For me the price is the biggest limiting factor, that and it doesn’t work around here anyway. it has almost Flagship level price for just a little bit better specs than your everyday $300 phone that you can buy off the shelf.
Dont get me wrong, Im pissed about the removal of the headphone jack too. But its not really their fault, or to be more precise: its complicated This guys explains it quite well
Man I watched that whole video, it has nothing to do with the headphone jack. It’s about how fairphone releases repair schematics. The title is clickbait, he still says “the removal of the headphone jack is still bullshit and I stand by that, but they sure do release schematics which is nice”.
If they can’t deal with complicated things they should shut up shop and get out of the way so someone genuinely ethical can take their market share.
To be clear, if they only failed to produce a phone with a headphone jack I’d be happy to just not buy it.
The fact they went on to produce electronic trash in making Bluetooth earbuds means it’s clear they’ve reached the enshittification point They are just out to make money from their user base now like every other manufacturer.
I still don’t get this level of rage. I just have a USB C adapter on the end of my ear buds, problem solved, one less physical port to have to replace as I keep my phones until they’re dead dead.
I guess you could argue you need an extra cable on you to plug direct into a HiFi system, but I cant even remember the last time that was something I’d want to do.
Aldo in the case of a repairable phone and having replaced the USB on this fp4, I struggle to see where they would have fit an extra daughterboard for a 3.5mm jack to make it repairable
Yeah, the rage seems to usually stem from two misunderstandings:
It forces you to use Bluetooth headphones.
A 3.5mm jack is cheap and trivial to build into a phone, so there’s little or no reason to not include it.
You already pointed out why neither of those are legitimate reasons. For 1 you just need a simple dongle, not new headphones. For 2, because the Fairphone is modular and repairable, it’s not just the 3.5mm jack but also a custom replaceable daughterboard they’d have to develop and keep in stock.
Not having a 3.5mm jack is a minor inconvenience at most, I don’t get the rage either.
I’m typing this from a smartphone with Snapdragon 765g, a basically older version of the 778g. The 778g is better in every way compared to the many years older 765g and my phone does not feel sluggish in any way for my use cases: messaging, phone calls, video calls, media consumption, but no gaming. For me the 778g would be the perfect chip (like the 765g was): a perfect compromise between battery life, capabilities and price.
It’s not about the processor, it’s about the official software support. Some people don’t want to have to flash a custom ROM to get decent performance, some people want good performance out of the box from the official software
I have a phone with 732G, it’s already super smooth on my phone with the official OS and it still has perfect software support. A newer snapdragon wouldn’t have much issues.
Offtopic: (MediaTek on the other hand is actual and absolute garbage. Don’t look at their (probably cheated) benchmarks, they provide absolutely no proper support for their chips. There is a reason why anybody who wants to do custom ROMs or android development tries to get an snapdragon.)
How is the CPU choice and official software support related? Genuine question, I don’t follow smartphone tech news, I just look up stuff whenever I or someone in my family needs a new phone.
The comment I was replying to said that this Fairphone was going to be sluggish because of the CPU choice, with which I disagreed because I’m basically using an older CPU from that CPU family without issues, so I know that it doesn’t have to be sluggish. Not in a Fairphone though, but in a Motorola edge, so the software will indeed be different.
sometimes a phone with a good CPU performs poorly because of poorly optimized software
Often people on the internet will respond to that “well just find a custom ROM and a custom kernel, flash that and it’ll be butter smooth!”
So I was assuming that you were implying that “only the CPU spec matters because you can always flash any software” and to that I respond that maybe some people don’t want to flash aftermarket software
No, I wasn’t, my phone is still completely stock. I use a custom launcher which could slow it down, but no issues there either. The processor just works smoothly in all my use cases and I blame all my connection issues on my network provider (they suck and I have no way of knowing of it’s 100% of the time their fault, or only 90%, so I just blame them for every connection issue).
I’m writing this comment on a Fairphone 5 right now and it doesn’t feel sluggish at all.
It doesn’t seem to me like the increased performance of phones has had much effect on the actual experience for a while if gaming or content creation is not done on the phone. As a daily driver I think this phone will last me a while.
I mostly can’t get over paying more for worse specs. It doesn’t have to feel bad now but with 8 years of support it could very easily not feel good in the future. It’s a $760 phone that benchmarks close to the Samsung A54 a $400 phone.
The selling point is the ethical value of the phone but it’ll never top how much waste buying a used phone saves.
Other phones can be much cheaper because they don’t care about slavery or child labor in their production line and don’t support their phones that long
Yes they are obviously not perfect but they are at least trying to change something, while the massive cooperations just dont acknowledge that problem at all.
And the updates thing: Apple controls the ecosystem and are a huge company. They dont have to worry about manufactures for a processor or other parts not supporting it longer and stop giving it driver updates. Same with Samsung and especially Google. They are huge companies that can basically do what they want. They will be able to get a hold of drivers and firmware because they are a huge customer to the manufactures. And they only just started promising those long updates. Meanwhile Fairphone has been trying for years to support their devices that long and had to struggle because they are not a massive cooperation that can influence manufactures like that to the point they now dont use normal consumer grade chips but ones with extended support.
No you didn’t list any facts that justifies your point. I already told you why what you said isn’t what you think it is. “Every time”. Dude I’ve just told you ONCE after you came back at me that you can’t compare massive cooperations against a small company. I don’t even own a Fairphone and have never owned one. I keep my phone as long as possible. I’m literally not the type of consumer you think I am. But sure just because I listed literal facts you can’t seem to accept, I’m a fanboy of a brand I’ve never bought from and just pointed out some facts. Whatever makes you feel better I guess
Used phones are ethically better than new phones. That’s a fact. If you buy used fairphones then that’s even better but they make such a bad product you have to buy it on ethics alone. If you’re buying on ethics then again, used is better.
You’re just spouting peak consumer copium and claiming it’s a fact.
I have never said you should buy a new or even a Fairphone to begin with. You’re trying to deflect from the actual discussion and make it look like I said certain stuff I never even said
My initial answer to your comment made it pretty clear that I was explaining to you one reason as to why these phones are more expensive than other ones. That was it. If you’re this far without noticing what the discussion was about maybe it’s you that isn’t reading very well
And I never argued against that. I just gave you one reason as to why their phones are more expensive. Of course used is greener than new.
It’s not inherently more ethical though. While it could be argued that more green means more ethical because you are trying to harm the planet as little as possible if you buy a phone that’s been produced with exploitation and child labor in its production line you still end up supporting it when buying used because you are part of the second hand market that supports people buying those phones. People will take into consideration if they can ever sell their stuff again when buying something. Those things would have to be weighed against each other if you want to make the statement that used phones are also automatically more ethical.
Buying a used phone that didn’t have those things in its production line and actively tries to avoid it would technically be the best choice. But ultimately it’s something the consumer shouldnt need to choose anyway. Regulations shouldnt allow for that to happen on the first place.
This is exactly what I did on my OP7 (only 4 years old). A new battery, a new USB port and a new back (thank you OnePlus for the back in glass).
I installed another ROM… And the only drawback on that “brand new” phone is that the camera is slow and not as good than the stock one ( even with Gcam or others derivative).
Same, running a xiaomi mi 6 since early 2018 with LineageOS and it’s still perfect for me. Sure, new phones have better cameras and screen but the difference is not that noticeable. I’m using a google camera app so that improves the pictures significantly so that compensates for my needs
That title sounds like what you’d say running a Kickstarter scam… yeah sure its not good yet but if enough people keep preordering our not complete product eventually it will be good.
The Framework laptop seems to be doing well. Makes sense that if no one buys it it will fail. That’s just how business works. I just hope enough people are fed up with current popular business practices to make these mainstream too.
I have had my fairphone 5 since October, and I am contempt content with it, ive noticed a few software bugs and made the customer support team aware about them and while I’ll admit their responses are rather slow at times, ive never had a problem with attitude or unhelpfulness so far from them.
I will do what I can to genuinely keep this phone going until the security updates stop, being able to buy and replace the battery for a respectable 20 quid is incredible.
I’m also very excitied to see what 2027 brings as that is the year manufacturers are required, if they want to sell in the EU, to make their phones extremely repairable
I’m also very excitied to see what 2027 brings as that is the year manufacturers are required, if they want to sell in the EU, to make their phones extremely repairable.
Now that is something I did not know. Now I’m also very excited.
I expect these companies will still be on top even if they made phones repairable. Like for example, you can only buy parts from official store or else phone will not work
Google sure is creating a lot of Pixel-fanboys by instilling this myth that if you dont get daddy google’s precious over-the-air updates delivered to your phone in 30 seconds after their release your phone might be at great risk®™ (exactly like if you dont let google play store scan the apps on your device to look for malicious software, like F-Droid, a common known attack vector).
Because surely Fairphone users are all government officials with nuclear codes and Kim Jong-un’s nudes saved in their notes and teams of indian hackers are 24/7 waiting for a security update to release, so they can unpack the zero-day-vulnerabilities before fairphone gets their release-cycle
Can you please elaborate further on this “component lifespan” thing? Because I think they were quite clear on the processor life cycle.
Don’t forget the fact they manufacture it in an oppressive authoritarian regime, where the sales tax goes to fund over 1 million Uighurs being held in literal concentration camps.
Imagine if 80 years ago there were products labeled “Ethically Made in Nazi Germany”, and the marketing team said it’s important to help the individual small businesses there so that the good people can have a higher standard of living.
It’s mind boggling to me that people are falling for this.
They make the problem of their supply chain clear. And still, it is probably the most “fair” phone you can get, so I dont understand the critizism really.
Why arent you criticizing all the other manufacturers, that dont even try to do anything positive? Its always the small companies, that try to improve on things and then get shitted over for not going all the way. I dont understand it…
Because there are some other manufacturers, e.g. Samsung, which don’t manufacture in China (for the most part), and IMO the problem of centralizing the world’s supply chain in China is more important than what Fairphone is trying to do.
I don’t understand how manufacturing in Korea is better than China. Hell, I’d call that pretty centralized still because it still relies on the same logistical problems.
They are making an effort though. Every other manufacturer also produces in China. Fairphone at least pays the workers better and tries to make the supply chain as ethical as possible.
If you want something manufactured in a country that isn’t commiting human rights violations then you are not going to find it (not even the US, which is also funding a genocide right now)
The FairPhone 4 had a screen brightness bug that made the phone (mostly) unusable outside in the sun that lasted from Feb 2023 to Oct 2023. Since the Android 12 update, the FP4 has a cooling feature that reduces the maximum brightness even when the slider is all the way to the right.
This occurs when the phone heats up to ~40 degrees at the CPU, which is not a lot at all. forum.fairphone.com/t/…/93195
They will have to work very hard to make me consider buying my next phone from them.
They do seem to listen to their users and learn from their mistakes though - FP4 was often criticized for the short firmware support offered from Qualcomm. FP5 will have Qualcomm’s extended firmware support for its SoC. fairphone.com/…/Press_release_Fairphone_5.pdf
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