The new fairphone 5 came out, it looks cool but the price is really, really high…
If it’s a phone that can really last 10 years it could be good, but is that true? Is it worth it? I could get the one with /e/os from Murena because i want a degoogled phone with a bootloader locked, but is it usable on a daily basis?
I bought the FP3, then upgraded it to an FP3+ when the camera broke. Never had as much fun with a phone before or since. It has been my daily driver for years and it did everything well enough, if a bit slow. My friends either get new phones or use them despite visible damage because they can’t fix them. Now I ordered the FP5 to have the 3+ as a backup and test setup and I am confident I will use the FP5 for 3-6 years again :)
Fairphones are like an odd car: There are sleeker, faster, cheaper and maybe just better alternatives around. However you still like it and just learn where to hit it with a hammer when it starts making funny noises. If you can afford it and like odd devices, it’s for you.
Don’t hit your phone with a hammer please . 🤓
You can’t tell me what to do!!!
…but it kinda makes sense, so I won’t hit it with a hammer 😐
I believe that the price is reasonable overall: it has good specs and now that FP is an established brand you know it won’t go out of business and support will last. /e/OS has become good enough lately to be reliable to daily drive (it requires some initial adjustment, but nothing to be worried about).
Also, they are phones that withhold their value in the secondary market: a used FP3+ on ebay costs more than 400€ and it had a launch price of 439€, so you can easily sell them for a good price if you ever change your mind about owning one.
The only thing that makes me hesitant to buy one is the fact that now the EU is pushing a lot of consumer friendly laws, like mandatory USB-C, replaceable batteries, extended software support and so on… So in two or three years the smartphone market might offer more high-end products that are long lasting and have a more accessible price tag. It only depends on how much time can you wait.Edit: added links to sources
Still using my 6 yo Pixel 2 XL with a custom rom. Not planning to change and I easily see how I can get to 10 years. For instance, the repairability allowed me to change a cracked screen, as it would be possible with the Fairphone.
Downscale your needs and you can easily do 10 years in my opinion!
I don’t know dude, you can downscale your needs all you want but if you drop your phone on the ground and break the screen you can only hope there are third party manufacturer that still produces it or you can toss it away.
Most decent phones still have replacement parts available, though obviously they are not always identical in quality to the original.
If you’re not a power user, then it’ll probably work fine for several years. And it will be cheap and easy to replace the battery in 3-5 years when it starts to degrade, or replace the screen if you drop it. Not sure if a full 10 year lifespan is realistic, though.
And you’re right, the price is high, but it’s not supposed to be an affordable phone. The stated goal of the Fairphone is to be better for the environment and better for people than most other electronics. So, they have to do things like use sustainable materials and source parts from places that treat their workers well. All of that means that Fairphones will NEVER be as cheap as other brands. Because doing things right costs more.
We’ll probably never be allowed Fairphone in USA, which I’ve been eying since before launch. Curiosity got the better of me anyway; it’s still cheaper than iPhone https://eu.mobgsm.com/mobile/apple-iphone-14-pro-max-price-in-europe
Depends on what you’re using the phone for. Personally, my usage isn’t very demanding, so having a phone that’s going to have security updates and a replaceable battery will probably let me use the phone for 5+ years.
I probably won’t keep the phone for 10 years, but it means I can upgrade on my schedule, not just because some company decided for me.
I can hear consumers now, “ But I want muh planned obsolescence!”
I’ve had a Fairphone 4 for just under a year running CalyxOS, and I am very happy with it. Not sure when / if CalyxOS will be available for FP5, but unless they have locked down anything, I don’t see why that shouldn’t happen. If I understand your post correctly, it is already available with e/OS/?
Maybe the specs are underwhelming, but with the FP4, it does not affect me the slightest based on my use case. Phones are more than good enough already. I do not play any games on my phone. Camera could be better - maybe it is on FP5? Is it the perfect phone? Nope, but at the moment, I think our choices are too limited if you want privacy and repairability. Supporting a company that pushes these kinds of phone is also a reason I went with this phone.
Swapable batteries are nice - I’ve not made use of it yet, but I am planning on getting one or two spare batteries for travel to keep in a printed case. In the EU, this will be mandatory in the future, but first form 2027. Other than that, I am happy with the ability to buy spare parts if something breaks. I can’t see myself ever buying something that is deliberately unrepairable again when there is no reason it should be. I don’t mind the lack of 3.5mm-port, which I know irritates a lot of people. If you swear to this, I can understand that this is disappointing. There exists an adapter, but my experience with these kind of adapters is that they quickly wear out. That was my experience with the iPhone and Apple’s own adapters at least. I burned through four in 1-2 years.
Running a Fairphone 4 with IodéOS (another de-Googled privacy focused Android) for close to two years now and I agree that it’s a capable phone which doesn’t limit myself in any way.
As you mentioned the biggest downside is the camera, which apparently has something to do with the firmware.
Edit: regarding the headphone situation: I’m using Austrian Audio (=former AKG engineering team) Hi-X25BT headphones, which are noticeably better than pods or cheap headphones and have been running well over a year now. They come with both (mini-)jack to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C cables, but I haven’t tried the latter yet.
Ten years is an extremely long time in tech and we might not even be using phones as we currently know them by then.
It might not be. Consider that moore’s law is coming to an end. I fully expect more and more products to be cloud based and ai based. I don’t think ai can run on our phone even in the near future. Battery is another issue, you can’t afford to run too much stuff on it.
We as consumers now need to adjust to the ending moore’s law.
God I hope so. I’m sick of consumer tech constantly being in a marketing cycle
To me it doesn’t look like that long a time for another revolutionary piece of tech to make its way, but what do you think would be the next big thing?
Nope, can’t find one here, first of all. And even if it were available here, I can just degoogle other model for much better price anyways.
From a privacy perspective: no
From a fairness and repairability perspective: yes
Why is it bad from a privacy perspective?
It’s not bad, it’s just that it’s an Android phone like any other. It doesn’t claim to be more “private”. It would be approximately the same amount of work to degoogle as any other Android phone.
Probably easier if they dont actively try to prevent you from unlocking & rooting
The default Fairphone OS has Google and a bunch of other trackers.
For a good privacy friendly Fairphone, you should get the Murena Fairphone (they preinstalled DeGoogled /e/OS)
So not really worse than any other Android phones
No worse, and with the benefits of a re-lockable bootloader and widespread custom OS support.
A second-hand phone is always worthier
Had the fair phone 4 since launch running e/os, then there was an update that was rinsing the battery so I went back to stock android. Performance just wasn’t good on stock so i got fed up and got an s3 ultra. No more privacy but never had a better phone. Now the fair phone is just collecting dust; I like the idea of it but just needs a bit more juice
I use the FP3. It’s an old device but I find it very responsive, and keeps up with what I need it to do personally. I like it, but don’t like Android. I wish the device had more RAM though.
The FP5 looks promising (and big 😳) the only turn offs for me are no 3.5mm headphone jack, and the price could do with another 150-200 off at least. Since FP is a niche company with some special supply chain arrangements, I think this price is the best we’ll get for now (unless you trade in an old device for recycling for money off), but it’s still expensive.
If you value the ability to own and repair your device, the knowledge that people further down in the supply chain get paid a little extra when they’re collecting materials for Fairphone, and that your device will very, very likely get supported for the full time they claim (and even longer in the case of the FP2), then it’s probably worth it.
Otherwise, a new/recent Pixel (eligible to recieve GrapheneOS updates) is another very good option.
Regardless of what device you choose, if you want to keep your next phone for 10 years, you’ll want a lot of onboard storage - but keep as much things as possible on an SD card. This is to avoid burning out your onboard NAND, since it has a finite lifespan and not replaceable.
Pixels don’t support SD cards AFAIK, so if you go for one of them I’d recommend going for the highest builtin storage that you can afford (especially if it’s a used one)
Another FP3 user here.
I wish the device had more RAM though.
I use lineageos with zram on mine. It works wonders
What is zram? It it a baked in feature of Lineage or is it an add on? I’ve got MicroG LOS on my FP3 and it runs well enough.
Zram basically compresses the ram. Afaik it’s enabled by default in LOS.
Since we are in a privacy subreddit, I will say that Fairphone is second only to the Google Pixel in terms of support for privacy focused versions of Android. For privacy specifically, they are a great choice.
But the price is just too much, jesus. I can’t spend 600 euros on a phone
Kids are very cheap labour. If you want them to build a phone for you, just buy any other brand.
Bruh so sorry if for me a purchase of 600 euros is just too much, i don’t work and i don’t expect to receive money from anybody right now, so i guess if you are the one who wants to give me the opportunity of not putting kids to build my next phone then now’s your big chance
Just ignore the downvotes, people are garbage and that doubles online!
Yes indeed, reddit taught me this already
Subreddit? You high man? Do you need some water? Have you eaten well?
No.
No headphone jack, no buy. It’s not a question of whether a headphone jack is useful to you, it’s just the principle of it - there’s no good reason to remove it (especially for the asking price of FP5), and more importantly, it goes against what the Fairphone stands for, IMO. I can understand if it were some other profit-driven company making a shrewd business decision, but for Fairphone to do it, seems very unfair to me.
“This phone has a port I’m not going to use & I’m angry out of morals”
I’m still on a CRT because most new TV don’t have AVI for some reason, I convert AVI to HDMI on my CRT but its about the morals.
Often a phone with no heasphone jack will offer a higher degree of waterproofing performance. Not the case with the Fairphone, I’m guessing because it’s modular. But doesn’t that mean I can add a headphone jack?
Regarding the “no good reason to remove it,” my understanding was that Samsung opted to remove it to increase the water resistance rating. Unfortunately the fairphone 4 only has an IP54 rating, so that’s certainly not the case here.
Apparently they address the headphones jack question in an article on fairphone’s support page.
On the GrapheneOS side, a used Pixel 5a js the last good phone… both size and a headphone jack. Sucks a lot.
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There is a good reason to remove it. Especially for a company like fairphone. Why waste resources and money into making a redundant component (USB-C can do audio, also the majority of people have switched to wireless audio) when you’re trying to make a planet-conscious product?
There is no good faith argument that can be made for the removal of the headphone jack. Companies removed it to sell overpriced wireless headphones.
They said it was due to size, but new phones are quite chunky these days so that’s not true. Waterproofing? Can be done, many phones have waterproofing and a headphone jack.
Costs? Come on it’s a very simple, very old, plastic bit.
And sustainability? “planet-conscious”? You must be kidding. It’s way better to use regular headphones than the wireless pieces of crap with batteries and an amplifier and a bluetooth receiver in them.Well good luck then. Because enough of us have absolutely no problem with using the usbc or Bluetooth. I rarely even listen to music anymore anyway so it’s not something I use.
Companies removed it to sell overpriced wireless headphones.
Of course, I’m not denying this. That still doesn’t negate my point about audio jacks being redundant ports.
It’s way better to use regular headphones than the wireless pieces of crap with batteries and an amplifier and a bluetooth receiver in them.
Yes, and those regular headphones CAN be plugged into phones without headphone jack via the USB-C port
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think phones without a headphone jack should have a second USB C port instead.
I can get behind this
I miss the simplicity of plugging in something that worked reliably well 100% of the time tho
majority of people have switched to wireless audio
Citation needed. Also, just because people have “switched” to wireless doesn’t mean that they don’t have a pair of old wired headphones still lying around somewhere, unused, eventually turning into e-waste. Also, I suspect a significant portion of Fairphone users are the kind who’d still hold on to wired headphones.
when you’re trying to make a planet-conscious product?
The first rule in making a planet-conscious product is the RRR - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. If people already have wired headphones, then the most eco-friendly solution would be to enable users to continue to use them, and not force them to buy even more new products. And as a manufacturer, there’s practically no shortage of 3.5mm jacks around (plenty of old devices where the parts can be recycled from), and there’s almost no complexity involved in wiring up or making circuitry for something that’s been a standard for several decades.
Citation needed.
I don’t have a source ready with me to back up my statement. But at least here in India, almost everyone I see in public transportation use wireless earbuds. Usually I look like the odd one out for wearing wired earphones.
If people already have wired headphones, then the most eco-friendly solution would be to enable users to continue to use them, and not force them to buy even more new products.
You absolutely don’t need to go out and buy a new headphones if your phone doesn’t have an audio jack. Just buy a dongle. Yes, I’m aware that this is worse for the planet than just including an audio jack in the phone. But if you buy a dongle once, you don’t have to worry about your future phones not having a headphone jack. So in the long run, this move is better for the planet.
How is buying a dongle you shouldn’t need better for the planet than a phone manufacturer providing a headphone jack??? The phone already has a DAC in it, they literally only need to include the actual port
almost everyone I see in public transportation use wireless earbuds. Usually I look like the odd one out for wearing wired earphones.
your sample is incredibly biased, you’re taking 1 demographic and assuming everyone acts like that. Go into a recording studio and see how many wireless headphones they use, Go to a concert and see how they are driving their speakers. Just because a lot of consumers use wireless earphones in an environment that doesn’t lend itself to good audio (like public transport), doesn’t mean most people are using it.
How is buying a dongle you shouldn’t need better for the planet than a phone manufacturer providing a headphone jack??
Did you even read my reply fully?
Go into a recording studio and see how many wireless headphones they use
Recording studios also don’t use a smartphone to do their work.
Even if we do assume that the majority of the world still uses wired earphones, it still makes sense to remove the audio jack for reasons I have explained already.
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it’s not a redundant component at all. USB-C doesn’t carry analogue audio. You need an external DAC to convert that digital signal to analogue to make it usable. You can’t plug your headphones into a USB-C port.
Basically you need to buy a 10$ dongle to make it work. How hard is that?
It’s not hard. It’s wasteful and unnecessary. It means you can’t charge your phone and listen to music at the same time. There are no advantages to removing the headphone jack
It’s too expensive for me. Not worth it when a used Pixel is way cheaper, has way better hardware and has support for GrapheneOS.
It might be expensive when you compare it to the lifetime of a regular phone, but compare it to what you’d spend instead on regular phones within the potential lifetime of 7-8 years of the FP5 (minus 1-2 minor repairs).
Also no one is talking about that fact that it’s fair as in equitable. Like everyone who worked to make it got paid, which is not something you can say about any of the big phone makes AFAIK.
This does not only depend on the hardware’s lifespan but the software itself too. If there is no longtime support the average user might be better of using a more recent phone where all apps will work and there are not that much security issues.
Fairphone offers 8 years of software updates and aims to reach even 10.
Well they can promise updates yes. But they are limited on the android version to the manufacturer of the chips. The company shift which has a similar concept as Fairphone currently suffers from that problem: they cannot upgrade their shift5me to a higher version than android 8 and a lot of apps recently dropped their support to older android versions (e.g. banking apps)
Fairphone have been dealing with this problem of unsupported chips for quite some years now (the hardest lesson learned was probably selecting Mediatek for the FP1) and they’ve become better and better at it - up to the point, that they chose not a mobile, but an IoT SoC for the FP5 for which they got Qualcomm to commit to much longer support than ever before. I don’t see why reason, why they shouldn’t manage to stick to this commitment in this case. On top of that, they’re even working with Qualcomm to allow for replacable SoCs for future upgrades without having to replace the whole mainboard incl. storage etc.
