They removed it as soon as they launched their bluetooth headphones… Curious how these coincidences work… That’s why I really don’t trust these “consumer first” brands anymore, they always eventually collapse into the same strategies that increase profits in detriment of user satisfaction.
I focus on products rather than brands. The fairphone and teracube are about the only options for the things I’m interested in. They both have flaws. I believe that of the two, the fairphone is the less critically flawed.
No headphone jack is a critical flaw for me. Can’t beat something compatabile with like 50+ years of headphones and sound systems and something that will always have better fidelity and less technical issues.
The teracube doesn’t play nice with android auto because of its slow slow processor. I do love the headphone jack, though. I definitely hear you. However, I’d rather have a phone with a long-term warranty that I can fix than an otherwise perfect phone with a headphone jack that’s dead after a year and a half because I’m clumsy, and I dropped it. There’s basically two phones for that, and I use android auto and other performance bottle necking apps more often than I use wired headphones.
There is literally no reason for fairphone to not include a headphone jack. Beside lining their own pockets. It is easily user serviceable and replaceable. And I’d even argue the the demo this phone is targeted at i.e. ppl who even give enough of a shit to service their own phone would be excited to have a headphone jack. I mean they used to but fairphone removed it when they introduced their Bluetooth headphones. Something that is easily way less “green” or user serviceable than a nice pair of wired headphones.
Everything about them not having a headphone jack leaves a bad taste in my mouth especially in perspective with this companies “misson”
I definitely agree all the way down. Like I said though, the teracube can be borderline unusable though with its poor CPU. The ideal would be an upgraded teracube
Teracube is another right to repair consumer electronics brand. They have the computational specifications of a Walmart phone you only expect to use until the phone you got to replace the phone you dropped down two flights of stairs ships. Just super basic. You can use them for texts, calls, podcasts, and social networks, but don’t expect much else from them. Mine takes about 45 seconds to get GPS apps working
I don’t think you understand how clumsy I am lol. Moto Gs treated me well for a long time, but I really needed to give something with a much longer warranty / ability to reapair
Happy Fairphone4 user here - I have one of those USB-C to headphone jack converters, which works reasonably well. However, since I got some bluetooth headphones I never had the urge to go back to wired headphones.
After my last phone upgrade where I chose a phone with a headphone jack, I found that I just did not use it that often. But when I did use it, it was absolutely critical. Being stuck with on a flight with bluetooth headphones without charge is awful, but aint no problem when you got a headphone jack (and the wire to connect your dead headphones). I could see myself getting a phone without it, but there would have to be a really good reason for it, and so far there has not been one.
I just can’t stand the inconsistency of Bluetooth. The quality is worse. Every single mic on a Bluetooth headphones sounds worse than just a cable mic. Only reason to remove it is for company profits. Plus my set of wired headphones will work for years maybe decades the same can’t be said about Bluetooth headphones.
Have you used any lately? I have several types of Bluetooth headphones and they’re chugging along great, sounding good and connected well all day. Maybe the tech and connections have gotten better.
Yes there are still problems. I own a pair and they work fine a lot. But when they bug out its annoying af. And trust me they do not sound as good as a wired headset. They sound “good enough” not great. Bluetooth is a protocol that was never intended for what we are using it for. To the point that apple designed a specific chip to work with their airpods because Bluetooth is straight up lacking.
Also i get this question every time i make a comment about headphones. Great if they work for you. They have have problems and your personal experience doesn’t negate that.
Also there is not a single Bluetooth headset out there that will ever last longer than wired headphones. Cause batteries degrade and these batteries arent replaceable.
Fairphone - listen up! (I know they're definitely here and I'm not just shouting into the wind.)
Go find a Samsung Galaxy S5. Upgrade the internals, move the button to the side, and you're done. Waterproof, wireless charging, swappable batteries, SD card, headphone jack. It's the last good phone I've used.
No major "supported for 1 generation by the manufacturer then forgotten" hardware gimmicks (if this were a just universe, the guy that suggested the Bixby button would be reassigned to manually unclogging toilets with his hands), no notch (oh Apple, you think we didn't look at the 'functional notch' and start betting on how long before that's gone?), a satin feeling back and shiny bevel made of plastic (it flexes, doesn't bend, and who gives a shit when it's in a case), thin but not so much so that you have to worry about sanding 0.00001 mm off the battery to fit it (0.5mm thicker and 4 more hours of screen on time? Puhlease. My college laptop weight 10 pounds and I took it everywhere. Load up those energon cubes).
You wanna play around with the dimensions and cameras and add a retractable feline flossing utensil? Fine. The phone everyone wants already 99% exists. It's maddening!
I have a spare fp4 louddpeaker module if anyone here wants it? I can’t bring myself to recycle a brand new part, but I’m not changing from my fp3 for a few more years.
One “little” thing makes it very frustrating for me: the volume button does not change the volume of the notifications/rings. It defaults to media sound and there is no way to change the default. Has been an open ticket for years, and that stupid thing alone makes me consider buying a different phone next time.
I’ve had that one every single android phone since 2019 and it makes me very upset that they don’t set it up the sane and proper way (the way it was from 2009-2019)
Yeah core functionalities are missing from modern android. Might as well install a more privacy focused or legacy support instance ROM and not give some tech company some money for a product you won’t like as much. Also keep some cadmium out of a landfill
Smartphone was the shiny tech 10 years ago but feels like since a few years no one cares anymore and Google could not care less about what happens to its phone OS. So weird.
I’m a big fan of upgradable hardware, but lately I’ve found that the bigger problem with Android phones is the lack of software support. I had my last phone for 5 years and finally upgraded not because there were any major hardware problems, but because the android version was so far out of date that I was starting to feel the pain of missing out on some major improvements, plus some apps actually were starting to break. I picked my current phone specifically because Samsung was promising to support four major version upgrades which is, unfortunately, industry leading among Android OEMs despite lagging hugely behind Apple’s software support for their older models.
Fairphone seems to have a mixed track record on this. According to their website the Fairphone 2 got 5 major updates (great!). But the Fairphone 3 got only one update (bad). And the fairphone 4 has received one update so far with a second one promised. After that they say that they’ll try to provide two more updates, but they’re not making any promises because the processor will be out of support with Qualcomm by then.
This is, unfortunately, a very understandable position to take. The fact that Android OEMs rely on third parties like Qualcomm to design and support their processors is definitely the major problem here. Big guys like Samsung and Google can throw their weight around and squeeze a year or two of extra support out. But for small players like fairphone it’s not surprising that they find themselves in this position.
The fact is that any sane company would prefer to make money selling new chips, rather than spending it to support old ones. This problem will persist until consumers start demanding longer software support on their devices and making it a major part of their buying decision.
For what it is worth, at least for Fairphone 3 the support in, e.g., LineageOS is excellent and I recently updated to LineageOS 20 (based on Android 13).
That said, I would hope that Fairphone does make at least one more major update of their official Android version for Fairphone 3.
I actually flashed lineage onto an old (5th gen?) Amazon Fire tablet I had gathering dust recently. I’ve been very satisfied with the result, but I’m personally not at the point where I’d trust it as my daily driver OS. My smartphone holds sensitive bank data, I rely on it to call for help in emergencies, I use it as an alarm clock to ensure I get to work on time, etc. There’s just too much at stake for me to trust pulling a build off some thread on XDA-developers and hoping for the best.
quick edit: Maybe there’s collaborative a way forward though, where the LineageOS community and Fairphone work together to extend support through Fairphone approved Lineage releases. I’d totally be down for that.
The article doesn’t seem to explain the reason, so I’ll ask here: why wasn’t it already available in the US? I feel like this product has been available in Europe for years now
Radio frequency licensing issues. Fairphone didn’t feel they had enough market interest in America to go through the FCC approvals. Murena, however, believed there was enough interest and went through the process, hence why Fairphone still isn’t selling any phones in the US, but Murena is selling a Fairphone in the US
I'll probably stick with my current one for now, but if they start opening up and bring their future phones to the US , I might consider switching over. Depends on the specs, but the idea of being able to just get a new battery once the old one starts dying is a major plus.
Think it’s really interesting (and more than a little funny) that while all the big corporate services are failing and shutting down user stuff that used to be free, things like open street maps are better than ever
Unpopular opinion for this probably, but the majority of people don’t care or want to repair their own phones. On this forum, yeah, probably, but majority of people would rather just go sign another contract and get a new one or have insurance on it.
If repairing their old phone could be done quick and cheap they want that. There are iphone repair stores all over my town. some of them also repair other brand of phones. The important parts is parts and tools are available and so old phones can be repaired for a lot less than new.
You’re correct, of course, but these types of communities tend to be occupied by people outside of the mainstream who care more about these issues. Also, I think it’s important people have the freedom to repair the technology they own even if the majority of people will choose not to, having the ability is still important.
I agree with you but I think the reason these things aren’t more popular is because the majority of people don’t care. Companies want to make money so usually they’ll make products for the larger group of potential customers.
Also keep in mind that when phones are designed for repairability, there’s less chance of a slip-up when it is being repaired, even by a professional, and the process can also be much faster, which I think everyone is probably happy with.
A repairable phone doesn’t mean you have to repair it yourself. It also means you can get it repaired quickly and cheaply by a local tech compared to other phones, and especially compared to buying a whole new phone.
... I dunno. Screen replaceable with 8 screws? it's always the easiest thing to damage. Same with the USB C port. That was the only reason I swapped out from my original pixel last year.
Also depending on how easy that battery is to remove... that's an audience right there. Throw in an external charger, now you have swappable batteries. That's been a feature many have missed.
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