Having bought a Fairphone 2[1], I will never buy a Fairphone product anymore.<p>And I'm not a difficult customer here: I didn't mind paying twice the price, or software issues in their custom Android version. I'm only moderately annoyed having a proximity sensor that keeps keeps needing a reset, a phone that keeps rebooting for no reasons or a pretty bad power management (going from 15% to no-battery in less than a minute). They are a small company and have limited manpower, I can totally understand that.<p>What I'm really pissed off it them not fulfilling their promises. They sold me a modular phone, with the promise of hardware upgrades and maintenance. They sold me a “PC”-like smartphone, where there's no frequent release of new models but a continuously upgrade-able phone. But they didn't even try to deliver, and they didn't apologize.<p>[1]: in 2016, and I'm still using it btw, even if it's far from good at this point, because it “works” and I'm still pretty conscious about the environmental impact of smartphones.
Disappoint with the HN community reading the comments here.
Sure FF is not perfect, but they are actually changing how the industry is working and deserve a lot of support. They are changing how mining is done, how workers are treated and are attempting the change the rules on planned obsolescence. And they are actually getting some advance on all these areas.
I used to have a Fairphone 2, but it had multiple problems. A partially working touchscreen, a malfunctioning headphone jack and then a bad battery. and the shipment of replacement parts were so slow that I finally had to buy a second, cheaper phone while waiting for the new parts, which isn't really part of fairphones mission statement.<p>Next next phone I bought still works today, mich longer than the 1.5 Fairphones I had bought before.<p>Whats sad about that experience, is that it made me sceptical. I now need to wait for the new model to prove reliable in reviews before I'd buy it, but by that time the mid-tier hardware would be completely outdated alteady. In essence it'll take years for them to gain my trust back.<p>Still i hope that products like this or the framework laptop take off.
Too bad they are chasing all the bad trends (notch, no audio jack, camera bump, flatness over battery size, growing size). That pretty much kills it for me.<p>Especially the audio jack is a hard sell when their mission statement is sustainability.
To play devil’s advocate, my iPhone has already achieved 6y of updates and why would I pre-pay for fixes in the form of a warranty? (Right to repair issues aside, and I don’t say that lightly, just don’t think it changes the answer for the avg consumer)
> Surprisingly, there isn't a headphone jack, which seems like something Fairphone's demographic would really have wanted. Wired headphones last indefinitely, while Bluetooth buds turn into garbage after a few years when the batteries die.<p>Every wired headphones I've had started to break down after a year or so, including ones with a detachable cable.<p>BT headphones are much more reliable. If you buy something like the Sony's you can probably get replacement batteries.
There are a <i>lot</i> of comments about technical issues with previous iterations of the Fairphone - but, to be Fair, you can also find a lot of comments about technical issues with <i>any</i> technology (even if it's open-source!) on the internet.<p>What would be very helpful, and consistent with the ethos of the Fairphone organization (or, at least, what I <i>think</i> it is) would be to provide actual repair data. "n% of devices have had to be replaced entirely, m% of devices have had a technical issues requiring a hardware fix, here's the number of repair requests made per phone generation", etc.<p>I like the idea of a Fairphone, but I don't want to buy a product that is going not do the thing that it's supposed to, but I <i>also</i> don't want to avoid buying a product that is generally reliable just because I read comments entirely from the users whose devices broke.
> Updating an Android device without chipset-vendor support is unprecedented, but Fairphone still spent the money and partnered with the LineageOS community to make it happen.<p>I know it is unprecedented . . . for a manufacturer to endorse releasing Android versions without chipset support. But, seriously, LineageOS does this all the time with their supported devices.
Previous discussion that's 26 minutes older and links to Fairphone's website instead of an article: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705037" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705037</a>
I have a Fairphone 3+, bought about 6 weeks ago. I might have waited if I'd know this was on the horizon. I flashed mine with /e/ OS (WTF's with that name?) and it has been fantastic. My only complaint is the fingerprint sensor is a little clunky.
Mobile phone technology is still progressing too fast to be stuck with a device for 5 years.
For example, I used to think that 120hz screens were a meme until I bought one myself and immediately saw the difference.
I always reccomend the gen 1 iPhone SE to anyone that wants a "modular" phone. No, you can't upgrade the parts, but you can replace them when something breaks. I'm going on 5 years now with mine, and I've replaced nearly every component but the main board. I've replaced the lightning connector, main screen, main camera, headphone jack (remember those?), battery twice, even the SIM card slot. Everything is just screwed down (no glue) and replaceable with a $7 toolkit from Amazon. Parts are dirt cheap and readily available on eBay. And it's still getting the latest OS security updates 5 years later.
I'm fully onboard with fair sourcing of materials etc. But what is with "repairability" as an excuse to make fragile, inferior phones?<p>I had a pixel 3 and I swapped camera, microphones, usb c port. The iFixit kit needed for this costs a few bucks but that's it.<p>It is just having good instructions that matter, and parts. A fully waterproof high end Pixel device is not less "repairable" that a fairphone.
There's no mention of any Open Source OS, it lacks the analog audio jack (the USBC adapter prevents charging during use, so it's not a substitute), and also lacks FM radio, which would have cost pennies to add. I see it as fairly big step backwards. Not interested.
I looked into getting one when my old iPhone had to be replaced, and the main complaint seemed to be how far behind the firmware updates were. It's a hard thing to scale for, but I hope they figure out the bottleneck to adoption of an otherwise cool idea.
at this point, an iphone up to v8 seems most sustainable. but of course no one knows how long an 8 or even 13 will be updated or receive service.<p>i would still like an alternative option that is a) user reparable b) can be updated on an open source/non corporate basis
We would have saved a lot of waste if societies skipped smartphones altogether. The world is now littered with basic phones that have either been sent to landfill or abandoned, besides all the smartphones with obsolete 'smart' functions.
No headphone jack? 555-COME-ON-NOW.<p>That said I really like Fairphone and its principles, but I wonder why they never partnered with the Linux on phone community.
Anyone know what this Snapdragon 750 performance would be like compared to my OnePlus 8 Pro?<p>I'd like to move to a more sustainable phone (I smashed the screen of the OP8P in the first week) but I suspect my OP8P will still outperform the Fairphone 4 by the time a launch unit 5 year warranty is up?
I didn't realise that the 4 came out [0], cool. However, there are several problems with it (and unfortunately most modern flagships have them also). The phone is huge, 6.3" + bezel. If you look at the picture of the woman holding the phone it looks like the phone is either about to fall out, or the phone is simply photo-shopped on. Another issue is that the camera sticks out the back. If this camera falls on its back, the camera is the first thing that will be hit. That is the absolutely worst place to have it hit first. The price is quite expensive ($751.47), but if the phone lasts as long as they claim, then that shouldn't be that big of an issue.<p>[0] <a href="https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4" rel="nofollow">https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4</a>
The headline should be the aluminum body which finally puts it on par with flagship phones on environmental footprint. I wonder if they also managed to remove the remaining plastic from the packaging as Apple has done.
I would have bought a Fairphone last year instead of a Realme, when the camera wasn't ten years behind :-( Is this state of the art? (Not very fancy just a state of the art sensor and optics).
Is it really repairable? I mean if a chip in the core module fails, can you buy just the chip and replace it or you need a whole new module? If the latter, then what makes it different from any other phone?