Comment by acastcandream@beehaw.org on Fairphone 5 Released

With 5 years of OS support and 8 years of security update.

Related threads:

They are offering a minimum of 8 years of software support. 5 years is the warranty. I’m not sure why OP wrote that, it’s not what was announced.

With the pace of OS updates that Fairphone had so far, it will be 8 years of OS updates. But only because the OS updates will be 3 years late.

The FP4 just got Android 12 earlier this year, with no Android 13 in sight.

Sorry, I misunderstood what OP was trying to say. I didn’t realise they were talking about feature updates when they mentioned the 5 years. A security patch is still an update to the operating system and evidence of support, so my initial reaction was that they were wrong when they said “5 years of OS support”.

ah… I will flash it with a custom rom anyway from day 1 :D

5 years of OS updates is more than you get from any other Android manufacturer. For everyone else in the space, you are lucky to get 3.

It’s 8 apparently
5 years is as long as most phones that I used last so there would be no point to buy it

Fair wages for the people making the phone is also a selling point of this phone. It’s not just about repairability.

That said I’m also not writing this from a Fairphone, because the price is too high for me.

That may be true but how are they guaranteeing this on a component level? As far as I know, they use off the shelf stuff so they only have assembly wages. And that doesn’t justify the price imo.

You can take a look at their impact reports they release every year: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Fairphone-Impact-Report-2022.pdf

They keep close track of materials used and wage paid for all their suppliers. They also pay wage bonuses to the workers at some of their suppliers (page 41).

slower

How fast do you need your phone to be for sending messages, streaming video, or browsing the web? Every phone made in the last decade can do these things.

The high price actually cancels the point of the repairability. I can get a similar phone for easily €400-500 less. If I budget that extra price for repairs, I can get the battery and screen replaced quite a few times.

I say that as an FP4 owner, who did the same calculation mistake there.

Let’s see. There is still no Android 13 on the FP4.

At least CalyxOS, DivestOS offer Android 13 builds for FP4 (and obviously LineageOS, but it doesn’t have OTA updates, afaik)

There’s a clear trajectory where this is heading. From 2027 the EU will enforce replaceable batteries and it looks like some other markets might follow. Software support duration is increasing a lot as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d get most of the Fairphone’s benefits on a regular Samsung in a few years.

Well…aside from the fair supply chain, liveable wages, humane working conditions, environment footprint…

4 years including security updates though right? If that’s the flcase then fairphone’s doing 8 years.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to offer support for longer than the chipset

Actually in the past they updated their software even past the support from qualcomm, rewriting by themselves what was needed to allow and old chipset to run newer android version

Source

Yeah, well, they are just doing what custom ROM makers have been doing for a decade and a half.

My old Droid 4 was also EOL after Android 4.1. Custom ROM makers pushed this up to Android 7.1 by ignoring the parts (e.g. the Kernel) that they couldn’t update.

Sure, but the good is that this is the only company doing it. Also my Galaxy Nexus received a big kernel update from people at xda developers, but was by chance and good will of the people involved. Here they did it because they kept up the commercial promise behind the product they sell, something that basically no other company in this sector does (or they do, but with very short term promises).

The price is also higher because they use fair trade gold and whatnot. Given the mission to clean up the electronics industry it’s plesently suprising it doesn’t cost more

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Fairphone 5 Released(shop.fairphone.com)

Technology

!technology@beehaw.org

Community stats

Community moderators