- cross-posted to:
- android@kbin.social
- technews@radiation.party
Thoughts?
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Fairphone proves the usual excuses for ending Android support aren’t valid.
That alone is worth a lot. Their endeavour for longevity is also great. I hope they get the attention they need.
By supporting the very manufacture to blame for short support times? Qualcomm is the root of the problem.
They don’t provide the bloody drivers for newer Android versions.
Manufacturers can only provide security updates after 2 major updates.
Are other Chipmakers better? It’s not like they could just have no chip at all…
Ok, than they are alright and green, very fair much phone
Updates on a phone is a important topic. When i choose a smartphone i look for software support period. But i think software updates sometimes make graphical improvements and that causes performance decrease. Or the company wants to slow that thing down. Nowadays you can’t see the difference.
I bought my Fairphone 3 at the start of 2020. I love it. I love the fact I can dissamble it with the provided screwdriver in two minutes.
I love that I can buy replacement parts for it if anything breaks without having to get some kind of expensive repair from Apple or Samsung. Ive replaced the charging port on this phone and I’ll be replacing the battery soon too. Giving people the ability to fix and maintain their own devices is fantastic.
I am hoping to get a decade out of this device and I’m nearing 4 years with no complaints so far. I’m a little bit dissapointed they got rid of the headphone jack on the Fairphone 4. While you can get adapters etc, it shouldn’t be necessary imo. That alone is my biggest gripe with that device. Aside from that though, they make great devices and I highly reccomend them
The removal of the headphone jack is what made me call complete bullshit on their whole “repairability and sustainability” schtick. At the same time of the removal, they began selling their own wireless earbuds. So now you can’t use wired headphones with their phones, and instead have to buy a pair of wireless ones (which they conveniently sell to you) which will eventually have their internal batteries die and need to go to a landfill because none of it is repairable. I initially thought they were a pretty good company with decent values, but ever since they did that I no longer care about them.
Well, when I ordered my FP4 last year the wireless earbuds were included for free. Still bought an adapter for aux that i keep in my car. I think this is fairly acceptable. Now my only problem is that they didn’t offer an adapter with both aux and USB for charging.
It’s still more waste. An adapter is a bigger use of materials, extra cost, and another point of failure. Hardly a sound decision for a self-proclaimed “sustainable” manufacturer.
I disagree with this choice, but I don’t think they are bullshiting, I think they are walking a difficult line of trying to be sustainable, up to date with the technology (adding 5G this early is also very questionable IMO), attractive for consumers and not completely unaffordable, which leads to difficult compromises.
None of those points demand the removal of the headphone jack as a compromise.
Here are some: making the design easier, making reaching IP rating easier. Again, I’m not saying it would not be possible to make those with a jack, but maybe considering the aforementioned compromise, it was easier to ditch it.
Yeah that was a disappointing moment. Though I think you can still use wired headphones with an adapter that connects them to USB-C.
This is really good to hear. The worst thing about mid range android phones is the lack of future software support. Even flagship androids aren’t anything to write home about. As much as people like shitting on apple, they support their devices for quite a while compared to other manufacturers.
So? Sell it and buy the new one
Believe it or not, some people aren’t big on over consumption and want things to last. Companies should do better and not produce crap that’s going to end up in landfill in a few years.
Have fun using obsolete tech
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 1•1 year ago
What good is that if the browser doesn’t let you block ads?
Most Android manufacturers are using minimal development teams to get closed source blobs from the CPU+radios OEMs to talk to the OS. Like the article says, Qualcomm stop supporting older generations of their SoCs pretty quickly, and those manufacturers don’t invest the resources in custom development, which is the LineageOS approach that Fairphone are taking. There’s nothing to promise these updates will be stable and secure though.
Apple has a huge advantage in developing their own processors from start to finish. They’re not reliant on anyone else’s code, and if they do need to buy in certain components (like Intel modems that they’ve used before), they’ve got the size and budget to get pretty much anyone to agree to their terms. It’s why Google started the Tensor project, which is rumored to be finally going full Google (ending reliance on Samsung) from 2025/Pixel 9.
I still think that open standards would better enable long-term support than more effective vertical integration.
We need an open source smartphone.
pinephone
Good explanation. Even if their long term support doesn’t work out it’s nice to see a trend towards long term support and reduction of e-waste.
From what I heard many Fairphone 3s didn’t even survive that long. Quality, audio quality and performance all seem to be pretty bad. That combined with its very high price point kinda defeats the point of it. The idea is great, but the execution isn’t.
I bought my FP3 at release in September 2019, while it does overheat from time to time and I’m on my 3rd battery (kinda the point of it), I’m very happy with the purchase overall, when it dies I’ll move on to the FP4 or 5 if it is released.
TBH, I was also surprised to see support for Android 13 was out
I’m still on my original FP3 battery (2021), although I am rooted and changed the PD charging speed to 2.5W…
What kind of torture are you doing to your device for it to overheat, damn 😳. I’ve only overheated my device once and that’s mainly because I was using it as a bike computer in hot weather 😅
First one came DoA so it got replaced by warranty, the second one became a spicy pillow less than a year ago
Going through a battery each year doesn’t really sound like the point of it though? That’s a lot of excess waste. I use my Pixel 4a for about 2 years now and the battery is still good.
I’m using a FP4, and here the signs are reversed. The hardware is working so far, but the software is incredibly buggy and instable.
Add to it the very mediocre hardware (slow, outdated SoC, terrible camera, bad battery life) and it’s not a fun phone to use. Especially not at that price point.
I agree wholeheartedly. Do you end up checking your e-mails for FP employee responses to the Forum posts?
I did for a while, but I gave up. Both their support and their communications on the forum is almost inexistent.
Yep, on the Forum they’re nowhere to be found, usually. I’m the reporter of the screen ghosting issue. Have you tried Support though? They offered me an RMA.
I tried their support a few times. Since the bugs are software-only, an RMA probably wouldn’t have fixed anything. They took the bugs, said they stuck them into their backlog, and then didn’t do anything about them. The bugs got swapped out for other bugs when Android 12 came around.
The biggest two bugs I had before were that the notification toggles disappeared ~1/day and I could only get them back by repeatedly changing the user on my phone. The other one was that video wouldn’t work in split screen.
With Android 12, both of them are fixed, but now my screen turns completely black whenever a new notification appears. Also my mobile data connection disappears ~1/h and only appears again if I manually toggle mobile data. Sometimes when using split screen, the phone gets completely stuck for ~30-60secs. The nav bar also sometimes just disappears. ~1/day the recents button on the navbar loses it’s function and requires me to reboot for it to start working again. GPS randomly dies as well and only works again after a reboot. That’s especially fun when you are currently using your phone for Google Maps while driving.
The navigation bar disappearing and the mobile data connection needing manual re-enablement affects me too. I don’t think anyone has posted about them on the forum yet, though.
If only CalyxOS supported the Google Play Store, I would use that.
Bring it to Canada!
I wanted to get a Fairphone 4 until I saw I saw it didn’t have a headphone jack. Made me think all their “sustainable” mottos are just marketing.
Purism with their Librem phones took people’s money and didn’t send them the product so I didn’t want to chance it or support a company that does that.
So in the end I got a Pixel 7 instead and put Graphene OS on it. Not particularly happy but didn’t seem like there was a better choice.
Recently found out from a Louis Rossman video that the lead dev of Graphene has some mental health issues that don’t make him a very trustworthy individual. Supposedly he stepped down but he’s probably still contributing code.
Tl;dr: phones = bad
His code contributions have always been high quality, and they’re audited by his peers. Its very unlikely malicious code would come from him, and even more unlikely it would make it through on to your phone.
While he’s certainly unhinged, it’s clear that he cares deeply for the project. I can’t see him doing anything intentionally malicious.
I really wish him the best, and I’m glad he stepped down. Much better for optics with him out of the way.
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 2•1 year ago
What about baseband firmware updates? Those come from the vendor of the baseband chip, and they’re extremely security-sensitive as the baseband chip processes network traffic and has a long history of critical remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities that can take over the entire phone, rendering all other security measures moot. Qualcomm, the usual vendor of these chips, doesn’t issue security updates for anywhere near 7 years.
I want to love my FP3 but it loves to crap out by being slow or just crash prone. I replaced my camera because it accumulated dust behind the lense, because it is replacable.
… still wouldn’t buy any other phone, it works well enough in all aspects and is a bit like the slightly crappy car you still love <3 Next one will be a FP5 :)
That is amazing! I had a Fairphone 1 and used it until the ‘on’ button broke which was about the only thing not available from the parts store. Now I have a Fairphone 3, have had it for a few years now. I might get the camera module upgrade as I still have an old one and it’s the only disappointing thing about the phone. I’ve been looking forward to fixing my phone because the modular design they made is amazing, but absolutely nothing has broken yet in my 3 years of use!
Here is a pic i done with the libre camera app on the FP3 with the newer camera module i did a few days ago without zoom at three mice
I think it is better to have a seperate camera but for the normal everyday use it is okay
Ngl but that looks terrible.
How do you share post ? I wanted to tell my friends about this, there is no share button in jerboa
Click that three-dots button on the post, next to the comment button
I would like to support them, but it is lacking in several features. Kinda wish they would take their modular and user-replaceable components and let us upgrade, like a better camera module for example.
that said, it’s missing the most important thing… Network compatibility.
Your example with the camera module is exactly what happened to the FP3. They released the FP3+ which featured a better camera and users of the original model could upgrade by just buying this module.
However this is definetly not the focus of Fairphone as a company as too many or regular new modules would introduce new e-waste again.
I wish they were more similar to Framework except in the smartphone space. Because when I buy a Fairphone I’m still stuck with the specs I bought and when I want to have better specs I need to buy a new phone regardless of how repairable it is. WIth a Framework laptop I can upgrade the mainboard to one with better specs and can keep the rest.
the fairphone 5 is rumored to come out this year, hopefully it will address those issues
It’s nice. For me.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone though. People who know how to handle the issues (i.e. how to replace the stock OS - it sucks, but /e/OS is okay) don’t need my recommendation.
For most people it’s just a pretty expensive mid-range-specced phone.
Promises, promises…
Here’s hoping they’re still around in 7 years.
I’m not really conviced by fairphone. They claim they have an ethical and ecological supply chain / manufacturing but there is very little on their website to support that claim. The phone is made in China like any other smartphone. The “Fairtrade Gold” label doesn’t mean Gold-rank fairtrade materials, it means that only the actual gold that’s inside the phone has the fairtrade label. The amount of gold in a phone is ridiculously small and doesn’t represent the major part of the phone’s emissions footprint. They have another label which name I can’t remember but I looked it up and the terms are very vague. After all the electronic components are still electronic components : copper wires made from copper, qualcomm CPU made in the same qualcomm factory, etc. I don’t think a label changes that.
All in all I don’t think that buying a brand new, 580 € smartphone with subpar performance is a good move if you care about the environment. Buying a used phone sounds like a much better option to me : cheaper, better performance, probably not as serviceable BUT it’s already living a second life anyways.
I tried to be enthusiatic but FP looks way too much like a cash grab aimed at people that care about the environment
You’re right that Fairphone’s supply chain is not fully sustainable. In fact, I remember reading an interview with the founder where he admitted that poor sustainability and labour practices are so entrenched in the industry that it was impossible to actually make a “fair” Fairphone. (Incidentally, this is why the company uses the word “fair*[er]*” to describe the phones.)
Yeah, I would definitely agree that a used phone is a much more environmentally-friendly choice than a brand-new one. The amount of customers who are going to ditch their 1 or 2 year old phone for this “sustainable” phone will unfortunately not be zero…
My problem with FP isn’t only that their phone lacks in features and sustainability. It’s that their whole PR and marketing is misleading. They hold back a lot of essential information to trick the customer into thinking that the phone is good for the environment. I would be more enclined to support them if they were honest about it ; right now it looks like corporate BS intended to make a maximal profit, like any other phone company
They are a European company. If they lied about any of this, an NGO would have already bisected them since then.