18 ms·

Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

486 points by DamonHD 3y ago

binkHN 3y ago
> Fairphone promises five Android version upgrades and at least eight years of security updates, with an aim for a total lifespan of a decade. Impressive
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- maegul 3y ago
  So I’m completely out of the loop on the whole de-googling your Android phone thing. How workable is it today and how well would it work on a phone like this?
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    The fairphone 5 is available new preinstalled with /e/os from the murena store: https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-5/ https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairpho...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - fgeiger 3y ago
    You can quite easily install the Google-freie /e/OS: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5 https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5 Murena also sells it preinstalled: https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-5/ https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairpho...
  - redder23 3y ago
    VERY ironically just do NOT buy a fucking Google phone to un-google it. I really really like the Grahpene OS project but its a damn shame that is does only support Pixels and not Fairphones or phones that are at least privacy supporting from the manufacturers end. I think "hardware security" of Google phones sounds nice on paper but you never know if these is some NSA chip or some other exploit build in that the Graphene OS devs never know about. I do not trust Google AT ALL and would love for them to support different Phones, because /e/ is does not sound very secure in comparison, they build on Lineage OS and they actually lowered security to widen compatibility AFAIK and I guess /e/ OS is just copying + de-googling.
    - onli 3y ago
      CalyxOS is a ROM with a similar focus and does support some more phones, including the FP4 and with the FP5 marked as upcoming, see the device list on https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/. It is the more reasonable choice to GrapheneOS anyway, given their recent issues with developer behavior.
      - yellow_lead 3y ago
        > It is the more reasonable choice to GrapheneOS anyway, given their recent issues with developer behavior. What were these issues?
        onli 3y ago
        Behavior akin to a paranoid delusion. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4To-F6W1NT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4To-F6W1NT0. The developer is gone, so no need to avoid the project completely, but CalyxOS is an interesting alternative anyway.
        MrDrMcCoy 3y ago
        Why spread FUD about a developer that is no longer involved?
        onli 3y ago
        It's not FUD, but simple facts. The project accepted that behavior for years - for me that's something I want to know before using software. Similar as to why one picks FreshRSS and not tt-rss.
        MrDrMcCoy 3y ago
        Facts can also be FUD. The problem is gone, so why keep bringing it up?
  - potatopatch 3y ago
    The de-google issue is Google's proprietary play/Gapps setup which expects to have higher privileges and sells itself as nicer APIs and cloud services to app developers. Many apps can just fallback since not all regions and devices use official Google Android, etc. The other alternatives to not installing any support for them are, installing them like normal but on your non google distribution, an emulator of the services like microg, or wrapping them to put them in the standard app cage like grapheneOS does.
  - antoinebalaine 3y ago
    If you're OK with switching from gapps, a de-Googled android works just fine. I've had to keep a spare googled-android around for the rare occasions I need to use lyft and Uber. That's it.
    - spencerflem 3y ago
      fwiw, I've had an OK time using the web version of uber on my degoogled phone
    - harry8 3y ago
      Yep, yet another thing captured. Now if you want take a taxi you have the choice of iphone, android and nothing else. Add that to the lengthy list of modern life you're excluded from (including the govt!) if you exercise your supposed choice not to us apple or google. The turnkey is right there, who will turn it?
  - nazgulsenpai 3y ago
    LineageOS with MicroG, F-Droid and Aurora store for whatever play apps you might need has served me well for years. Haven't signed into a Google account for anything on here.
    - lucb1e 3y ago
      Can confirm, same setup here
  - hedora 3y ago
    I tried to switch from iOS to de-googled Anrdoid. Basic stuff is completely broken. Any app that uses Google location services had intermittent problems getting a GPS lock (it was a software problem, not a hardware problem, since things that just directly ask the GPS chip for the device's location worked just fine). Worse than that, most apps use random google stuff that they don't need, and the developers inevitably forget to check for NULL when they ask for the optional google service. At that point, the app fails with a null pointer exception at startup. Most apps fix this in a week or so, but they don't add de-googled android to the regression tests, so they end up breaking it again in a month or so. The final straw was standing outside my car in 40F driving rain and staring at a java stack trace that was preventing the charger from turning on. At that point I pulled my work iPhone out of the glove compartment. If I didn't have it with me, I would have been stranded. On the bright side, my Pixel 6 Pro got something like three times longer battery life than advertised until I broke down and installed the Google crap in a sandbox. At that point, battery life immediately plummeted back to advertised. I wonder if politicians would intervene if more people realized that 66% of the battery usage of an Android phone is Google surveillance crap running in the background.
    - turquoisevar 3y ago
      > Worse than that, most apps use random google stuff that they don't need, and the developers inevitably forget to check for NULL when they ask for the optional google service. I say this as someone who's not a big fan of Google. If it's anything like iOS development, there’s a good chance it never dawned on them. On iOS, there's a slew of things you want to check for as dev due to permissions and the like, but there's so much more we simply assume is there based on the frameworks Apple ships with the OS. If ever there would be an option to de-Apple iOS, I wouldn't even know where to start to check for nil values, if only because Apple has significantly moved to abstract things away to make it easier on us, and they never allowed direct communication with components to begin with, everything runs through an Apple provided delegate.
  - lawn 3y ago
    I installed CalyxOS and I've painlessly installed (almost) all my apps via the Aurora store. The only one that didn't work was a podcast app with in-app purchases, which isn't supported. Everything else just works. The whole process was easy and painless.
- IMTDb 3y ago
  This is comparable to Apple timeline. The iPhone 6, released sept 2014 got a security update earlier this year.
  - rtpg 3y ago
    comparable to the iOS stuff at least. I was a bit frustrated to find out that a 2015 MBP I had in a closet has been out of support for a while (I have very high doubts that there was any technical reason for the line drawing on that front). I really appreciate the iOS support window but it's messed up that their laptops ad desktops (which can last _so long_ and be useful!) just fall out of support despite still being very capable machines. The kicker of course is I at least updated it all to MacOS 12 to give to a friend and everything still ran extremely well. But at one point these machines will stop working for purely incidental reasons
    - sneak 3y ago
      Well, the phones haven’t been through an architecture change recently, while the laptops and desktops have. I think you’ll be safe on ARM macs for 10 full years.
      - rtpg 3y ago
        but the i7s are still there, and still getting updates. I get that there's a legit question of having 2015 MBPs lying around, but honestly just having a switch to let you install it feels legit. It's not like the hardware is changing that much over the years, and they have to have the OS support a bunch of hardware configurations anyways
        sentientslug 3y ago
        Metal is one of the reasons the 2015 macs were dropped from support: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102894 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102894
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
baz00 3y ago
IP55. Nope. I'd kill that in 30 seconds. My phone case looks like a fish bowl on some days.
- carstenhag 3y ago
  What are you doing with it? Never had a waterproof phone, never needed one. I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to day basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents
  - baz00 3y ago
    I live in the UK. It rains here. A lot. And I need to take calls.
    - sgift 3y ago
      I think you are good with IP55 in that case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code > Water projected by a nozzle (6.3 mm (0.25 in)) against enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effects. > Test duration: 1 minute per square meter for at least 3 minutes > Water volume: 12.5 litres per minute Pressure: 30 kPa (4.4 psi) at distance of 3 meters (9.8 ft)
      - baz00 3y ago
        It classifies as submersion when the case is saturated. Also with these things you never buy at the line. You get something that's a couple of ratings higher than what you expect. That allows some margin for error and uncertainty.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      Britain generally has light to moderate rain, especially in the places it rains "a lot".
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    > I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to day basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents That's true, but some people have more accidents than others! If you're the sort of person who drops their phone in water every couple of months then a waterproof phone ends up being a huge cost saving.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> On the other hand, the Fairphone 5 is hardly a ball of fire when it comes to processor power. Though it comes with the fastest industrial chip (not a Snapdragon) made by Qualcomm, that puts it squarely in the mid-range rather than rubbing shoulders with more exotic devices. I think performance might be what limits its actual useful life. I have had to replace phones more for being slow (since software is always eating up more and more performance) than for actual physical failures.
- jandrese 3y ago
  CPU speed isn't usually the thing that kills a phone, it's running out of memory. If they oversize (or allow upgrades of) the memory it could easily last that long.
  - carstenhag 3y ago
    I think only my first Android (Samsung s3) had this bottleneck. The others were slow due to CPU or by being severely limited by the battery.
    - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
      My Samsung s5 that I currently use is also severely crippled by its low RAM. I have replaced the battery (no tools needed!) otherwise that would be pretty bad too, as it had really degraded.
orangepurple 3y ago
Not for sale in the USA. I looked at their small whitelist of countries they ship to in the final step of checkout.
- Ruthalas 3y ago
  Only very recently did they start partnering with a company called Murena to sell phones in the US. Murena currently stocks the Faiphone 4. Murena does have a note on their site[0] regarding sale of the FP5. They don't have it yet, but they may eventually. [0]https://murena.com/america/murena-fairphone-5-availibility/ https://murena.com/america/murena-fairphone-5-availibility/
sowbug 3y ago
Motivated by this article, and already thinking about handing down my current phone to a family member as a Christmas gift, I visited the Fairphone store (https://shop.fairphone.com/ https://shop.fairphone.com/ though likely available only on Amazon in the US) and read one review (https://www.theverge.com/23895548/fairphone-5-review-price-features https://www.theverge.com/23895548/fairphone-5-review-price-f...). Here's why I'm holding off. 1. No wireless charging. Switching to this phone would require a big change in my household's ecosystem (sorry to use a big word for a small thing, but I can't think of a better one). We have $10 wireless charging discs all over the place, and it's nice to be able to charge whenever we set our phones down. I don't want to take a step backward. 2. The Verge's review suggests the camera is OK but not great. I've been taking Pixel photos for years, and my phone is always the one people ask to use for group shots at social events. I don't want to fuss with taking a picture ten times just to get the lighting right, and the Pixel almost always meets the bar on the first shot. It sucks that a consumption device like a phone has this one critical input feature, and that there is still so much of a computational photography gap between certain brands and the rest, but that's how it is, and it prevents me from seriously considering any of them. (This isn't unique to Pixel; I hear Apple does well in this area, too.) 3. Just a nit: why is the case 40 euros? I expect to pay a premium for the phone because of the specific compromises in the design and the resulting low volumes. But this is just another run-of-the-mill TPU case that I expect I'd have to routinely replace every couple years. I don't use screen protectors, but I have an even more allergic reaction to the 33-euro price of the one for sale. I know there are aftermarket options, but I'm already taking a risk of poor part/accessory availability in the future because it's a niche product, so I don't know whether they'll still be available when I need them years from now. By the way, I do own a Framework laptop (11th-gen CPU), and I like it a lot. I plan to swap out the motherboard next year. Unlike the Fairphone, the Framework didn't impose cost and performance compromises right out of the gate. I support sustainability, but there's only so far I'm willing to go.
- Buxato 3y ago
  1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same as a wired charger. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-48afdde70ed9 https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-... (too much catastrophic conclusions in this article but that percentage is real, you could check it in another tests, articles, whatever ..) 2. Totally agree with that, if camera is fundamental for you maybe not the right choice. 3. They also take compromises to have an ethical production, try to guarantee there is no exploitation as much as they could, from the extraction of mineral, manufacturing ... (they didn't do it for all, but they are advancing as far as they could, also with all existing certifications for that, so it's normal that is expensive. So our choice to value that things, if we could afford it, or not.
iandanforth 3y ago
I'd buy one if it had a headphone jack!
- mikece 3y ago
  How many current phones have a headphone jack? When I upgraded from my Pixel 4a to the 6a (both running Graphene OS) I never noticed that the headphone jack was "missing" because I use a Bose bluetooth headset. And when I want to route the audio through my car speakers? Oh... I have a USB-C pigtail splitter which allows for power to be passed through another UBS-C port and connection to the car audio system through a 3.5mm TRS connector. Seriously: who needs a headphone jack anymore?
  - jablala 3y ago
    Congrats you have a different use case to GP.
  - cameroncairns 3y ago
    Anecdata, but I suspect my current issues with charging my iphone are due to wear on the charging port from using the lightning -> headphone adapter. When looking for a new phone I noticed that many sony phones still provide headphone jacks on their higher end models (xperia 5v, 10v) but generally it seems relegated to cheaper android phones. I hate the waste generated from having battery powered headphones, and generally dislike the batterification of so many products these days. Wires can be messy but they are usually replaceable and I don't have to worry about properly disposing of them as much as I would for an item with a LiON battery. IIRC the xperia phones are just as water/dustproof as the pixels/iphones so not really sure why we had to give up the port other than for maybe a mm of thinness and a reason to sell a new series of audio devices to consumers.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      I used Xperia phones for years. However I gave up as if it doesn't come from t-mobile it didn't support all the towers (tmobile uses some weird frequencies in the US) and I'd end up in dead zones all over. Great phones, but too much friction to keep using them.
dtx1 3y ago
I'm really considering Fairphone 5 as an Upgrade to my Pixel 3a with Graphene OS. Hardware seems fine (5g, Wifi 6e, reasonable SoC, MicroSD, etc.) but the absolute terrible state of Fairphone Software and their abhorrent record on dealing with security issues is really putting me off. So I'm waiting for Lineage OS to officially support it, hoping that they get this done better.
- fgeiger 3y ago
  What do you mean with "abhorrent record on dealing with security issues"? And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more or less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open? Disclaimer: I work for Fairphone.
  - dtx1 3y ago
    Hey, thanks for answering! So in regards to security let me first refer to this thread: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-on-fairphone-5-will-the-devs-consider-porting-grapheneos https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-on... And it might sound unfair to compare the fairphone to a pixel device or a pixel device with grapheneos but the practical reality is that if this is going to be my one phone, than it will be the hub for all my private conversations, my bank forces me to use an app based authentication so basically my entire finances are on that device, e-mails, including those with doctors, etc. It has to be secure and it has to up to date. And I am aware that my Pixel 3a currently isn't but I'm literally between buying the fairphone or the pixel 8. And I really don't want glued in batteries. Now, let's see what the current state is for the fairphone 4: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405858220945-Fairphone-4-OS-Release-Notes https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/440585822094... Release date: 3rd Nov 2023 Security Patch Level: 5th October 2023 According to the Android Security Bulletin there are two more bulletins out right now: https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2023-11-01 https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2023-11-01 In November and December each there is at least one Critical System CVE, with google noting: > Note: There are indications that the following may be under limited, targeted exploitation. > CVE-2023-33063 > CVE-2023-33107 > CVE-2023-33106 So...Those aren't patched right now on the fairphone 4, are they? Now I'm not arguing most other companies are doing better, but that doesn't make it a good situation. > And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more or less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open? As far as lineage is concerned, i'll be waiting for an official release to even be there before evaluating the security but I am aware of the userdebug issue. Though let me say that "abhorrent" is propably not the best adjective to describe it here. Unsatisfying would be fairer. As for the rest of the software... I just have to look at the forums dude...
_8j50 3y ago
My vision of the future is that there won't be smartphones just wireless touch screens that link to a small computer that stays in your pocket, charging area or linked to a bigger computer but never interfaced with directly, just a small smartphone like box and you can access apps and data at your home compute box (think mac studio) tailscale style. I'd like to day dream that a modern day steve jobs somewhere is already working on this. New tech like smartphone gets plateued by money makers. Why innovate when you can play dirty with planned obsolecense, selling data, recycling/polishing turd and playing marketing games and make profit on the cheap. R&D ain't free. I dislike smarphones as they are but the idea of computing using a handheld screen as thin as window glass and being able to transfer my view to bigger screens/peripherals flawlessly is appealing. The OS could be Linux, windows, macos, android, ios doesn't matter because it isn't this mobile optimized walled garden bs but a full fledged controllable computer running the same apps but it scales/adjust the UI based on display size. You'd be using a handheld display as you are walking to work/office, tap and move it to a 15" display withy keyboard/cam and go to a meeting or start a movie on a projector by tapping the right spot again.
- circuit10 3y ago
  I don’t think many people would want to carry two devices instead of one
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    Imagine it's one device but when you pull it out of your pocket, you pull it in half and only slide out a touchscreen leaving the battery and other guts in your pocket. With some magnetic clips, it could be seamless to slide it back into your pocket to become the larger single brick again which it stays as you take it all out at night to plug in and charge.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      Yeah, two pieces of one device. Could even be an arm band with the detachable display.
    - 3y ago
rcarr 3y ago
I wonder how long it will take for tech like foldable screens to make it's way to devices like this. After some scepticism, I've recently transitioned to a foldable and it does feel like the next evolution in phones, even if the tech is currently pretty fragile.
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  What makes you bullish on that? I had the opposite experience recently. I used a friend’s foldable phone and it felt extremely gimmicky.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    I was initially sceptical at first but after a few days you really start to appreciate it. A bigger screen is just better for a lot of things - reading, web browsing, video, gaming etc. I put a quadlock universal mount on the back of my case and then I connect it to a quadlock selfie stick alongside a foldable keyboard and a Swiftpoint ProPoint mouse and it means I essentially have a full computing set up that's both portable and ergonomic that can fit in a cross body bag or even a large bumbag. It's perfect for writing but you can even take it further and use it with codespaces on GitHub to code with it. Or if you're into gaming you can get something like the razer kishi, nacom mg-x etc and then you essentially have something similar to the steam deck. I can't see myself going back to regular slab phones in the future. You do have to be careful with it though and it's also highly recommended to fork out for Samsung Care or whatever the Google equivalent is as the screens do have a fairly high failure rate according to the various subreddits.
  - kevincox 3y ago
    Because being able to carry around a huge screen is fantastic. Being able to play games or use apps with a split-screen layout when I am sitting on the train is amazing. Folding allows it to fit nicely in your pocket and not be too awkward for quick usages such as responding to a message or paying with your phone. It seems clear to me that all else being equal having a twice as large screen is a major upside. So it is really just a question of when the downsides (such as price, thickness and durability) shrink enough to tip the scales in favour of folding displays.
fancyfredbot 3y ago
I owned a fairphone 3. It was expensive but very easy to take apart and promised years of updates. Then it broke, after about 18 months. Fine, I thought, I'm glad I got a repairable phone. I'll just fix it, it'll be easy. I determined the problem was with the main logic board and found that a) a new one would cost much more than an entirely new, and more capable phone and b) it was out of stock. I just bought a new phone. I didn't feel good about my fairphone experience.
- kwiens 3y ago
  Main board failures are hard, they'll kill just about any phone and it's pretty challenging to make the service part economically viable. For what it's worth, I don't know of any systemic problems / higher than usual error rates with the Fairphone 3 main board. You got unlucky. Consider giving them another shot sometime!
  - dymk 3y ago
    What’s the point of a repairable phone if parts are out of stock?
    - josefx 3y ago
      One of dozens of parts is out of stock and as the other comment points out itself it is also the part that makes the least sense to replace.
      - whatevaa 3y ago
        I was looking into Fairphone seriously recently and got repulsed by this parts out of stock thing. It's not just one occurrence, peolle are complaining about different parts out of stock for prolonged period or times (or still not available to this day). What's the point of repairability if parts cannot be acquired? Not much of used market, either. And their support tells you to pretty much f-off without are purchase receipt, even if you want to buy the part. It's garbage.
ponector 3y ago
Quite expensive. For regular buyer it is better to get for the same money two phones: one new phone now and another new in 3 years.
- VoxPelli 3y ago
  For the planet: Not much better
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    There's more nuance than that. Total lifetime matters. If the first buyer keeps it 3 years, the next buyer may well keep it 3 more, or even longer.
    - arrowsmith 3y ago
      Or the first buyer keeps it for three years then needlessly throws it away, or (more likely) shoves it in a drawer somewhere until it gets thrown away ten years later.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Then the government needs to add those external costs to non-repairable phones to make the Fairphone competitive on price too. Unfortunately the vast majority of people will consider price first.
    - VoxPelli 3y ago
      Yes and no, resell value needs to be acknowledged by people buying them just like people do when they eg buy a car But you are right, and the government has done so to some degree, but they did it badly and I believe it also affected refurbished phones, making a phone pay for its production emissions over and over
throwaway81523 3y ago
It sounds nuts that they reorganized the phone to increase the battery size from 3900mah to 4200mah. Also this phone is too expensive to be a practical device rather than a statement. Someone please just make a straightforward phone powered by replaceable 18650s dammit. If it runs AOSP out of the box then great.
- VoxPelli 3y ago
  With a 7-10 year lifespan it’s only the initial cost that may be big, the cost over time is much less and the resell value once one upgrades also holds up much better over time
  - whatevaa 3y ago
    I don't think this will hold resell value :) Fairphones aren't popular enough. You would have problems selling it in the first place.
    - VoxPelli 3y ago
      Well, any serious phone reseller / refurbished only sells phones that are still getting security updates: And this one will get that for a long time. It’s also going to be real easy for refurbishers to repair these, either by picking parts from other old ones or by buying replacement parts, hence even a slightly broken one may still be worth money.
- mappu 3y ago
  You're at least on the right post. The only example I could find of a cellphone using 18650 cells was a modded Fairphone - https://forum.fairphone.com/t/making-a-phone-that-would-use-a-18650-battery/31239/16 https://forum.fairphone.com/t/making-a-phone-that-would-use-...
  - throwaway81523 3y ago
    People have apparently modded other phones for 18650 as well. I will have to look into it sometime.
fsflover 3y ago
> This means that Fairphone might actually make the decade-lasting phone a reality. This is already a reality with GNU/Linux phones. Even more, they have lifetime updates.
redder23 3y ago
Well they have gone a long way from FP3 to 5. I do not things will be out of stock or hard to repair for the 5.
XorNot 3y ago
A repairable phone is honestly less interesting to me at this point then a seamless user-environment restore experience, which I still can't get. Even with all the cloud-leeching and I presume data mining, if I crushed my phone into dust today, there's absolutely no way even if I get exactly the same model (which I can't) to get it to restore back to exactly how it was. At this point I've been considering prodding Ansible and ADB to see if it can handle the config setup part, but given how locked down phones actually are I doubt it's viable.
- yellow_lead 3y ago
  As an Android user, the sad thing about this is that iPhone seems to have had it for years. Plus, I'm told the upgrade functionality is nearly seamless.
- 0x38B 3y ago
  Google have worsened backup and filesystem access for power users as they've locked things down; I remember using Titanium Backup on an Android 5 or 6 device to back up my apps and their data, as well as exporting my SMSes and call log to xml, then restoring it all without a hitch. I wish we had a choice; I'd happily give up some security for an experience closer to my Linux laptop. And don't even get me started on my iPhone and filesystem access there (1). 1: 99% of iOS music players don't expose their music library as a folder in Files; one of the only ones that does is, funnily enough, a cross-platform Android-iOS-Windows app, Neutron Music Player². With Neutron, I can open a-shell³ and 'yt-dlp' a playlist from YouTube or Bandcamp to a new folder in my Neutron music folder - some obscure (esp. foreign) albums and soundtracks aren't available to buy where I am. 2: https://neutroncode.com/player https://neutroncode.com/player 3: https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell
WheatMillington 3y ago
I don't understand why this is such a priority for people. I've never had to have a phone repaired, and unless you're buying top-of-the-line phones aren't expensive anyway. Changing my phone out every 3 years isn't exactly adding piles of e-waste.
- pwagland 3y ago
  Per person, it's not. But if you have 3 billion people changing their phones every 3 years, that's a billion phones per year. Assuming that the average phone weighs 100g, that's 100 million tons of phones per year. In the aggregate, it adds up a lot.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I wonder if the decrease in desktop computers, CRT screens, printers, scanners, fax machines, etc. lowered overall e-waste volumes at all. Even though there are so many phones, each one is a lot smaller than personal electronics used to be.
    - massysett 3y ago
      All this assumes that volume is the problem. Deliberately extreme example: cleaning up my yard results in a large volume of heavy waste - enough bags of waste to equal hundreds, maybe thousands, of discarded phones. But surely all the metals in the phones - maybe even from just ONE phone - will have much more environmental impact than a mixture of dead leaves, grass, and old mulch from my yard.
      - solardev 3y ago
        Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned other electronics instead of biodegradables. Is there something especially bad in the raw materials of phones that older bigger electronics didn't have?
        topaz0 3y ago
mlinksva 3y ago
I was curious what the DRC map on https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2023/12/06065751/disassembly_core.jpg https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2023/12/06065751/disas... (included in the post) could signify. Search found (view HTML or click "More about our materials") on https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 > In addition, we account for 100% of the cobalt used in the battery by buying cobalt credits, which support the improvement of working conditions for artisanal cobalt miners in the DRC. Presumably that's what the map signifies. Good to know/in case anyone else was curious. Related discussion 10 years ago, only one I could find on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5813730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5813730 Added: https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/supply-chain-wide-collaboration/our-members/fairphone/ https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/supply-chain-wide-collabo... and presumably what the improvement mention above is about https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/approach/professionalizing-artisanal-mine-sites/ https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/approach/professionalizin... ?
- wryanzimmerman 3y ago
  Sorry, wrong comment
sylware 3y ago
I wish risc-v had good smart phone SOC.
wkat4242 3y ago
I do have some criticism on it. The way that both the motherboard and main frame are linked and not available as spare parts is pretty repairability inhibiting. The aluminium frame can scuff easily but it's not possible to replace that part :( making it necessary to use a case, the lack of which would have been a huge advantage of a repairable phone.
083241945521 3y ago
Dhey dela Ela
083241945521 3y ago
You my
toasted-subs 3y ago
Unkeeping, I’m tired of this.
bobse 3y ago
[dead]
pachico 3y ago
I never broke a phone, not even scratched the screen but I feel force to buy a new one every 3 years because they become obsolete (I guess apps require more and more memory to the point I cannot have two open at the same time, which kills my ability to pay online). I bought a Framework laptop for the same reason and I successfully managed to upgrade it, not repair it! Is there a phone that allows me to upgrade over time and not only fix it?
- ilkke 3y ago
  I have the same problem and no real solution. FWIW I've been able to make my (mid-range android) phone last for 7+ years now by uninstalling some apps whenever memory becomes an issue. Also I update apps only when forced.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    Samsung j3 mini, running Android 11. I think there's even a 12 Lineage available, but the current one is so stable as a daily driver that I don't feel the need.
- onion2k 3y ago
  Is there a phone that allows me to upgrade over time and not only fix it? Turning off app updates would have the same impact if you're right about the increasing memory requirements.
  - pachico 3y ago
    I wish I could simply run 3 year old apps. In many cases I am not allowed, especially the bank ones, which are the ones that I cannot run in the background as the OS kills them.
    - br3d 3y ago
      Sorry if this is obvious, but have you tried the options in Settings to avoid the OS killing certain apps? On my Pixel it's Settings > Apps > App Battery Usage > (choose app) > Unrestricted
frabcus 3y ago
Really loving my Fairphone 5 - basically smartphones are enough of a commodity now everything feels really high quality and fast physically. The sky blue colour is really nice. AND also it avoids conflict metals, is repairable. Much much better than my last Fairphone (which was the Fairphone 2). I switched from an iPhone this time. I'm also enjoying that Android is a bit more programmable without rooting it - running a full Unix distribution in Termux, scripting it with Tasker to run Python scripts on events etc. Actual Firefox.
- sspiff 3y ago
  Have you tried the camera? How did you find it? I honestly don't care much about processor speed, if it can run a browser, messaging and banking apps I'm fine. But I need to be able to take family pictures which are good enough quality for occasional full page prints. I've always been disappointed with these kind of niche devices in the past, where the cameras were barely of the level of 2 year old sub-$200 phones, especially in capture speed and low light performance. You can't ask kids to reenact something in better lighting if you missed it the first time.
  - maqnius 3y ago
    My gf has a fairphone 5 and I guess you will be disappointed. The pictures are really not stunning. She had a huawei p20 pro (from 2018) and it definitely took better pictures.
    - dakial1 3y ago
      But is it the hardware though? All the new flagship phones are using software/AI to enhance the photos well above the hardware raw, so I imagine that you might be able to fix this with a better camera app.
      - maqnius 3y ago
        I don't know, might be. Didn't really bother to figure it out yet, since it's not so important for her. There are a few other things (I'd call bugs), that are more annoying to her. And I also don't really no what to think about it. Maybe it's because of the uncommon processor. For example, it starts to vibrate (like it's being unlocked) repeatedly sometimes when it downloads updates from Playstore and it doesn't stop until it's finished and there's nothing you can do about it. And Firefox crashes when you want to switch a video to fullscreen. But she's fine with it, because she knows it's the fairest phone she could buy and it hopefully lasts long and maybe updates will solve the bugs above soon. And I guess that's the attitude you must have to buy a fairphone, and then it'll be fine. I hope it shines when we smth is broken the first time :)
Moldoteck 3y ago
I really like the concept, but I hate it's size. I just can't buy something that big for daily use. Why can't they make a smaller version, idk, like pixel 3/5 sizes, isn't this more sustainable/eco friendly?
- danwee 3y ago
  Indeed! I would buy it if it were smaller (e.g., 4.7')
- augustk 3y ago
  Many people want a "smaller" phone but the only options seem to be iPhone SE and iPhone Mini. Why aren't there more small models? Isn't the market economy supposed to solve this? For me the iPhone SE has the perfect size; not too big to fit in my front pocket.
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    for me even pixel 5 was ok (mini is even better but let's say apple is another story). Now we have only zenfone 10, that is a bit taller so again not that nice and s23 that is +- the size of p5 but still something felt off. Iphone 13 mini was super nice to hold, super light. I would have got one if not lightning. All my devices use usb-c, it would be a downgrade to use lightning
- a-french-anon 3y ago
  This, I'm stuck with a Sony Xperia Z3 compact (4.6", microSD slot, jack, microG Lineage support) and I don't see any possible replacement for it.
llamaInSouth 3y ago
they probably should have went with 9.5 in case something better comes along
- mrweasel 3y ago
  That's actually a pretty big issue for surveys where I live. I live in a part of Denmark that is notorious for never using the full scale in surveys, to the point where it screws with data analysis. Basically we'll never use 5 in a 1 - 5 score, or 10 in a 1 - 10, because what if something better came along? I've been to training seminars and done surveys about workplace issues where we've been specifically instructed to use the full scale, because clustering on e.g. 2 - 4 will result in NOTHING, it gets removed by HR/software/analysis as average and not worth dealing with, resulting in no change. I'd still argue that it issue is in how people use the data, but it remains a problem.
  - mcv 3y ago
    I often answer in the 2-4 range. Usually because of the way the question is phrased. If they want different answers, they should ask their questions differently.
  - buzzy_hacker 3y ago
    I find it amusing that you live somewhere known for such an obscure tendency.
sambalbadjak 3y ago
I thought that fairphone was: you buy once, and you can upgrade modules over time. But it seems that modules of newer fairphones don't necessarily fit an older fairphone. So it's more about repairable for that specific version. Which is still better than no repairability.. but I imagine you can feel quite duped still having to buy a new phone every 3 years and throwing the old one out. Anyone with experience of having a fairphone for multiple years?
- DamonHD 3y ago
  I first bought a FP1 and I am now on a FP3. The FP1 is still just about operable as an emergency phone, and maybe a tiny bit of browsing. The FP3 is going fine. I have chosen not to upgrade the camera module, though I am still thinking about it. The 'F' has fallen off the backing plate so I in fact own an 'AIRPHONE'. A friend by the same token owns "A PHONE" which I pointed out is an entirely accuate failure mode! B^>
- crimsoneer 3y ago
  I got the 4 a little over a year and half ago... and I feel mostly happy. I've replaced the screen twice because I'm an idiot, and like replaceable batteries. Would be nice to be able to upgrade the camera, so sad I can't do that.
- ctenb 3y ago
  I own an FP 4 since it aired. No complaints so far. I mainly use it for browsing. I haven't needed any repairs yet, but I like the idea of that being an easy feat. Of course everyone hopes that they can make their phones more modular and upgradable than they do now, but it's also understandable they have to iterate their architecture before they can converge on a design that truely lasts multiple generations of upgrades.
lucb1e 3y ago
Answering the title: yes
have_faith 3y ago
Does anyone know of a site that does an "objective" comparison of the various flagships and their ethical claims? like how does Apple's material sourcing compare to Fairphone, compared to Samsung etc.
sunshine_reggae 3y ago
No headphone jack => No Fairphone. I'm never going to put my brain between 2 radiation emitters. And that's just 1 reason why I'll always use cable.
- projektfu 3y ago
  USB-C to 3.5mm dongles are pretty inexpensive and unobtrusive. I use one to keep my old tried-and-true noise-cancelling headphones working.
  - toastal 3y ago
    Choosing between charging or audio shouldn’t have to be a choose when you consider it’s common courtesy to not spew your noise pollution into your public surroundings. Dongles big enough for passthru charging are too bulky to fit in a pocket comfortably. Now you also have another wire/hub you have to go out and buy & might easily lose or misplace, for what exactly? It sure ain’t to waterproofing or a significant cost-cutting measure. It can let a device be ever so much thinner but does being < 3.5 mm really benefit the user. I bet the manufactures love the revenue of the discount bundled wireless earbuds tho—whose audio is usually not good but labeled under subjective to all but the nerds looking at frequency-response graphs. And when those irrepairable buds can no longer hold a charge after a couple of months, I bet they like banking on users coming back to purchase that same ewaste again from them.
- hegzploit 3y ago
  Mind sharing any source about the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiations coming from ear buds? I always believed these were negligible compared to the radiation we are exposed to everyday.
thih9 3y ago
Say I own an iPhone and I’m considering a Fairphone. Which iphone model would I have to own for the transition to make sense, both for user experience and sustainability? I.e. Iphone 15 surely not. But iphone 5 for sure yes. Where is the cutoff? I’m choosing iphones because they’re recognizable and have a predictable release schedule. Let’s disregard ios vs android angle if possible.
- frabcus 3y ago
  I had an iPhone 11 and the Fairphone 5 feels like an upgrade. (Case on the former as it shatters and is expensive to repair and no case on the latter)
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    My Rhino Shield "Crash Guard" bumper case has protected several generations of iPhones from my clumsiness, dropping it on all manner of hard surfaces from chest height or higher. Yes it's annoying to pay $30 for a case for my glass supercomputer, but I wouldn't base my phone purchase decision based on the need for a case. If anything, I'd prefer a phone that is supported by this particular case, because there is no phone that I really expect to be built to this kind of spec (and I probably wouldn't want one that was, considering what tradeoffs might be involved).
  - thih9 3y ago
    Is the case really a factor in the scenario of an upgrade? I.e. why not remove the iphone’s case and upgrade when/if your phone breaks?
footlose_3815 3y ago
If they offered Graphene or Lineage on it, I'd be much more excited. But this is Android, at the price of an iPhone. I'd buy if it wasn't running an ad company's OS on it.

486 points by DamonHD 3y ago

> Fairphone promises five Android version upgrades and at least eight years of security updates, with an aim for a total lifespan of a decade. Impressive

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
maegul 3y ago
So I’m completely out of the loop on the whole de-googling your Android phone thing. How workable is it today and how well would it work on a phone like this?
- prmoustache 3y ago
  The fairphone 5 is available new preinstalled with /e/os from the murena store: https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-5/ https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairpho...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fgeiger 3y ago
  You can quite easily install the Google-freie /e/OS: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5 https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5 Murena also sells it preinstalled: https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-5/ https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairpho...
- redder23 3y ago
  VERY ironically just do NOT buy a fucking Google phone to un-google it. I really really like the Grahpene OS project but its a damn shame that is does only support Pixels and not Fairphones or phones that are at least privacy supporting from the manufacturers end. I think "hardware security" of Google phones sounds nice on paper but you never know if these is some NSA chip or some other exploit build in that the Graphene OS devs never know about. I do not trust Google AT ALL and would love for them to support different Phones, because /e/ is does not sound very secure in comparison, they build on Lineage OS and they actually lowered security to widen compatibility AFAIK and I guess /e/ OS is just copying + de-googling.
  - onli 3y ago
    CalyxOS is a ROM with a similar focus and does support some more phones, including the FP4 and with the FP5 marked as upcoming, see the device list on https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/. It is the more reasonable choice to GrapheneOS anyway, given their recent issues with developer behavior.
    - yellow_lead 3y ago
      > It is the more reasonable choice to GrapheneOS anyway, given their recent issues with developer behavior. What were these issues?
      - onli 3y ago
        Behavior akin to a paranoid delusion. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4To-F6W1NT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4To-F6W1NT0. The developer is gone, so no need to avoid the project completely, but CalyxOS is an interesting alternative anyway.
        MrDrMcCoy 3y ago
        Why spread FUD about a developer that is no longer involved?
        onli 3y ago
        It's not FUD, but simple facts. The project accepted that behavior for years - for me that's something I want to know before using software. Similar as to why one picks FreshRSS and not tt-rss.
        MrDrMcCoy 3y ago
        Facts can also be FUD. The problem is gone, so why keep bringing it up?
- potatopatch 3y ago
  The de-google issue is Google's proprietary play/Gapps setup which expects to have higher privileges and sells itself as nicer APIs and cloud services to app developers. Many apps can just fallback since not all regions and devices use official Google Android, etc. The other alternatives to not installing any support for them are, installing them like normal but on your non google distribution, an emulator of the services like microg, or wrapping them to put them in the standard app cage like grapheneOS does.
- antoinebalaine 3y ago
  If you're OK with switching from gapps, a de-Googled android works just fine. I've had to keep a spare googled-android around for the rare occasions I need to use lyft and Uber. That's it.
  - spencerflem 3y ago
    fwiw, I've had an OK time using the web version of uber on my degoogled phone
  - harry8 3y ago
    Yep, yet another thing captured. Now if you want take a taxi you have the choice of iphone, android and nothing else. Add that to the lengthy list of modern life you're excluded from (including the govt!) if you exercise your supposed choice not to us apple or google. The turnkey is right there, who will turn it?
- nazgulsenpai 3y ago
  LineageOS with MicroG, F-Droid and Aurora store for whatever play apps you might need has served me well for years. Haven't signed into a Google account for anything on here.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    Can confirm, same setup here
- hedora 3y ago
  I tried to switch from iOS to de-googled Anrdoid. Basic stuff is completely broken. Any app that uses Google location services had intermittent problems getting a GPS lock (it was a software problem, not a hardware problem, since things that just directly ask the GPS chip for the device's location worked just fine). Worse than that, most apps use random google stuff that they don't need, and the developers inevitably forget to check for NULL when they ask for the optional google service. At that point, the app fails with a null pointer exception at startup. Most apps fix this in a week or so, but they don't add de-googled android to the regression tests, so they end up breaking it again in a month or so. The final straw was standing outside my car in 40F driving rain and staring at a java stack trace that was preventing the charger from turning on. At that point I pulled my work iPhone out of the glove compartment. If I didn't have it with me, I would have been stranded. On the bright side, my Pixel 6 Pro got something like three times longer battery life than advertised until I broke down and installed the Google crap in a sandbox. At that point, battery life immediately plummeted back to advertised. I wonder if politicians would intervene if more people realized that 66% of the battery usage of an Android phone is Google surveillance crap running in the background.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    > Worse than that, most apps use random google stuff that they don't need, and the developers inevitably forget to check for NULL when they ask for the optional google service. I say this as someone who's not a big fan of Google. If it's anything like iOS development, there’s a good chance it never dawned on them. On iOS, there's a slew of things you want to check for as dev due to permissions and the like, but there's so much more we simply assume is there based on the frameworks Apple ships with the OS. If ever there would be an option to de-Apple iOS, I wouldn't even know where to start to check for nil values, if only because Apple has significantly moved to abstract things away to make it easier on us, and they never allowed direct communication with components to begin with, everything runs through an Apple provided delegate.
- lawn 3y ago
  I installed CalyxOS and I've painlessly installed (almost) all my apps via the Aurora store. The only one that didn't work was a podcast app with in-app purchases, which isn't supported. Everything else just works. The whole process was easy and painless.
IMTDb 3y ago
This is comparable to Apple timeline. The iPhone 6, released sept 2014 got a security update earlier this year.
- rtpg 3y ago
  comparable to the iOS stuff at least. I was a bit frustrated to find out that a 2015 MBP I had in a closet has been out of support for a while (I have very high doubts that there was any technical reason for the line drawing on that front). I really appreciate the iOS support window but it's messed up that their laptops ad desktops (which can last _so long_ and be useful!) just fall out of support despite still being very capable machines. The kicker of course is I at least updated it all to MacOS 12 to give to a friend and everything still ran extremely well. But at one point these machines will stop working for purely incidental reasons
  - sneak 3y ago
    Well, the phones haven’t been through an architecture change recently, while the laptops and desktops have. I think you’ll be safe on ARM macs for 10 full years.
    - rtpg 3y ago
      but the i7s are still there, and still getting updates. I get that there's a legit question of having 2015 MBPs lying around, but honestly just having a switch to let you install it feels legit. It's not like the hardware is changing that much over the years, and they have to have the OS support a bunch of hardware configurations anyways
      - sentientslug 3y ago
        Metal is one of the reasons the 2015 macs were dropped from support: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102894 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102894
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago

baz00 3y ago

IP55. Nope. I'd kill that in 30 seconds. My phone case looks like a fish bowl on some days.

carstenhag 3y ago
What are you doing with it? Never had a waterproof phone, never needed one. I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to day basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents
- baz00 3y ago
  I live in the UK. It rains here. A lot. And I need to take calls.
  - sgift 3y ago
    I think you are good with IP55 in that case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code > Water projected by a nozzle (6.3 mm (0.25 in)) against enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effects. > Test duration: 1 minute per square meter for at least 3 minutes > Water volume: 12.5 litres per minute Pressure: 30 kPa (4.4 psi) at distance of 3 meters (9.8 ft)
    - baz00 3y ago
      It classifies as submersion when the case is saturated. Also with these things you never buy at the line. You get something that's a couple of ratings higher than what you expect. That allows some margin for error and uncertainty.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Britain generally has light to moderate rain, especially in the places it rains "a lot".
- nicoburns 3y ago
  > I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to day basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents That's true, but some people have more accidents than others! If you're the sort of person who drops their phone in water every couple of months then a waterproof phone ends up being a huge cost saving.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> On the other hand, the Fairphone 5 is hardly a ball of fire when it comes to processor power. Though it comes with the fastest industrial chip (not a Snapdragon) made by Qualcomm, that puts it squarely in the mid-range rather than rubbing shoulders with more exotic devices. I think performance might be what limits its actual useful life. I have had to replace phones more for being slow (since software is always eating up more and more performance) than for actual physical failures.

jandrese 3y ago
CPU speed isn't usually the thing that kills a phone, it's running out of memory. If they oversize (or allow upgrades of) the memory it could easily last that long.
- carstenhag 3y ago
  I think only my first Android (Samsung s3) had this bottleneck. The others were slow due to CPU or by being severely limited by the battery.
  - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
    My Samsung s5 that I currently use is also severely crippled by its low RAM. I have replaced the battery (no tools needed!) otherwise that would be pretty bad too, as it had really degraded.

orangepurple 3y ago

Not for sale in the USA. I looked at their small whitelist of countries they ship to in the final step of checkout.

Ruthalas 3y ago
Only very recently did they start partnering with a company called Murena to sell phones in the US. Murena currently stocks the Faiphone 4. Murena does have a note on their site[0] regarding sale of the FP5. They don't have it yet, but they may eventually. [0]https://murena.com/america/murena-fairphone-5-availibility/ https://murena.com/america/murena-fairphone-5-availibility/

sowbug 3y ago

Motivated by this article, and already thinking about handing down my current phone to a family member as a Christmas gift, I visited the Fairphone store (https://shop.fairphone.com/ https://shop.fairphone.com/ though likely available only on Amazon in the US) and read one review (https://www.theverge.com/23895548/fairphone-5-review-price-features https://www.theverge.com/23895548/fairphone-5-review-price-f...). Here's why I'm holding off. 1. No wireless charging. Switching to this phone would require a big change in my household's ecosystem (sorry to use a big word for a small thing, but I can't think of a better one). We have $10 wireless charging discs all over the place, and it's nice to be able to charge whenever we set our phones down. I don't want to take a step backward. 2. The Verge's review suggests the camera is OK but not great. I've been taking Pixel photos for years, and my phone is always the one people ask to use for group shots at social events. I don't want to fuss with taking a picture ten times just to get the lighting right, and the Pixel almost always meets the bar on the first shot. It sucks that a consumption device like a phone has this one critical input feature, and that there is still so much of a computational photography gap between certain brands and the rest, but that's how it is, and it prevents me from seriously considering any of them. (This isn't unique to Pixel; I hear Apple does well in this area, too.) 3. Just a nit: why is the case 40 euros? I expect to pay a premium for the phone because of the specific compromises in the design and the resulting low volumes. But this is just another run-of-the-mill TPU case that I expect I'd have to routinely replace every couple years. I don't use screen protectors, but I have an even more allergic reaction to the 33-euro price of the one for sale. I know there are aftermarket options, but I'm already taking a risk of poor part/accessory availability in the future because it's a niche product, so I don't know whether they'll still be available when I need them years from now. By the way, I do own a Framework laptop (11th-gen CPU), and I like it a lot. I plan to swap out the motherboard next year. Unlike the Fairphone, the Framework didn't impose cost and performance compromises right out of the gate. I support sustainability, but there's only so far I'm willing to go.

Buxato 3y ago
1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same as a wired charger. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-48afdde70ed9 https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-... (too much catastrophic conclusions in this article but that percentage is real, you could check it in another tests, articles, whatever ..) 2. Totally agree with that, if camera is fundamental for you maybe not the right choice. 3. They also take compromises to have an ethical production, try to guarantee there is no exploitation as much as they could, from the extraction of mineral, manufacturing ... (they didn't do it for all, but they are advancing as far as they could, also with all existing certifications for that, so it's normal that is expensive. So our choice to value that things, if we could afford it, or not.

iandanforth 3y ago

I'd buy one if it had a headphone jack!

mikece 3y ago
How many current phones have a headphone jack? When I upgraded from my Pixel 4a to the 6a (both running Graphene OS) I never noticed that the headphone jack was "missing" because I use a Bose bluetooth headset. And when I want to route the audio through my car speakers? Oh... I have a USB-C pigtail splitter which allows for power to be passed through another UBS-C port and connection to the car audio system through a 3.5mm TRS connector. Seriously: who needs a headphone jack anymore?
- jablala 3y ago
  Congrats you have a different use case to GP.
- cameroncairns 3y ago
  Anecdata, but I suspect my current issues with charging my iphone are due to wear on the charging port from using the lightning -> headphone adapter. When looking for a new phone I noticed that many sony phones still provide headphone jacks on their higher end models (xperia 5v, 10v) but generally it seems relegated to cheaper android phones. I hate the waste generated from having battery powered headphones, and generally dislike the batterification of so many products these days. Wires can be messy but they are usually replaceable and I don't have to worry about properly disposing of them as much as I would for an item with a LiON battery. IIRC the xperia phones are just as water/dustproof as the pixels/iphones so not really sure why we had to give up the port other than for maybe a mm of thinness and a reason to sell a new series of audio devices to consumers.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    I used Xperia phones for years. However I gave up as if it doesn't come from t-mobile it didn't support all the towers (tmobile uses some weird frequencies in the US) and I'd end up in dead zones all over. Great phones, but too much friction to keep using them.

dtx1 3y ago

I'm really considering Fairphone 5 as an Upgrade to my Pixel 3a with Graphene OS. Hardware seems fine (5g, Wifi 6e, reasonable SoC, MicroSD, etc.) but the absolute terrible state of Fairphone Software and their abhorrent record on dealing with security issues is really putting me off. So I'm waiting for Lineage OS to officially support it, hoping that they get this done better.

fgeiger 3y ago
What do you mean with "abhorrent record on dealing with security issues"? And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more or less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open? Disclaimer: I work for Fairphone.
- dtx1 3y ago
  Hey, thanks for answering! So in regards to security let me first refer to this thread: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-on-fairphone-5-will-the-devs-consider-porting-grapheneos https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-on... And it might sound unfair to compare the fairphone to a pixel device or a pixel device with grapheneos but the practical reality is that if this is going to be my one phone, than it will be the hub for all my private conversations, my bank forces me to use an app based authentication so basically my entire finances are on that device, e-mails, including those with doctors, etc. It has to be secure and it has to up to date. And I am aware that my Pixel 3a currently isn't but I'm literally between buying the fairphone or the pixel 8. And I really don't want glued in batteries. Now, let's see what the current state is for the fairphone 4: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405858220945-Fairphone-4-OS-Release-Notes https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/440585822094... Release date: 3rd Nov 2023 Security Patch Level: 5th October 2023 According to the Android Security Bulletin there are two more bulletins out right now: https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2023-11-01 https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2023-11-01 In November and December each there is at least one Critical System CVE, with google noting: > Note: There are indications that the following may be under limited, targeted exploitation. > CVE-2023-33063 > CVE-2023-33107 > CVE-2023-33106 So...Those aren't patched right now on the fairphone 4, are they? Now I'm not arguing most other companies are doing better, but that doesn't make it a good situation. > And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more or less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open? As far as lineage is concerned, i'll be waiting for an official release to even be there before evaluating the security but I am aware of the userdebug issue. Though let me say that "abhorrent" is propably not the best adjective to describe it here. Unsatisfying would be fairer. As for the rest of the software... I just have to look at the forums dude...

_8j50 3y ago

My vision of the future is that there won't be smartphones just wireless touch screens that link to a small computer that stays in your pocket, charging area or linked to a bigger computer but never interfaced with directly, just a small smartphone like box and you can access apps and data at your home compute box (think mac studio) tailscale style. I'd like to day dream that a modern day steve jobs somewhere is already working on this. New tech like smartphone gets plateued by money makers. Why innovate when you can play dirty with planned obsolecense, selling data, recycling/polishing turd and playing marketing games and make profit on the cheap. R&D ain't free. I dislike smarphones as they are but the idea of computing using a handheld screen as thin as window glass and being able to transfer my view to bigger screens/peripherals flawlessly is appealing. The OS could be Linux, windows, macos, android, ios doesn't matter because it isn't this mobile optimized walled garden bs but a full fledged controllable computer running the same apps but it scales/adjust the UI based on display size. You'd be using a handheld display as you are walking to work/office, tap and move it to a 15" display withy keyboard/cam and go to a meeting or start a movie on a projector by tapping the right spot again.

circuit10 3y ago
I don’t think many people would want to carry two devices instead of one
- asadotzler 3y ago
  Imagine it's one device but when you pull it out of your pocket, you pull it in half and only slide out a touchscreen leaving the battery and other guts in your pocket. With some magnetic clips, it could be seamless to slide it back into your pocket to become the larger single brick again which it stays as you take it all out at night to plug in and charge.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Yeah, two pieces of one device. Could even be an arm band with the detachable display.
  - 3y ago

rcarr 3y ago

I wonder how long it will take for tech like foldable screens to make it's way to devices like this. After some scepticism, I've recently transitioned to a foldable and it does feel like the next evolution in phones, even if the tech is currently pretty fragile.

blitz_skull 3y ago
What makes you bullish on that? I had the opposite experience recently. I used a friend’s foldable phone and it felt extremely gimmicky.
- rcarr 3y ago
  I was initially sceptical at first but after a few days you really start to appreciate it. A bigger screen is just better for a lot of things - reading, web browsing, video, gaming etc. I put a quadlock universal mount on the back of my case and then I connect it to a quadlock selfie stick alongside a foldable keyboard and a Swiftpoint ProPoint mouse and it means I essentially have a full computing set up that's both portable and ergonomic that can fit in a cross body bag or even a large bumbag. It's perfect for writing but you can even take it further and use it with codespaces on GitHub to code with it. Or if you're into gaming you can get something like the razer kishi, nacom mg-x etc and then you essentially have something similar to the steam deck. I can't see myself going back to regular slab phones in the future. You do have to be careful with it though and it's also highly recommended to fork out for Samsung Care or whatever the Google equivalent is as the screens do have a fairly high failure rate according to the various subreddits.
- kevincox 3y ago
  Because being able to carry around a huge screen is fantastic. Being able to play games or use apps with a split-screen layout when I am sitting on the train is amazing. Folding allows it to fit nicely in your pocket and not be too awkward for quick usages such as responding to a message or paying with your phone. It seems clear to me that all else being equal having a twice as large screen is a major upside. So it is really just a question of when the downsides (such as price, thickness and durability) shrink enough to tip the scales in favour of folding displays.

fancyfredbot 3y ago

I owned a fairphone 3. It was expensive but very easy to take apart and promised years of updates. Then it broke, after about 18 months. Fine, I thought, I'm glad I got a repairable phone. I'll just fix it, it'll be easy. I determined the problem was with the main logic board and found that a) a new one would cost much more than an entirely new, and more capable phone and b) it was out of stock. I just bought a new phone. I didn't feel good about my fairphone experience.

kwiens 3y ago
Main board failures are hard, they'll kill just about any phone and it's pretty challenging to make the service part economically viable. For what it's worth, I don't know of any systemic problems / higher than usual error rates with the Fairphone 3 main board. You got unlucky. Consider giving them another shot sometime!
- dymk 3y ago
  What’s the point of a repairable phone if parts are out of stock?
  - josefx 3y ago
    One of dozens of parts is out of stock and as the other comment points out itself it is also the part that makes the least sense to replace.
    - whatevaa 3y ago
      I was looking into Fairphone seriously recently and got repulsed by this parts out of stock thing. It's not just one occurrence, peolle are complaining about different parts out of stock for prolonged period or times (or still not available to this day). What's the point of repairability if parts cannot be acquired? Not much of used market, either. And their support tells you to pretty much f-off without are purchase receipt, even if you want to buy the part. It's garbage.

ponector 3y ago

Quite expensive. For regular buyer it is better to get for the same money two phones: one new phone now and another new in 3 years.

VoxPelli 3y ago
For the planet: Not much better
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  There's more nuance than that. Total lifetime matters. If the first buyer keeps it 3 years, the next buyer may well keep it 3 more, or even longer.
  - arrowsmith 3y ago
    Or the first buyer keeps it for three years then needlessly throws it away, or (more likely) shoves it in a drawer somewhere until it gets thrown away ten years later.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Then the government needs to add those external costs to non-repairable phones to make the Fairphone competitive on price too. Unfortunately the vast majority of people will consider price first.
  - VoxPelli 3y ago
    Yes and no, resell value needs to be acknowledged by people buying them just like people do when they eg buy a car But you are right, and the government has done so to some degree, but they did it badly and I believe it also affected refurbished phones, making a phone pay for its production emissions over and over

throwaway81523 3y ago

It sounds nuts that they reorganized the phone to increase the battery size from 3900mah to 4200mah. Also this phone is too expensive to be a practical device rather than a statement. Someone please just make a straightforward phone powered by replaceable 18650s dammit. If it runs AOSP out of the box then great.

VoxPelli 3y ago
With a 7-10 year lifespan it’s only the initial cost that may be big, the cost over time is much less and the resell value once one upgrades also holds up much better over time
- whatevaa 3y ago
  I don't think this will hold resell value :) Fairphones aren't popular enough. You would have problems selling it in the first place.
  - VoxPelli 3y ago
    Well, any serious phone reseller / refurbished only sells phones that are still getting security updates: And this one will get that for a long time. It’s also going to be real easy for refurbishers to repair these, either by picking parts from other old ones or by buying replacement parts, hence even a slightly broken one may still be worth money.
mappu 3y ago
You're at least on the right post. The only example I could find of a cellphone using 18650 cells was a modded Fairphone - https://forum.fairphone.com/t/making-a-phone-that-would-use-a-18650-battery/31239/16 https://forum.fairphone.com/t/making-a-phone-that-would-use-...
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  People have apparently modded other phones for 18650 as well. I will have to look into it sometime.

fsflover 3y ago

> This means that Fairphone might actually make the decade-lasting phone a reality. This is already a reality with GNU/Linux phones. Even more, they have lifetime updates.

redder23 3y ago

Well they have gone a long way from FP3 to 5. I do not things will be out of stock or hard to repair for the 5.

XorNot 3y ago

A repairable phone is honestly less interesting to me at this point then a seamless user-environment restore experience, which I still can't get. Even with all the cloud-leeching and I presume data mining, if I crushed my phone into dust today, there's absolutely no way even if I get exactly the same model (which I can't) to get it to restore back to exactly how it was. At this point I've been considering prodding Ansible and ADB to see if it can handle the config setup part, but given how locked down phones actually are I doubt it's viable.

yellow_lead 3y ago
As an Android user, the sad thing about this is that iPhone seems to have had it for years. Plus, I'm told the upgrade functionality is nearly seamless.
0x38B 3y ago
Google have worsened backup and filesystem access for power users as they've locked things down; I remember using Titanium Backup on an Android 5 or 6 device to back up my apps and their data, as well as exporting my SMSes and call log to xml, then restoring it all without a hitch. I wish we had a choice; I'd happily give up some security for an experience closer to my Linux laptop. And don't even get me started on my iPhone and filesystem access there (1). 1: 99% of iOS music players don't expose their music library as a folder in Files; one of the only ones that does is, funnily enough, a cross-platform Android-iOS-Windows app, Neutron Music Player². With Neutron, I can open a-shell³ and 'yt-dlp' a playlist from YouTube or Bandcamp to a new folder in my Neutron music folder - some obscure (esp. foreign) albums and soundtracks aren't available to buy where I am. 2: https://neutroncode.com/player https://neutroncode.com/player 3: https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell

WheatMillington 3y ago

I don't understand why this is such a priority for people. I've never had to have a phone repaired, and unless you're buying top-of-the-line phones aren't expensive anyway. Changing my phone out every 3 years isn't exactly adding piles of e-waste.

pwagland 3y ago
Per person, it's not. But if you have 3 billion people changing their phones every 3 years, that's a billion phones per year. Assuming that the average phone weighs 100g, that's 100 million tons of phones per year. In the aggregate, it adds up a lot.
- solardev 3y ago
  I wonder if the decrease in desktop computers, CRT screens, printers, scanners, fax machines, etc. lowered overall e-waste volumes at all. Even though there are so many phones, each one is a lot smaller than personal electronics used to be.
  - massysett 3y ago
    All this assumes that volume is the problem. Deliberately extreme example: cleaning up my yard results in a large volume of heavy waste - enough bags of waste to equal hundreds, maybe thousands, of discarded phones. But surely all the metals in the phones - maybe even from just ONE phone - will have much more environmental impact than a mixture of dead leaves, grass, and old mulch from my yard.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned other electronics instead of biodegradables. Is there something especially bad in the raw materials of phones that older bigger electronics didn't have?
      - topaz0 3y ago

mlinksva 3y ago

I was curious what the DRC map on https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2023/12/06065751/disassembly_core.jpg https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2023/12/06065751/disas... (included in the post) could signify. Search found (view HTML or click "More about our materials") on https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 > In addition, we account for 100% of the cobalt used in the battery by buying cobalt credits, which support the improvement of working conditions for artisanal cobalt miners in the DRC. Presumably that's what the map signifies. Good to know/in case anyone else was curious. Related discussion 10 years ago, only one I could find on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5813730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5813730 Added: https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/supply-chain-wide-collaboration/our-members/fairphone/ https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/supply-chain-wide-collabo... and presumably what the improvement mention above is about https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/approach/professionalizing-artisanal-mine-sites/ https://www.faircobaltalliance.org/approach/professionalizin... ?

wryanzimmerman 3y ago
Sorry, wrong comment

sylware 3y ago

I wish risc-v had good smart phone SOC.

wkat4242 3y ago

I do have some criticism on it. The way that both the motherboard and main frame are linked and not available as spare parts is pretty repairability inhibiting. The aluminium frame can scuff easily but it's not possible to replace that part :( making it necessary to use a case, the lack of which would have been a huge advantage of a repairable phone.

083241945521 3y ago

Dhey dela Ela

083241945521 3y ago

You my

toasted-subs 3y ago

Unkeeping, I’m tired of this.

bobse 3y ago

[dead]

pachico 3y ago

I never broke a phone, not even scratched the screen but I feel force to buy a new one every 3 years because they become obsolete (I guess apps require more and more memory to the point I cannot have two open at the same time, which kills my ability to pay online). I bought a Framework laptop for the same reason and I successfully managed to upgrade it, not repair it! Is there a phone that allows me to upgrade over time and not only fix it?

ilkke 3y ago
I have the same problem and no real solution. FWIW I've been able to make my (mid-range android) phone last for 7+ years now by uninstalling some apps whenever memory becomes an issue. Also I update apps only when forced.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Samsung j3 mini, running Android 11. I think there's even a 12 Lineage available, but the current one is so stable as a daily driver that I don't feel the need.
onion2k 3y ago
Is there a phone that allows me to upgrade over time and not only fix it? Turning off app updates would have the same impact if you're right about the increasing memory requirements.
- pachico 3y ago
  I wish I could simply run 3 year old apps. In many cases I am not allowed, especially the bank ones, which are the ones that I cannot run in the background as the OS kills them.
  - br3d 3y ago
    Sorry if this is obvious, but have you tried the options in Settings to avoid the OS killing certain apps? On my Pixel it's Settings > Apps > App Battery Usage > (choose app) > Unrestricted

frabcus 3y ago

Really loving my Fairphone 5 - basically smartphones are enough of a commodity now everything feels really high quality and fast physically. The sky blue colour is really nice. AND also it avoids conflict metals, is repairable. Much much better than my last Fairphone (which was the Fairphone 2). I switched from an iPhone this time. I'm also enjoying that Android is a bit more programmable without rooting it - running a full Unix distribution in Termux, scripting it with Tasker to run Python scripts on events etc. Actual Firefox.

sspiff 3y ago
Have you tried the camera? How did you find it? I honestly don't care much about processor speed, if it can run a browser, messaging and banking apps I'm fine. But I need to be able to take family pictures which are good enough quality for occasional full page prints. I've always been disappointed with these kind of niche devices in the past, where the cameras were barely of the level of 2 year old sub-$200 phones, especially in capture speed and low light performance. You can't ask kids to reenact something in better lighting if you missed it the first time.
- maqnius 3y ago
  My gf has a fairphone 5 and I guess you will be disappointed. The pictures are really not stunning. She had a huawei p20 pro (from 2018) and it definitely took better pictures.
  - dakial1 3y ago
    But is it the hardware though? All the new flagship phones are using software/AI to enhance the photos well above the hardware raw, so I imagine that you might be able to fix this with a better camera app.
    - maqnius 3y ago
      I don't know, might be. Didn't really bother to figure it out yet, since it's not so important for her. There are a few other things (I'd call bugs), that are more annoying to her. And I also don't really no what to think about it. Maybe it's because of the uncommon processor. For example, it starts to vibrate (like it's being unlocked) repeatedly sometimes when it downloads updates from Playstore and it doesn't stop until it's finished and there's nothing you can do about it. And Firefox crashes when you want to switch a video to fullscreen. But she's fine with it, because she knows it's the fairest phone she could buy and it hopefully lasts long and maybe updates will solve the bugs above soon. And I guess that's the attitude you must have to buy a fairphone, and then it'll be fine. I hope it shines when we smth is broken the first time :)

Moldoteck 3y ago

I really like the concept, but I hate it's size. I just can't buy something that big for daily use. Why can't they make a smaller version, idk, like pixel 3/5 sizes, isn't this more sustainable/eco friendly?

danwee 3y ago
Indeed! I would buy it if it were smaller (e.g., 4.7')
augustk 3y ago
Many people want a "smaller" phone but the only options seem to be iPhone SE and iPhone Mini. Why aren't there more small models? Isn't the market economy supposed to solve this? For me the iPhone SE has the perfect size; not too big to fit in my front pocket.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  for me even pixel 5 was ok (mini is even better but let's say apple is another story). Now we have only zenfone 10, that is a bit taller so again not that nice and s23 that is +- the size of p5 but still something felt off. Iphone 13 mini was super nice to hold, super light. I would have got one if not lightning. All my devices use usb-c, it would be a downgrade to use lightning
a-french-anon 3y ago
This, I'm stuck with a Sony Xperia Z3 compact (4.6", microSD slot, jack, microG Lineage support) and I don't see any possible replacement for it.

llamaInSouth 3y ago

they probably should have went with 9.5 in case something better comes along

mrweasel 3y ago
That's actually a pretty big issue for surveys where I live. I live in a part of Denmark that is notorious for never using the full scale in surveys, to the point where it screws with data analysis. Basically we'll never use 5 in a 1 - 5 score, or 10 in a 1 - 10, because what if something better came along? I've been to training seminars and done surveys about workplace issues where we've been specifically instructed to use the full scale, because clustering on e.g. 2 - 4 will result in NOTHING, it gets removed by HR/software/analysis as average and not worth dealing with, resulting in no change. I'd still argue that it issue is in how people use the data, but it remains a problem.
- mcv 3y ago
  I often answer in the 2-4 range. Usually because of the way the question is phrased. If they want different answers, they should ask their questions differently.
- buzzy_hacker 3y ago
  I find it amusing that you live somewhere known for such an obscure tendency.

sambalbadjak 3y ago

I thought that fairphone was: you buy once, and you can upgrade modules over time. But it seems that modules of newer fairphones don't necessarily fit an older fairphone. So it's more about repairable for that specific version. Which is still better than no repairability.. but I imagine you can feel quite duped still having to buy a new phone every 3 years and throwing the old one out. Anyone with experience of having a fairphone for multiple years?

DamonHD 3y ago
I first bought a FP1 and I am now on a FP3. The FP1 is still just about operable as an emergency phone, and maybe a tiny bit of browsing. The FP3 is going fine. I have chosen not to upgrade the camera module, though I am still thinking about it. The 'F' has fallen off the backing plate so I in fact own an 'AIRPHONE'. A friend by the same token owns "A PHONE" which I pointed out is an entirely accuate failure mode! B^>
crimsoneer 3y ago
I got the 4 a little over a year and half ago... and I feel mostly happy. I've replaced the screen twice because I'm an idiot, and like replaceable batteries. Would be nice to be able to upgrade the camera, so sad I can't do that.
ctenb 3y ago
I own an FP 4 since it aired. No complaints so far. I mainly use it for browsing. I haven't needed any repairs yet, but I like the idea of that being an easy feat. Of course everyone hopes that they can make their phones more modular and upgradable than they do now, but it's also understandable they have to iterate their architecture before they can converge on a design that truely lasts multiple generations of upgrades.

lucb1e 3y ago

Answering the title: yes

have_faith 3y ago

Does anyone know of a site that does an "objective" comparison of the various flagships and their ethical claims? like how does Apple's material sourcing compare to Fairphone, compared to Samsung etc.

sunshine_reggae 3y ago

No headphone jack => No Fairphone. I'm never going to put my brain between 2 radiation emitters. And that's just 1 reason why I'll always use cable.

projektfu 3y ago
USB-C to 3.5mm dongles are pretty inexpensive and unobtrusive. I use one to keep my old tried-and-true noise-cancelling headphones working.
- toastal 3y ago
  Choosing between charging or audio shouldn’t have to be a choose when you consider it’s common courtesy to not spew your noise pollution into your public surroundings. Dongles big enough for passthru charging are too bulky to fit in a pocket comfortably. Now you also have another wire/hub you have to go out and buy & might easily lose or misplace, for what exactly? It sure ain’t to waterproofing or a significant cost-cutting measure. It can let a device be ever so much thinner but does being < 3.5 mm really benefit the user. I bet the manufactures love the revenue of the discount bundled wireless earbuds tho—whose audio is usually not good but labeled under subjective to all but the nerds looking at frequency-response graphs. And when those irrepairable buds can no longer hold a charge after a couple of months, I bet they like banking on users coming back to purchase that same ewaste again from them.
hegzploit 3y ago
Mind sharing any source about the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiations coming from ear buds? I always believed these were negligible compared to the radiation we are exposed to everyday.

thih9 3y ago

Say I own an iPhone and I’m considering a Fairphone. Which iphone model would I have to own for the transition to make sense, both for user experience and sustainability? I.e. Iphone 15 surely not. But iphone 5 for sure yes. Where is the cutoff? I’m choosing iphones because they’re recognizable and have a predictable release schedule. Let’s disregard ios vs android angle if possible.

frabcus 3y ago
I had an iPhone 11 and the Fairphone 5 feels like an upgrade. (Case on the former as it shatters and is expensive to repair and no case on the latter)
- nerdponx 3y ago
  My Rhino Shield "Crash Guard" bumper case has protected several generations of iPhones from my clumsiness, dropping it on all manner of hard surfaces from chest height or higher. Yes it's annoying to pay $30 for a case for my glass supercomputer, but I wouldn't base my phone purchase decision based on the need for a case. If anything, I'd prefer a phone that is supported by this particular case, because there is no phone that I really expect to be built to this kind of spec (and I probably wouldn't want one that was, considering what tradeoffs might be involved).
- thih9 3y ago
  Is the case really a factor in the scenario of an upgrade? I.e. why not remove the iphone’s case and upgrade when/if your phone breaks?

footlose_3815 3y ago

If they offered Graphene or Lineage on it, I'd be much more excited. But this is Android, at the price of an iPhone. I'd buy if it wasn't running an ad company's OS on it.