trick, they've gathered a collection of dings and scratches, but the device is overall in surprisingly great shape, coming up on three years of ownership. I expect it to last a few more years at the very least. The first thing to go will probably be the security updates, but as an "enterprise" device, it should hold out a bit longer. It currently gets quarterly security updates, see https://security.samsungmobile.com/workScope.smsb
I have learned over the past 5 years that it is impossible to convince people who have chosen to die on the 3.5mm jack hill that it isn't a big deal.
I don't think it's even about the jack anymore, complaining about it is just a shibboleth for a subgroup of Stallman types who dislike the state of modern computing.
I'm not buying an adapter for a slot that can and should be built in.
Also, it absolutely is an issue in practice. Dongles get lost (-> additional garbage produced), and blocking the USB-C slot means the phone can't be charged. Especially when traveling both slots are needed all the time.
I used to be on that headphone jack hill until my headphones died. I then realized, that the market for "normal" headphones, i.e. the ones you just hang in your ears and not the ones you ram into your ear canal, has simply died while I wasn't looking. I've switched to Aeropex and have never been happier. I still think removing the jack was a stupid "hey look, we can do what Apple does" kind of move by nearly everyone, but I now can accept it and live with it.
The headphone market is booming though. Headphones like the Beyerdynamics DT 770 PRO, so the big ones, are more popular than ever. It's true that for the small wired ones that go in your ear, the ones that go more into the ear canal than sitting near it seem to be more popular right now. But the other kind still seems to be very popular, Apple has their cultists convinced those are the best thing (I'm kidding, no position on my side what's better, but they are sold a lot because Apple sells them). And there are many alternatives on the market. I could buy the Sennheiser MX 375 right now. Where did you get the impression that that category is dead?
To bad they didn't keep the speckled green color scheme. I really like that.
As others have pointed out the screen is to large, personally I really don't want to go above the 4.7". The price seems reasonable, as compared to other phones, but still €500 above the value I place on phones, but that's not specific to Fairphone.
I also wish they'd offer something other than Android, but I get why they don't.
I was so happy when I saw the price. Yes it's above what I am usually willing to pay but if you take into account for how long you will use it, it would be absolutely ok. In addition with all the good you do by choosing a more sustainable phone, even more so.
Sadly the size is a no go for me. I have a Pixel 4a still and am super happy with the device and I can't deal with anything bigger than that. Maybe a little bigger but not 6.46 inches. I mean come on. I have big hands but I want to be able to put it in my pants pockets.
They do? You can install Windows on it if you want, and I'm pretty sure all the linuxes will support it like with previous Fairphones. What OS can you install on any other phone that FP doesn't offer?
You can install something like CalyxOS on the Fairphone 4 just fine. My point is that I wish it had the option to ship with it, so I don't have to mess around with it.
- What is the black, solid round thing next to the rear cameras?
- There are no hardware kill switches to turn the microphone and cameras off, are there? So if you don't trust smartphones to not be compromised you must always assume you're being filmed and recorded. (Yes, I know I am paranoid, you don't have to punish me with downvotes for that please. Instead please spread positivity by upvoting other people's comments, the effect is almost the same :)
- The "hole punch" front camera makes it difficult to put e.g. duct tape over it to compensate for the lack of kill switches.
One question here is whether we should trust that Android 12+ has a proven 100% reliable method of showing the camera/microphone notification dot when these devices are being used.
I wonder if Google's end game is for manufacturers to hardwire a power LED to the microphone and camera, as this would be close to a perfect system of notifying users they are being recorded, although there will always be a handful of reasons to oppose this and a handful of people adamant a hardwired power LED can still be bypassed without physical access to a device.
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While annoying, you could just assume the pixels between the bezel and punch hole will almost never be useful and just put a thin, long tape piece over the entire edge. (The case would then conveniently keep it in place, where it can be temporarily flipped up.)
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For the extreme privacy minded (e.g. a Richard Stallmann level of, uhh, prudence) you could probably pop out the modules holding the microphone and camera and then exclusively use a USB-C microphone/headset/webcam. Then usability comes down to whether the OS would continue to start with one of these peripherals missing, although in our experience with FP2 and 3, some of the microphones would sometimes fail with no other side effects. I imagine a missing camera would probably just crash the Camera app and any other you've given camera permission to.
Fwiw, I used an EFF sticker on my old Note 2 front camera. The bezel nicely fit the sticker and it had some glue that let itself be removed and reapplied at least a dozen times. Not a perfect solution, but worked. I miss the sticker regularly, even after six years of having a phone without webcam sticker.
Yeah, same here: I upgraded to an FP4 about three months ago (from an increasingly-broken-down Samsung Galaxy S9), after puzzling for a while over whether I should wait for what looked like an imminent FP5 or just grab the FP4 that was available now. I don't regret my choice fwiw.
The battery already lasts two days under my usage model, and the phone still has a five year warranty and OS support for another three years. I see that Fairphone are still selling some repair parts for FP2 and FP3, so I expect to be able to repair my phone through that whole time period unless something weird happens.
The FP5 looks like a nice upgrade, but I don't feel short-changed: I got a new phone when my old one was failing, and it's not absolutely top-of-the-line, and that's fine. Like you, I'll think harder about the next round of upgrades (maybe to the FP6, maybe the FP7), and I'd love it if Fairphone were to be clearer about their release schedule, but I understand that they don't want to Osborne themselves.
I bought the Fairphone 3 a few weeks before the 4 came out, but was able to sell it for nearly the original price. I wasn't happy with it anyway (and the FP4 didn't have a headphone jack so I got an S10e second hand, which also works 10x better — I'm happy to make compromises on top of paying extra but there are limits). Maybe that works for you too if it's still good as new
Thanks for the overview; I've been holding out for the FP5, but am not sure yet if I'm going to buy that or get the FP4 at a discount (I missed the previous discount).
FP4 is also better at being €120 cheaper, and presumably €170 if they apply the same discount they did in April :) And I think it has dual SIM as well?
As much as I would like an audiojack, I doubt any smartphone will bring it back. If usb-c will be forced in Europe to all manufacturers I rather think if headphones might default to usb-c in the future as you could use them with any notebook and phones?!
Of course I'll wait for reviews, but on first look this just doesn't seem good enough to replace the FP4.
It STILL has no headphone jack. It STILL seems to be oversized. I kind of doubt that it'll feel much better in the hand (but we'll see).
Maybe the camera is that much better, but why couldn't they have sold an upgraded FP4? Every new model muddies the supply chain making it harder to support existing models, after all.
It's not meant to replace the FP4 for people who already use it. The entire point of Fairphone is you can continue to use your phone for 5-7 years because you don't want to upgrade every year.
The FP5 is intended to keep their product modern to bring in new users.
Consider that the FP4 came out in 2021 and is supported through 2027. It's 2 years old now, which is fine for people who want to use it. They still have 5 years of life on it.
But if someone is considering ditching their old Pixel 4 which is no longer receiving updates, are they going to want to buy a phone which is already 2 years old? Probably not.
If Fairphone didn't release a new phone until the release cycle of the current one ended then the only option people would have is buying 6 year old phones.
They still have to make regular updates in order to attract new customers. They are banking on a customer base that does not feel the need to upgrade to the latest and greatest every 1-2 years.
Also, if they keep older phone designs in production then they'll have to reduce the length of time that they can support them for as their suppliers such as Qualcomm won't support them for as long.
I had a dream that I own a FP5 running Plasma Mobile [1]. Then I woke up and realized this is the real world and in the real world we can't have Good Things.
Well in theory you can or will be able soon [1] (there is commmunity support for FP4). But I don't want a device to tinker with. I want a reliable daily driver that is sustainable (repairable/replaceable), privacy focused, based on linux open source (convergent) and long-term supported by a well run entity.
Wait, what does an "N" column mean? Surely basics like the battery, audio, camera, and GPS don't not work at all.
If that's what this means, yeah I get that nobody should want to run that on this device. That's quite disappointing, but with the low volumes that FP is able to ship, I guess the volunteers on postmarket have to make choices
Edit: five tables further down, there's a legend. Indeed, battery etc. is not just not tested or something, but actually tested not working. Weird, you'd think the battery works regardless of what software it runs o.O
I was upgrading my Pixel 4a recently, and one of my top concerns was security updates. I wanted a phone that would continue receiving timely Android security fixes for at least 3 years, ideally 5+ years.
I liked the idea of Fairphone, but I was skittish about their ability to fund a team to keep up with the latest Android updates for the next several years.
Does anyone know how small players like this keep up with Android updates? I don't know much about how difficult it is to continue pushing Android updates out, but I assume it's at least somewhat difficult, as many of the major phone vendors do it so slowly and eventually stop after 2-3 years.
I realize those vendors have perverse incentives to stop updates to encourage customers to upgrade phones, but I assume some of it is legitimate difficulty of continuing to provide the updates.
Fairphone 4 owner here. IMO Fairphone has a bit of a mixed record.
On the one hand, they have proven themselves in the past with things like working with the community to get Android 10 ported to the Fairphone 2 [1].
On the other hand, they always seem to be pretty behind on security updates. They got particularly eviscerated by the GrapheneOS project lead [2].
My hot take is Fairphone is a pretty small company that is trying to fill too many niches at once. It's great that they're working on making the supply chain for gold less awful ([3]). It's also great that they're continuing to prove that repairable / user-upgradeable flagship(-ish) phones are possible. I originally chose Fairphone for those reasons, because they align with my values.
Ultimately, though, I want a phone that I can rely on to be rock solid, secure, and highly usable. It's the thing I carry with me everywhere and rely on in emergencies, etc. To that end I recently ordered a used Pixel 6 Pro and plan to switch to that + GrapheneOS in the near future. I hope that Fairphone continues to succeed and help reform the (completely awful, IMO) mobile handset industry.
AFAIK They have the best track record of upgrading Android smartphones, across all their models. Most of the upgrades they are doing it largely themselves beyond what SoC-vendor provides.
It's not extremely difficult (though Google makes it harder every year), but does require people dedicated to "simply" upgrading. A team of 10 of decent software engineers (juniors are okay as long as they have proper embedded systems education, and they aren't afraid of huge code bases) should be able to handle that. Rock-stars should be able to manage that single-handedly (again assuming they only do that).
That being said, for Fairphone 5, they are using a ""special chip"" for which Qualcomm will provide longer software support than they do for other chips (But I think they still need to extend upgrades themselves after Qualcomm stop). In this case, IMO, it's just a way for Qualcomm to make more money off long support. (The chip probably has some difference compared to standard Qualcomm smartphone SoC, because modern smartphone Qualcomm SoC may suicide itself pretty fast with a removable battery)
I can't speculate on the extremely long term, but my fairphone 3 is still getting OS updates pretty regularly. Fairphone 3 was released 3 years ago and I think the last OS update I got was ~3 weeks ago, so they're at least doing 3 years, time will tell for 5+ though.
I think they're focusing primarily on security updates, not Android updates in general (though a couple of those as well). And I believe they're also leaning heavily on the work of LineageOS, but don't hold me to that.
I didn't upgrade yet to 13 because they said the vendor for the fingerprint reader in the FP3 has not registered/validated/whatever for Google's security standards on Android 13 yet, thus possibly causing issues with apps that require strong security (banking apps, for example). What is strange though is that if a banking app can't use the fingerprint reader on 13, it will then default to PINs - aren't PINs weaker security-wise than biometric logins?
>aren't PINs weaker security-wise than biometric logins?
Depends on how you look at it. I'll focus on fingerprint here.
Sure, there are far more possible fingerprint features that can be identified for accept/decline decision "Does this match a registered fingerprint", than 1,0000 PIN combinations (4 digits).
But if the fingerprint reader is too lax in matching, it's possibly worse.
If you can crash the fingerprint reader system, which then accepts all future patterns, that's worse.
If you can trick the system into revealing all the biometric data it's collected, and then replay it directly without using the sensor using their debugging interface, that's worse.
That's not to say defaulting to PINs is or isn't the "least bad" option. Just that it's more complicated than the question makes it look.
There are other issues around your question in general that aren't particularly relevant in context:
You can't reasonably change or revoke your PIN.
Your device is likely covered in your fingerprints.
Do we know whether the camera will rely on DRMed drivers for good quality, like with Sony phones? Or is there hope that the camera would work well with a Linux distribution based on PostmarketOS?
One of the main selling points of these "fair" phones is that they are supposed to last longer than "unfair" phones. Seeing how as the main driver to get another phone for me has been the discontinuation of support by third parties like the Swedish BankID app - which first forced me to get another phone when they discontinued support for Android 4.4 and now is about to do the same when they insist on the device having NFC - and given that I actually still use all Android devices I ever had - the oldest are getting close to 13 years now - I do not consider this "fair" phone any more "fair" than those I have in use. I only get devices which can run AOSP-derived distributions so software longevity is more or less guaranteed (within the limits of the hardware, e.g. the 512 MB single core Motorola Defy won't run anything beyond 4.4), I repair what is broken (...which tend to be my wife and children's devices even though I use the things on the farm and in the woods, go figure...) and have yet to throw away a single phone. This, to me, is fair enough.
I'm also quite fed up with the '...for a better planet' greenwash-posturing by any and all commercial actors so there's that as well.
I posted in a comment elsewhere in this thread that I'm planning on transitioning soon from a Fairphone 4 to a Pixel 6 Pro + GrapheneOS.
This announcement makes me even more sure of my choice, because it seems Fairphone are starting to lose their way.
One of the reasons I really liked the company in the past was their commitment to extend the longevity of their flagships. They released a "plus upgrade" kit for both the FP2 and the FP3.
To see them release a whole new flagship only a year or so after the FP4 release is ... a shame.
Flatly put, their products aren't very good when you compare them to the "big" vendors like Samsung/Apple/Google. What differentiates them is their commitment to environmental sustainability, un-sucking the rare-metals supply chain, etc. If they're going to release a new flagship every year, how does that make them any better (from a sustainbility POV) to the morally and ethically bankrupt companies they're competing with?
Are they discontinuing support for their previous phones any sooner? Are they cutting the warranty for them or stopping holding parts for them?
Does the existence of a Fairphone 5 make any practical difference to an owner of an FP4? Or is it just the concern that some people will think, "Wah, this isn't the company's latest phone any more!" and upgrade sooner than they might otherwise?
> Are they discontinuing support for their previous phones any sooner? Are they cutting the warranty for them or stopping holding parts for them?
Well obviously they can't back down on their promise to support FP4 for 5 years. But for example back in the FP2 era they went above and beyond and released Android 10 6 years after the release of the FP2. With more and more product lines to support, it seems less likely that such a thing would be feasible in future (limited resources and all that).
> Does the existence of a Fairphone 5 make any practical difference to an owner of an FP4? Or is it just the concern that some people will think, "Wah, this isn't the company's latest phone any more!" and upgrade sooner than they might otherwise?
A bit of both, I think.
The reality is a lot of consumers are still in the mindset that there's no problem with their individual behavior ("it's the fault of Exxon that our planet is doomed, not little ol' me buying a new phone every year!"). So Fairphone is enabling that bad behaviour, here.
Also, by matching the release cadence of the other companies, they're sending a signal that such a thing is okay (I think it isn't). Releasing "upgrade kits" that encourage consumers to extend the life of their handset by another couple of years, is a very different signal.
> The reality is a lot of consumers are still in the mindset that there's no problem with their individual behavior ("it's the fault of Exxon that our planet is doomed, not little ol' me buying a new phone every year!"). So Fairphone is enabling that bad behaviour, here.
So it is the individual's fault, except it's not the individual's fault?
Is there a company that provides upgrade kit? At all? Afaik it's impossible due to complexity, even google had something similar in mind but dropped the idea bc it's too hard
Also a different form factor, but look at what Framework laptops are doing. You can upgrade every part, including the mainboare, individually. If it's possible for an ultrabook form factor, it should be possible for a slate handset form factor (IMO)
Laptops were always upgradable, I'm interested more in upgradable phones, since tech stack is quite different due to Qualcomm
Didn't knew fp3+ exists, thanks
Individual consumer behaviour has never achieved anything. It did not create the minimum wage, 5 day week, end slavery, stop workers being locked in factories, stop toxic pollution in US waterways, etc. That was all done by unions and democratic institutions.
Imo it's the other way. You can still use fp3/4. Fp5 and future models are targetet at new customers: if someone wants to transition from another brand, how happy they'll be if current fp offering is outdated?
As long as they keep supporting old devices, they can totally release new ones and it'll be ethically correct. If they drop fp3/4 at all too early, then yes, it's an end, but till then, I'm happy for them
> If they're going to release a new flagship every year, how does that make them any better (from a sustainbility POV) to the morally and ethically bankrupt companies they're competing with?
By removing many reasons for you to buy a new smartphone every 3 years:
- when your screen breaks, you won't have to pay the price of a new smartphone to replace it
- your apps won't stop working because they want the shiniest OS you don't have (because you'll have it)
- when you're out of storage because apps will have inflated 5 times again, you'll be able to extend storage
- they give you financial incentive to keeping your device (see their subscription model) -- and they give themselves the incentive to make the longest-living product!
- when your battery gets lower charges (which I believe they already efforts to make slower)
Even if you want to buy a new fairphone in 3 years for a shinier camera, your previous fairphone will still be perfectly usable, and still be repairable for a long time.
I agree that it's a bit sad they don't have "plus upgrades", but reducing their work to just the plus upgrades is very extreme.
Also I agree that releasing a new device every year doesn't exactly sound right, but at work we work a huge lot on sustainability (for money reasons), and the conclusion remains that we need a new device every year. Basically the reasoning is that we can't foresee 10 years ahead what will make current devices obsolete. Maybe RAM price will plunge and all devices will have ten times the amount of RAM (and apps will eat ten times more RAM). Maybe some stupid instruction-set will become mandatory. Maybe apps will no longer be usable on sRGB screen. Maybe /that/ Vulkan extension that requires specific hardware will be used by Unity and thus breaking all new games. So one way to reduce the risk (as in total cost of obsolescence), is to make new products regularly, so the amount of devices in production with obsolete hardware is reduced.
If they're not very good then they need rapidly iterate until they do get good. They probably sell so few in comparison to the big guys in the short term it's not a big deal.
My Pixel 6 Pro is starting to break down with the same symptoms it was repaired for about a year ago (screen starts flickering and at some point it will just stay dark). The phone is about 2 years old. Hardware wise it's the most unreliable phone I've ever owned.
I'm currently leasing my Fairphone 4 from Commown, so I'm fairly sure it will go on to live a healthy and productive life elsewhere. I also purchased a used Pixel 6 Pro from eBay.
As per my comment elsewhere in this post, I'm switching away from Fairphone because I care more about the security and software-level ownership of my device. If GrapheneOS had support for Fairphone, I would have stuck with my FP4 for many years to come.
I recently bought a second hand Pixel 6 and installed GrapheneOS on it.
Couldn't be happier. Surprisingly it's one of the most straightforward ROMs I've used, and I've used many over the years.
Glad to hear it! Mine still hasn't arrived yet but I'm very eager to give GrapheneOS a try. Tried LineageOS a few times over the years but when paired with microG it's barely usable, and with Play services I might as well just stick with stock.
I see no mention of water proofness . To me, using a non-waterproof phone would be more wasteful even if it is a fairphone, because of the inevitable risk that it will be destroyed by moist too early. I must be able to cycle and run in the rain without risk to the phone.
So, I'm afraid I'm sticking with my Sony for now :/
> I must be able to cycle and run in the rain without risk to the phone.
I've had a Fairphone 3 since its release, have cycled (& walked) in the rain plenty (I live in Ireland) and have not had a single issue of any kind. I've always presumed IP ratings were for more extreme water-related use than rain (accidental drop in puddle, momentary underwater snaps, etc.). I've never had water damage to any phone I've owned from rain, going back long before IP ratings were a thing.
Well, I also want to be able to swim home from work if someone blows up all the bridges in Stockholm :) (Working on the north side of lake Mälaren, living on the south side).
I can't find any Samsung prices for the M20 screen. There are plenty of off-brand Chinese displays to be found, but none of them seem to have any guarantee of being genuine, original parts.
If you're willing to go for a subpar screen replacement I suppose that's cheaper, but the two products serve completely different markets. A promise to keep a stock of replacement parts comes with higher prices, stripped screens from Chinese recyclers can sell replacement screens for much cheaper as long as supplies last.
I've had FP4 since the launch. I don't use a case and have dropped it a couple times, mostly on wood, but once on tiles. The screen hasn't cracked yet and I haven't had to do any repairs on it. All in all, good HW.
Since owning it, the phone froze on me twice, once during the latest system update. Other than that, the SW seems solid. I've had an issue where the bottom SW buttons would disappear and not come back, but turns out, they come back with a swipe up.
I don't particularly enjoy being in the walled gardens of Google, but feel that Apple is no better. Hopefully the EU regulation comes quick to allow me to install 3rd-party apps.
In a perfect world, I'd be able to root the phone and still be able to use the banking app, but that won't happen ever.
EDIT: By 3rd-party I mean apps from third-party app stores/package managers. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I have FP4 as well and I would say that they do a rather poor job on the SW side of things. The default camera up somewhere along the lines became laggy when switching to wide screen, security updates come out months late, and Android 13 still isn't out (even for Android 12 they took a long time to get that prepared and released).
I'm probably going to switch to LineageOS at some point, but I just wasn't in the mood for to go out of my way and set it up (even if I've been using LineageOS extensively on all phones I got beforehand).
Thanks for pointing that out. I knew LineageOS and /e/ already had the Android 13 builds for the Fairphone 4. First time I'm hearing about CalyxOS, and the official webpage isn't in-depth enough to point how much different they are from LineageOS. Their own two bundled apps look interesting (the backup and outbound connection control ones) based on the one/two sentences I've found, but overall seems like a smaller community than LineageOS.
Unfortunately I cannot confirm that SW is solid. Massive problems with GPS when the fairphone 4 got out and still (very rarely) have to restart the phone to get a GPS fix.
Also there was this recently hot patched screen sensitive reduction for touch (where they wanted to fix some "screen ghost" issues) and you now have to press slightly more than necessary.
And then there are still problems with dual sim (not being able to see that phones come in from the other sim when you are on call) and many more (tiny) issues.
And yes, I can confirm that the HW seems to be robust. I also don't have a case only a protective glas.
The walled gardens could be avoided as there is official support for other OSes, I think calyxos and /e/os which themselves seem to support living without Google.
> I don't particularly enjoy being in the walled gardens of Google
Note that while it's not entirely out of Google's walled gardens, there's the "degoogled" /e/OS that is a Fairphone partner: https://e.foundation/e-os/
>EDIT: By 3rd-party I mean apps from third-party app stores/package managers. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
But you can do that already as well. There are commercial app stores like Amazon's, and there's F-Droid which works like a package manager for open source apps.
> I don't particularly enjoy being in the walled gardens of Google, but feel that Apple is no better. Hopefully the EU regulation comes quick to allow me to install 3rd-party apps.
You.. can't install 3rd party apps? Really? Are you sure?
I think we're sadly a long way from that happening - as long as Fairphone continue to use Qualcomm SOCs and Qualcomm continue to have a terrible track record for planned obsolescence of their SOCs, lack of support for Linux kernel maintenance, etc.
i've always been a little conflicted about fairphone. i like what they're doing in some ways (repairability, promise of a longer phone lifespan), but when I read quotes like this:
> According to the company, increasing the lifespan of a phone by two years reduces CO₂ emissions by 30%.[4]
i can't help but feel like i'm being lied to. cutting (a portion of) consumer smartphone emissions by 30% strikes me as an irrelevant drop in the bucket.
companies hyping up how moral/virtuous they are in order to _sell products_ to a compassionate corner of a market always come off as disingenuous to me.
i would rather fairphone just focused on lifespan and repairability & left the "saving the environment" spin completely alone. it's fine to target using conflict-free minerals and reduce carbon emissions - but marketing that as an advantage of buying the phone is really slimy.
It's not so much an advantage of buying this particular phone; it's an advantage of pushing the entire industry to move in that direction. Either through market pressure, or though paving a path for regulation by showing what can be done.
i get that phones can last several years now, but it helps when you start with a good one.
maybe i lucked out with the phone i chose, but what it offered for under 500 is still phones struggle to do 4+ years later (e.g. 4k 60fps recordings, baring the quality matter). meanwhile, this one is starting with an enterprise version of a dated midrange for a processor.
while i keep respecting the mission they've managed to maintain, the oneplus-like price creep and catching up to the rest approach is not for everyone. but what you get is hard to argue if you'd *want* to use a phone like this after 8 years.
also the audience that would commit to this phone also tends to be the most demanding, as you can see from other comments. i personally would've loved dp out over usb-C.
it is indeed a tough market and i wish them the best.
I'm curious about this as well, for all purposes the QCM6490 is made for Android and the benchmark I found seem to indicate that the TDP is half a Snapdragon 888 for ~30% less performance. The CPU looks pale in comparison to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Gen 2 but these are very high-end chips.
I'm not sure how reliable these benchmark are and they don't indicate anything about actual power consumption or efficiency. I wonder if there are good and in-depth reviews for mobile CPUs.
The fairphone now looks like the next phone I'll purchase when I need to. I'm still surviving off a pixel 2. The battery is crap but I always keep a portable on me to account for that.
No headphone jack. 100% dealbreaker and makes it seem like greenwashing. I might consider a Sony phone when my Pixel 5a either falls apart or becomes a smoldering crater, as they seem to support the custom ROM scene pretty well by open-sourcing their kernels.
I quite literally do not care about waterproofing or IP ratings or whatever because the few times I've gotten my phone almost seriously water damaged they've never died.
Can you draw the line between how a lack of a niche specific feature makes it greenwashing? A feature, which btw, nearly every major manufacturer has abandoned.
I think it's pretty clear that most people do not care about a headphone jack, but do care about water resistance ratings.
My Pixel 5a has one and I think every single phone by Sony still has one. How is wanting to use audio equipment a niche? And even if so, you would expect the people buying a phone like this to want such a feature.
Mmmh, 5 years warranty, but if it uses android, I guess in 3 years the phone is going to slow down for a mysterious reason. What about in 6 years?
By the way, I wish there was a trustworthy, technical investigation or study on why android slow down after a few years, what's the root cause, and how it can be justified.
Android slowdown is generally related to three things: shifting expectations because you can use the same outdated phone for seven years while apps get more demanding, flash storage and the battery wearing down, and half a decade of apps spawning listeners and messaging hooks on boot.
Deleting a bunch of unused apps will quickly bring a slow Android system back to life. You can usually avoid this problem by looking for paid apps that aren't full of trackers and ads.
If you're dealing with a slow phone, there is a wide variety of dev tools you can use to see what's going on. dumpsys will show you things like timers and memory allocations. It can also show you global or app specific battery drain statistics. Procstats will show you what apps used how much CPU over a specified period of time. Battery Historian will let you drill down into battery drain issues.
In practice, you just need to remove that weather app you installed three years ago, though.
I have always been very careful with all of this, I'm very picky with the app I install, and I uninstall things very easily and regularly. I rarely install a new app unless I'm going to use it.
I had several phones that turned to a halt for no real good reason.
Maybe it's the fault of the phone manufacturer and how it installs android, but to me it is still somewhat the fault of Android as a system and how it's designed.
I can't say my experience matches yours. What did it for me was using someone else's phone and realising how slow my phone has become in comparison, but that was mostly because of the advances in SoC technology. The phone was as fast as it ever was, everything around it just got a lot faster.
Some apps have been rewritten from native code into Flutter/Jetpack Compose, heavily taxing the GPU (because modern phones, even cheap ones, have very powerful yet efficient GPUs in comparison to their predecessors); those run slower, but that's mostly only noticeable on older devices as newer devices get tested on. Then again, if I were to install the old APKs on my current phone, they would be blazing fast in comparison to their modern equivalent. Phones didn't need 6GB of RAM a few years ago and app developers have long stopped caring about performance, it seems. Downloading old APKs from apkmirror helps sometimes.
When nothing else helps, factory resetting the phone can sometimes help but with modern Android I don't think that's much of an improvement anymore.
I do have an old tablet with worn-down flash, but my OnePlus One still runs as fast as the day I got it (I think it may actually run faster because of ART upgrades?). It's no powerhouse by modern phone standards, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I’d love for this to come to the US, but I’d have a hard time switching because of iMessage. If you care about e2e encrypted messaging in the US, running an iPhone is really your only option. It’s a shame.
Signal, WhatsApp, Matrix, XMPP all support E2EE. You can even host your own server for Matrix and XMPP.
In my experience, much more difficult problem is convincing people to install one of those to communicate with you. Network effects and the power of defaults and all.
Yeah, that is what I mean. I have my own Matrix server and also use Signal, but the majority of people that I communicate with either use SMS (usually unknowingly) because they are on Android, or use iMessage.
It's not uncommon, but it's likely that the majority of people you communicate with will not actively use WhatsApp. iMessage truly is dominate, especially among younger people who lean towards iPhone even more.
You will be more environmentally friendly if you just don't upgrade from whatever phone you have for a few years. This seems as much of an accounting trick as carbon offsets, which don't really do anything. They could buy a bunch of used smartphones from a reseller market that probably would have been sold anyway, but Fairphone then resells them on the used market. Somehow, this means "100% compensation" for your purchase because they are giving another phone a new life.