Thoughts?
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.
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.
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.
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…
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’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Add to it the very mediocre hardware (slow, outdated SoC, terrible camera, bad battery life) and it’s not a fun phone to use.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.
You can get a pretty top of the line smartphone for that price, which I’m also not willing to pay for either.
Let’s hope EU regulations can make smartphones generally a bit more sustainable.
I renewed phones late last year and I pondered on getting the FP4, but I was unhappy with the camera and even though it’s replaceable it is not upgradeable. I got instead a Pixel 6A and it’s a pleasure to use (tolerating all the Google stuff).
I have high expcetations for FP5
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.
terrible camera
Phone cameras quality does not really depend on hardware these days. It’s all software.
Get yourself a hacked Google Camera. Night and Day change.
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 😅
Ive been using my Fairphone 3 every single day since January 2020. I did have a vibration motor wear out, but its replaceable so its fine. My battery is a bit iffy now. According to a battery scan app I use, its at 63% health. I’ll be replacing that soon too since sometimes it will only charge up to a certain point etc. Still though, on any other phone, that would be a deal breaker, but since I can order a replacemt battery for like 25€, its not an issue.
Only other issue I have is sometimes the screen experiences ghost touches, where it will register a touch on the screen even when I’m not using it. Again, this will be fixed with a replacement later on.
I love my Fairphone and I strongly reccomend it for its repairablity alone. The sustainability and FairTrade aspects are just a bonus IMO.
I’ve had my FP3 for the same amount of time, still on all original components. Battery lasts through the day easy. The camera is bad, so I might replace that for the upgrade, but other than that I have no issues. My partner buys fancy phones and he is on his third phone in the same timeframe because they all broke. Shame your FP3 is not holding out as well as mine!
for me, the biggest issue with the fairphone is that they attempted to embrace everything: modular, sustainable, fair trade, etc
their competitors do none of that, so the quality/cost ratio turns out way off and that prevents their market share to grow sustainably (pun intended). the few people I know who use it, are the profile that is used to do sacrifices like that (like buying sustainable food at large markups, etc) but that’s not feasible or desirable to the vast majority
imo they should have picked a concept and perfected it - preferably the modular part which is the best thing you can do and brings tangible value to users. then move on to the other things… that’s a great cautionary tale about trying to be the good guys in capitalism, the system is not in their favour
For me the problem is the SoC they chose was too slow to be viable in 2018, let alone today.
“Too slow to be viable” is a bit strong. I’ve had a fairphone 4 for at least a year now and I’ve had no issues.
I want these people to try living with an ancient galaxy s5 for a couple months, browsing the web is borderline physically painful, it gets so hot that touching the screen almost burns you, and it has so little RAM that it struggles to keep two apps active at once.
Literally if i have music playing and i open the browser it usually kills the music in the background.
my current phone has the same soc and there are absolutely no issues there. will report back once i get my fairphone 4, hopefully tomorrow
if you’re not gaming on your phone (and if you are, 1. why, 2. get a steamdeck), i honestly don’t see how you would notice the soc. the only time i ever noticed that my phone was weak in the past five years (and my current phone is the only one that was low-mid-range, not actual low-end, save for an iphone se 3rd gen i had for half a year) was during zooming into an abnormally large upscaled r/place image. a phone’s performance is not really something that should be a consideration for the average user nowadays, anything can run basic apps that should have been websites and play back video. the mid-tier 2021 soc in the fairphone 4 definitely qualifies.
if the complaint is about the fairphone 3, then absolutely fair, i do remember that that one did manage to be hella slow. i wanted one back then and it was one of the major issues.
- I’m gaming in moonlight so it needs a good decoder
- I’m way too poor for a steam deck
Slide in a 3 here just cause termux x11 + box64droid is really coming along well and I want to be able to play all my games in my phone lol. Especially cause where I work has a lot of down time, but obviously not room for a full pc
I do some light nuisance games on my phone, but I absolutely can tell the difference between the 888 in my phone and a 865, let alone the thing in the fairphone.
Sure, I’m spoiled, but I am not willing to give up 120hz at 120fps in my apps and instant loading in the ui nor will I ever get anything but oled again.
If you’re asking for a 5+ year commitment to the device, which is kind of what this repairability thing does, you either have to be at the leading edge or have an upgrade path.
Fairphone has neither, they’re starting at 2 years behind but want me to pay as if they’re a modern midrange.