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I would buy one but to quote them the most sustainble phone is the one you currently use ! got mine two years ago and I will keep using it until it dies
For anyone wondering, I’m typing this comment on my Fairphone 4s, almost a year old now and still works as new, honestly haven’t had a single issue. I’ve had various androids before but none lasted more than a couple years, after a year or so they all started getting slower and developing other problems, the main reason I bought this one is because I want one that actually lasts longer.
Thanks for the comment, shame I had to scroll to the very bottom of the page to find feedback from an actual user. I’m considering getting a 5 to replace my Pixel so this was helpful.
I have the Fairphone 4 as well, also about a year old. Still as no and only had one issue. Sometimes the screen glitches out and starts to react to ghost inputs.
However there was very easy fix. Just open it up and reconnect the screen cable. Worked perfectly.
Imagine if this was an issue on an iPhone. I’d then have to pay god know have many dollars to fix it at an Apple Store.
Nice to have, except I believe they are not available in the US.
Regardless, it’s not the phone for me. I never had to get any of my phones repaired, and once I was done with them after 2 to 3 years, I just handed them off to my parents to use.
If you are careful with your phone and not breaking them, this phone isn’t for you.
I apploud what they do, at the same time - I just don’t care to use thee devices myself. Generally I swap out phones every 2-3 years, what happens to the old one varries. If I have to heavily compensate on a device, I just quite simply won’t.
I just really love actually good devices, whether it’s a android top model, base spec MacBook air or a top specceed PC.
Honestly, modern phones last 4-5+ years. The two-year upgrade cycle made more sense when the technology was rapidly improving and there were significant changes in user experience from year to year.
The only thing is you may have to replace your battery halfway through the life-cycle of your phone, but that’s not a big deal.
I genuinely don’t get the appeal of the Fairphone. Just keep your normal smartphone (be it Android, iPhone, or whatever) as long as you can then recycle it once you’re ready to upgrade.
also at least in the UK the two year upgrade cycle existed because phones on contract lasted for two years, end of contract? here basically extend it another two years and have a brand new phone
modern phones last 4-5+ years.
Well, the security updates on Android don’t because Qualcomm kill support by not signing updates anymore. Hence why this phone is using an obscure “embedded long life” chip from Qualcomm.
depends on the brand, my samsung will get 3 more android updates (already got one) and 4 more years of security updates
I feel people nowadays upgrade out of battery degradation rather than new features/specs.
phones became so damn frustrating to service that people just swap them when their batteries start to degrade, instead of swapping batteries and continue using it.
Batteries got harder to access, making battery swaps a lot harder and error prone for regular users. The battery used to be easily accessible via the back cover, which was made to be easily removable. Now you have to unglue your screen with a heat gun, get to the battery through the phone guts, remove the original battery which is likely glued in, put the new one, put the phone back together and somehow glue the screen back and hope you didn’t damage anything. Also, from my experience, 3rd party replacement batteries typically don’t last as long as the original ones do. An original battery lasted me 3 years, after which I had to keep replacing 3rd party batteries every 4 months because they kept dying.
I’m still using Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 from 2015. Replaced battery 3 times. Each time for <10$ from aliexpress. The last swap was few months ago and surprisingly this one was the best out of all swapped batteries so far.
I don’t plan to replace the phone any time soon. I just wish phones were made more like PCs - you buy a hardware and then you put any software you want on it. Now you buy a hardware and a year of software support then good luck.
This is not the phone for phone enthusiasts who wants the best everything. But this is the phone for the average joe who asks the tech enthusiast.
Having a phone that’s they won’t need to change for >5 years can be a nice thing. My parents refuse to switch from their mi mix 2 because it still runs well (except for the battery) and they dread transferring datas
This is not the phone for phone enthusiasts who wants the best everything. But this is the phone for the average joe who asks the tech enthusiast.
The average Joe isn’t going to upgrade or repair their own phone. So realistically the advantage is what, that it’s slightly easier for the professional repair service to fix it if they break the screen or charge port?
mi mix 2
I apploud what they do, at the same time - I just don’t care to use thee devices myself.
I’m not attacking you but that’s what a slacktivist does.
I kind of don’t get this phone. Wouldn’t buying a used iPhone 11 be better for the planet plus, perform better and cost a fraction of the fairphone?
I love what Fairphone is doing, but I would still be more likely to buy a Google Pixel 8 as my next phone, due to the better hardware security and long-term support provided by GrapheneOS. I wish Fairphone would have better HW security as well someday.
For a secure OS, CalyxOS is available for fairphone 4 (don’t know about the fp5 ). I haven’t tested it yet but it seems to be working good for people
I think most people heavily prefer GrapheneOS over CalyxOS.
yeah, I’m just letting people know
That’s awesome. Now make it affordable.
The latest Fairphone model costs £649 (€699).
Yeah, no. I’m out.
When considering the entire supply chain, some early electric vehicles were actually a net negative for the world around us. That’s not why people bought them anyway, it was the fuel and maintenance cost savings. Equally true then, nobody is buying a Fairphone for “sustainable living”, it’s just a device that’s easier to repair and the truth is consumers could care less how it’s manufactured. The greenwashing stinks.
Can’t unlock it, can’t root it - without losing the 5 (!) years of warranty. Great phone, but it’s horribly locked down. Useful for a grandma maybe. But a grandma can also just use a Samsung Galaxy A-series for 5 years without any problems.
I rate PoopPhone a Meh out of 10.
Ps.: You can also buy a Pixel 8-series, get 7 years of updates and you can unlock it any time without losing warranty.
Fairphone is a for-profit business, correct?
If so, what’s there to prevent the company from eventually (or even now) prioritizing profits over the longevity of its products? For example, let’s say that their board wants to make higher margins. One way they can accomplish this is to use poor-quality parts in the initial product so that they need to be repaired more often, thus, they sell more replacement parts.
“How to convince myself that I can continue to consume from known bad companies.”
They’re a limited liability company, so no stock market pressure. As a Dutch BV voting majority can still lie with the founders.
They’re on Fairphone 5 now, which is the first one I’d consider buying if I was in the market for a new one phone right now.
Most people buy a new phone if it gets damaged from a drop. It happens quite often. Here you can swap the parts cheaply and with only a screwdriver.
If you wonder how sturdy it is: https://youtu.be/H1UJ5k3yMvA?si=zQ1VEeA8YqMINUR7
This one dives deeper into the lifecycle: https://youtu.be/lU4vv7qCQvg?si=XiE0QBWP6iNMbQJ_
You can find the Lifecycle Analysis of Frauenhofer institute with a bit of googling.
And here’s Louis Rossman on it: https://youtu.be/EAogtqyN22M?si=9slIZEuTbAZhE__Y
And remember, you can always switch away from Fairphone if they become “evil”. It’s not like Google, Amazon or the influence of Social Media companies that you can’t escape.
“How to convince myself that I can continue to consume from known bad companies.”
Man, as someone who did tons of computer repair and support in my early years, the hoops and loops people go to keep buying stuff from apple, as maybe a bit of an extreme example, is just amazing!
I see it with stuff from amazon, nvidia and ea too, specially frustrating when there are clear less evil alternatives!
specially frustrating when there are clear less evil alternatives!
The issue is when “less evil” also means “worse product”. If “evil” is even an applicable word here
They’re a limited liability company, so no stock market pressure. As a Dutch BV voting majority can still lie with the founders.
LLC doesn’t mean it’s automatically better. LLCs can also have investors and a board. Furthermore, it could be less advantageous to be a private company because you can’t see into their financials and there is no transparency.
Most people buy a new phone if it gets damaged from a drop. It happens quite often. Here you can swap the parts cheaply and with only a screwdriver.
But the phone will get repaired (if it still has value) and gets resold. Anecdotally, most of my friends and family just get the screen repaired.
If you wonder how sturdy it is: https://youtu.be/H1UJ5k3yMvA?si=zQ1VEeA8YqMINUR7
Any drop test?
And here’s Louis Rossman on it: https://youtu.be/EAogtqyN22M?si=9slIZEuTbAZhE__Y
Sorry, who? And what is the message? Not going to watch it.
And remember, you can always switch away from Fairphone if they become “evil”. It’s not like Google, Amazon or the influence of Social Media companies that you can’t escape.
It uses Android, right? So why does it matter? You’re going to get Google influence since it’s Android no matter what.
If you’re going to be obtuse and combative for no good reason, at least have the decency to not ask questions you’re not interested in hearing the answers to.
How was I combative? Just curious.
This is not much of an issue for this type of market, if they stop doing the whole fair thing it’s going to become obvious pretty quick when you can’t get parts. This type of customer will be on the issue quickly and when repairs are too common or expensive they will simply buy other phones.
Makes sense because they said they removed the headphone jack because you can use the type c port.
More wear on the type c port means it will break faster.
The software developers don’t actually have the phone they develop the software for. When there’s bugs, support will just tell you to use a workaround and it will almost never get fixed with the next update.
Ya but everyone sells those they don’t have a monopoly also I assume you can wirelessly charge which reduces port wear
It doesn’t have that
I agree, that repairability is highly overrated when it comes to e-waste. iFixit did a good job convincing people of that.
But to be fair (no pun intended) Fairphone uses some obscure automotive QCM6490 in their Fairphone so they can offer software updates until 2031. So they did a pretty good job on the in my opinion by far the biggest contributing factor when it comes to smartphone e-waste, offering long software support.
“Highly overrated” how?
It is not green to repair a phone, it is green to get a case for your phone so you don’t destroy it in the first place.
Also I saw way more phones and laptops go into the trash because I could not buy a replacement part (2,5y old Acer Laptop, according to Acer end of life, could not find a new battery) or because software support ended (Windows 10 support will end 2025, lots of laptops don’t meet the hardware requirement for Win11, or smartphones like Galaxy S20 only getting 3y of security updates) is a WAY bigger factor than „easy repairability“.
I also don’t agree that something is difficult to repair, just because you need some tools or have to peel of some glue that prevented water damage of thousands of smartphones. I also don’t agree with the iFixit conclusion that it is anti consumer that the iOS tells the customer if the screen, battery or something else was replaced, which could potentially be of worse quality. As long as the device does not block these parts (which it does not to my knowledge) I think it is pro consumer because it prevents second hand ripoff’s.
I agree with you 95%, but a case can’t stop the battery from eating itself after 500 cycles or 4 years, so that does need to be replaceable (at a workbench, with proper tools, by someone with a modicum of care and patience).
(In fact, to some degree cases make it worse, by holding heat in during charging.)
Which major smart phones over the last ten years have not had replaceable batteries?
Even if the iPhone battery can only be replaced by an Apple-certified repair shop, you can just calculate that added tax into the overall price of using the phone over 5-6 years. I don’t really see what the issue is. It’s not like it’s expensive to have your battery replaced, and you only need to do it literally once over the useful lifespan of any phone.
so that does need to be replaceable
Totally agree. But to be fair, it is pretty easy to replace a battery for most phones and laptops. It is way harder to get none Aliexpress battery replacement. Especially if you bought some random Acer or Asus model. Then even iFixit is not able to sell you a battery.
I always charge my phone when it’s still over 50% that way the “fast charge” doesn’t kick in the temperature is just a little warm, but when I forgot to charge before I leave home and ended up like 20% left, I remove the case and let it fast charge. Otherwise I always opt for slow charge.
The case like he said actually really helped alot, dropped my phone many times it’s still fine, no crack no weird malfunction.
Of course batteries do degrade overtime but at least the phone case did the job to prevent many parts replacements.
Yeah, I prevent fast charge by charging from a USB port on my PC. Typically I plug in at 30-40% and stop at 70%. I do have a crack though… in the screen protector, which I will get around to replacing eventually, I swear.
I think I see where you’re coming from, but a few points don’t stick. I think ease of repair, availability of replacement parts and software support are often used in combination to dissuade the continued use of a product. I ended up ditching my (at the time new) Samsung S8 because it was so difficult to repair, well before it’s scheduled end-of-life. It had a case, but shit happens.
And I think the more recent Iphones do actually block certain functionality if a part is replaced by a 3rd party, genuine article nonwithstanding. Having the part identified as genuine, 3rd party or non Apple installed in the settings or something would probably be fine, but that’s not what’s happening.
And for the last point, mostly agreed, but a business profiting from a customer’s desire to do good doesn’t disqualify the good that a business might do while also profiting. It would be great if there was some not-for-profit/governent run rating on device longevity/repairability, as some countries do for electricity/water useage, but I’ll take the imperfect solution until then.
And I think the more recent Iphones do actually block certain functionality if a part is replaced by a 3rd party, genuine article nonwithstanding. Having the part identified as genuine, 3rd party or non Apple installed in the settings or something would probably be fine, but that’s not what’s happening.
I think that is exactly what is happening, but I am very open to new evidence.
but a business profiting from a customer’s desire to do good doesn’t disqualify the good that a business might do while also profiting.
God no, and I hope that my writing did not come off like that. English is not my native language. No, I think they do an excellent job, I just take what they say when it comes to repair regulations with a grain of salt.
There is a lot more to e-waste than just repairability. There is the recycled materials in the initial phone. Quality of the components. Sturdiness of the phone. Do people trade in their phones so they can be recycled? Is there even a trade-in program for this phone? What percentage of the phone is recycled after use?
This doesn’t matter. E-waste is a crock of shit. All of the phones you will ever use over your lifetime will fit in your coffin with you, there’s nothing seriously poisonous in there else it wouldn’t be safe to carry phone around in sweaty pockets, and the recoverable raw material value is approxmiately 0% of the manufacturing cost of a phone.
Apple’s “recycling” program is half virtue signal, half sneaky way of keeping devices off the used market. Which, by the way, is the only way real value is ever recovered from old phones. Recycle is the last R for a reason.
How many years does the phone get updates?
This, on the other hand, is very important. The real reason disposable and unreliable phones are bad is that getting a new phone sucks. Search costs suck, transaction costs suck, the “features” that the new phone comes with inevitably suck, and migrating data to a new device sucks. Which is at least partly intentional. Observe one scumbag Android developer cheering about the prospect of users no longer being in control of their own data.
Yes, one small company will definitely change global e-waste problems. /s
I love the idea, but unless everyone does the same it’s unfortunately pointless.
My only issue with fairphone is that the phones simply haven’t been high end enough. But they’re slowly solving that, each new phone has been a lot better.
Sustainability is nice, but it can’t come at the cost of performance.
Instead of a modern SoC Fairphone uses an obscure automotive chip with the performance of an iPhone 7. As a result, it’s obsolete out of the box.
Fairphone uses an obscure automotive chip with the performance of an iPhone 7
I have no idea what the performance of iPhone 7 is nor do I care but that QCM6490 in the Fairphone is allegedly almost 3 times faster than the Snapdragon 665 I have now which I’m perfectly happy with. It’s way more interesting that it’s a long-term support SoC with updates until 2031. That is an actual selling point
This, fast processors in smartphones are more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.
If it is fast enough, who cares about the rest?
Sorry but I’m not going to do CFD simulations on my phone, and something mid range is more than enough to serve as the communication hub+DAP+GPS that I need. In any case, limit performance and give me better battery life FFS! Or use the extra free power to give me a better amp to use harder to drive headphones!
Mobile is a race to idle. Faster SoCs (all else being equal, no bizarre scheduler, ETC) will be more power efficient.
Better SoCs have a direct correlation to better battery life, the iPhone is a prime example.
there are some niche users who don’t really need all the performance.
if it can browse the net, run light apps (IE not trying to run something like PUBG mobile or other games like it), and have a great battery then it would have an audience.
that being said, hell, the galaxy S2 with cynogenmod lasted me well into kitkat and i even tried oreo on the thing (too slow by then), and the biggest thing was the battery and sd card slot that allowed me to really keep it for way beyond its time.
I would even say that most users don’t need the performance of the phones they are buying Although the price to performance ratio of the fairphone is indeed pretty high (i have a fp4 myself), but the longevity makes it worth it
I don’t know where you’re getting that it has the “performance of an iPhone 7”. The QCM6490 is most analogous to a Snapdragon 782G, which was the fastest Snapdragon 700-series chip before they moved to the Snapdragon 7 Gen X branding. It was released in late 2022.
It’s not a range topper, but it’s still a respectable midranged chip even for 2023.
Fairphone went with an embedded chip rather than a mainstream Snapdragon because Snapdragon chips only get something like three years of support, whereas some of their enterprise products get eight. The QCM6490 will allow the Fairphone 5 to get software updates until 2031.
Here’s the benchmarks: link. CPU - Fairphone 5: 1100 / 2800. Apple A11 CPU (iPhone 8/X): 1092 / 2352.
I don’t quite get where sustainability comes from. You can buy similar (hardware-wise) Samsung with 4 year support for twice as cheap. 300$ difference is enough to change battery and screen even at overpriced Samsung’s official repair service.
Of course the replies to you have to say something like “fAsT cHiPs aRe MARKETING GIMMICK!” As they’re on their way to the Pixel subs to complain about Tensor
Actually look at the chip in benchmarks, it’s faster than my old oneplus, which was running totally fine until I decided to replace it with an s22 for battery degradation reasons…
Prediction. Fairphone goes out of business in 3 year due to… lack of demand.
They also explicitly say that we’re allowed to unlock the phone to use other OSes, so /e/OS can be installed on it with support. This is great.
Especially when the EU forces everyone to remove software locks and make parts reasonably available.
At that point why would I want something that’s almost flagship price but performs like an iPhone 7?
I think they would consider this a win for the company, because they will have contributed to changing the market.
It’s the price of fair working conditions.
They’ve been in business for a couple of years already so they have their stable niche, but yeah the target audience for these devices is rather small.
IIRC they sell a couple hundred thousand phones a year which is a very small operation compared to big makers that can move that volume on a single model within their lineups of dozens of yearly releases.
Unfortunately they don’t sell their new version in the US.
So instead of maybe getting a Fairphone 5 as a backup phone, I bought a super cheap Pixel 7a with the Black Friday sale.
IIRC they sell a couple hundred thousand phones a year which is a very small operation compared to big makers that can move that volume on a single model within their lineups of dozens of yearly releases.
Yeah that’s like 1d6 towns worth of phones.
They have been in business for over 10 years now, the first one relased in 2013 even if it wasn’t really “fair” as today’s model, more of a rebrand that guaranteed that workers in China were treated fairly. Still they operate on very low volumes and probably on razor thin margins that don’t allow for big R&D projects but so far they have been profitable at least.
Have you read the article ? they are at their 5th phone this year and have been in business for a couple of years (in europe at least) so it’s working. They also recently released headsets and earbuds
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s profitable, it could just mean they haven’t run out of VC money runway yet.
Their financial reports are open to be read by the public.
And let’s hope they scale up slowly, their reports show that their profit margin is extremely slim despite them pricing their phones quite a bit higher than other brands. Meaning if they’re to compete for price they won’t make a profit
It’s nice that they finally establish a communication line with Qualcomm though
I feel like I read this headline every year or two
Well they must be doing okay then
same, I love the concept, but the problem is there so many billions of different smartphones made and always have been: Trying to ensure parts availability over the long term is a titanic task.
The only players out there whom did have the massive sales to do so, rugpulled repair as apple did.
It’s the filth model.
Gross.