There’s been a lot of buzz here about the Fairphone here lately, especially with it coming to the US.
On paper, it seems rather nice. Ethically sourced, privacy friendly stock ROM.
But the skeptic in me does say, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.”
What are the drawbacks of Fairphone that seem to be shunned away, or less discussed both by the company and community at large? Why shouldn’t I just buy a Pixel 7a and put GrapheneOS on it instead?
Re ethical consumption, my opinion is, if you don’t absolutely need a new phone (broken beyond use) don’t get a new one. And then when you do get a “new” phone, get a second hand one. Fairphone may be “ethical” but it’s still marketing to get you to spend money on a new device. Reusing one will always be more ethical.
I’m too worried about am getting a second hand phone. Who knows what the seller isn’t telling me about it.
I bought a laptop second hand and it’s only like a year old, but after getting it home you start to notice the problems. Like, randomly the keyboard stops responding.
Tech is too expensive to take risks on, but I try to keep my tech until it’s unusable.
The problem I’m facing at the moment, is that everything seems to be breaking at the same time.
I have used a few second hand phones and they’ve pretty much always been fine fortunately. I see it could be a bit of a risk, but if the initial cost is so much lower, does that factor in to lowering the risk too? If I get a second hand phone and it lasts me 3 years instead of 4, but costs 250 instead of 600, I’d say it’s worth it. I’ve also used an ex-corporate second hand laptop made in 2014 for 4 years from 2018 to 2022, and only after that did it start to die. It was a Thinkpad, which may have helped it’s longevity. This is circumstantial evidence I understand, but in my opinion the lower cost and less environmental damage weighs better for me than maybe having to clean/replace the keyboard or battery. Buying second hand products originally known for their high quality construction or longevity probably helps too.
Whilst looking recently for second hand pixel 6 phones, I noticed a lot of them were hardly used, some even brand new and unopened, but still being sold at 200-280 gbp instead of new price 400+ for new.
I guess my concern is getting a second hand phone and it lasting 2 months. I’m not opposed to some things second hand, but I’m not interested in second hand tech that cost any decent amount of money.
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Though you get a smartphone built from ethical sourced raw materials. Which you can’t get any cheaper atm.
Ofcourse it’s expensive.
It doesn’t have a headphone jack (reason why I didn’t get one)
Same. My three must haves:
Easily replaceable battery.
SD card.
Headphone jack.
I’ve been using a FP4 since ~2 months after release.
I cannot straight-up recommend that phone.
The ups:
- Repairability is nice. It’s actually really easy to take apart.
- Battery is replaceable without tools
- They let you root/flash custom ROMs without losing your hardware warranty
- Guaranteed updates until end of 2026
- Spare parts available until 2027
- 5 year warranty
The downs:
- The phone is getting late in it’s cycle.
- The hardware is from 2020
- There are only 3 years of software updates left. This is still good, but there are other manufacturers that offer the same
- Parts are only guaranteed to be available for 3-4 years. That is ok, but you can also get spare parts for much older phones too.
- Stock software is really buggy, and everyone gets a different set of bugs.
- Support is really slow and most of the time unhelpful. “Thanks, we have added the bug to the backlog”. A year later, the bug is still there, even for major bugs.
- Every release adds new bugs, the software overall is not getting better.
- Android OS updates have so far been very late. Android 12 was just released earlier this year.
- They outsource their OS development, and the devs don’t use FP as daily drivers, so they only fix what they are paid for, not what they find themselves.
- The hardware isn’t great
- I’ve had a few games that I couldn’t even play on lowest settings, because the game is too slow for it (e.g. Space Marshals 3)
- The camera is really bad. The camera of my Moto Z Play was better, and that phone was a cheap phone released in 2016. The stock camera app is also super slow and laggy. ~50% of the time when you press the shutter, it will not even take a picture at all. Sideloading a version of Google Camera from the Fairphone forum does fix the lagging and the missed pictures, and it does improve the picture quality a bit, but don’t expect anything remotely fitting into 2023.
- The phone is really expensive for what you are getting, and the price hasn’t come down a bit, considering that the phone is out since almost 2 years now.
- Many people seem to expect a FP5 to be released soon-ish
All in all:
It’s a decent, though overpriced phone if you really like to hack and tinker. There is an ethical aspect if you believe their marketing, but in the end it’s using mostly off-the-shelf components. If you are looking for a phone that “just works”, this is not the place.
Also, regarding repairability: For the high price point you can easily afford multiple professional battery/screen replacements if you buy a cheaper mainstream phone instead.
So this is not a straight-up buy or don’t buy. For some people this is the right phone, for many there might be better alternatives out there.
@squaresinger
@fluorine What do you think about the new the new FP5 hardware then? Software is shouldn’t be much better, I expect to flash it anyway with a custom rom.I can’t find any announcements for an FP5. Is there anything I don’t know?
Some guesses on the spec. See: https://phonedady.com/fairphone-5
I’m waiting for the FairPhone 5 to be honest.
I’m a little too reliant on Android Auto and there really is no alternative other than Apple Car Play which is even more restrictive.
Does the Fairphone not support Android Auto with microg/opengapps/etc?
It doesn’t support it natively. Fairphone uses /e/os and because it uses microg, android auto doesn’t work directly.
From this thread, there would maybe be a solution, one answer directs to an xda developer post with magisk : https://community.e.foundation/t/android-auto-with-magisk/47472
However it needs some tinkering, and it may not be the easiest thing to do.
Is this really true? At least my Fairphone 3 came with stock Android and I had to reflash it to get /e/OS.
I think that they do have a partnership with Murena where they sell /e/OS pre-installed, but outside of that they should come with Android + Google Play Services.
yh, my fp4 came with stock android+google
There are nightmare stories:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/android-auto-not-connecting-anymore/96139/29
