you got me

almost like a toyota, outdated and often too expensive for what it can do but will last forever.

Can confirm, nothing broke yet :(

I was so ready to go hard on this comment, you got me there pal.

Ironically Nokia* now make highly repairable phones** again

* Specifically, the company that bought the Nokia Phones brand

** Only their G series

I had the same thing with the FP2. I even got a cheap spare one from ebay to use for spares. Both are still fine. One is now an alarm clock and the other one is a gps for my bike

Yeah, the Fairphone 2 is 7 years old and you can still buy all the important replacement parts directly from their store.

Yeah, they're touting this as if it isn't old news. Yes, the phones are cool and yes, America can't have them. What else.

Not including wireless charging IS caring about the environment. Wireless charging is extremely wasteful and inefficient.

"we want to reduce e-waste by forcing everyone to throw out their wired headphones and buy a new set of wireless ones every couple of years when the battery goes dead"

The hypocrisy enrages me here

The problem is there is no competition here. I’d love to see several repairable smartphones with slightly different features that create some competition. For example something with a max 5.5” screen and only a single camera.

Usable battery size? The FP5 has a 4200mah battery which is about 500mah less than the s23 plus which is pretty reasonable and I've found it very usable for day to day use. Wireless charing is a pointless gimmick personally and I don't see the utility of it. Lack of a headphone jack is a pain though.

My guess for the real reason is that they buy off-the-shelf components from suppliers and don't have enough money to design and order a custom motherboard with a headphone jack.

Jep their decision that I shouldn't waste energy is the reason i don't want one(wireless charging)

Actually, they do.

The Fairphone 3 was upgradable to the Fairphone 3+ by buying spare parts like the camera and installing them yourself.

The thing is that phones don't really need upgrades.

Unfortunately you need something with long firmware and software support. Qualcomm is your enemy, they stop updating the firmware of their chips after about two years and that's why android phones often stop getting updates less than 2 years after you buy them.

they're selling refurbished FP4s now but yeah, buy used phones, or at least B-stock.

Used devices still break and end in landfills, though, used might be better than new for carbon output today, but repairable is gonna win out in that regard long term

I've replaced a few screens that were glued in place (Samsung being one), just had to warm them with a hair dryer and used a playing card to cut through the adhesive. Easy-peasy.

You're not allowed nice things until you get rid of the guns, remember?

If you have friends in the EU, maybe you could pay them what it would cost in terms of buying and shipping the phone over here. Or, if you can find one, maybe there's someone online who does imports that might be willing to help import one.

But yeah, I really hope they expand their business here even though they'll be absolutely 100% legally bullied out of business and forced to leave the US market because cApItAlIsM.

I'm the US... Literally a new phone every one or two years.

If you're thrifty like me, it's every four years. And watch as that phone suffers from bad battery life, then incredible slowdown, then apps not updating/working, or worst... your phone provider refuses to support your device any longer. You Feel forced to upgrade your perfectly workable mobile device.

We pay a subscription fee for both the service AND the hardware.

The Google Ara was supposed to be exactly this. I think it has since been abandoned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#:~:text=Google%20planned%20to%20launch%20a,planned%20consumer%20launch%20in%202017.

Yes I'm very disappointed the the FP4 looks almost the same as the FP4 but isn't backwards compatible in the slightest... I was looking forward to upgrade my screen.

I see it more like a hacker news style "show HN"

I tried /e/OS too, and had a great experience. The system has a polished feel and a lot of privacy-oriented settings by default, when compared to stock android.

I see a lot of criticism about that OS on reddit/lemmy, but never objectively stating what they mean, so I don't know what to think about it.

Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps

It's the same on my Pixel 6a with CalyxOS and the Aurora Store (anonymous access to Play Store). We simply cannot get a paid Play Store app to work without logging into Google. I can get my bank app, local transit app, firefox, bitwarden, etc from there as well as what I've settled on for driving nav, HereWeGo.

That's TomTom's free nav app and it appears to get it's traffic info from the commercial solutions TomTom provides to truckers (paid service for them). It's good enough, but I do miss Google Maps sometimes. I like it better than Apple Maps.

Most everything else is handled through FDroid and the apps are decent to great, no show stoppers. I don't use it for much that would leak privacy on the app side besides banking, browsing and navigation though. It's not for everyone.

The only way I can think of to use paid apps is to pay the developer directly and then sideload. I don't even know if any devs do that.

As long as /e/os hangs tough my next phone will probably be a FairPhone, I really dig the philosophy and repairability.

Lineage OS can (optionally) link to Google services, so that would be a suitable OS for users needing Google

I wonder if its just cheaper to make the crappy disposable devices, either because just gluing shit together is easy, or because the existing business model & supply lines based on planned obsolescence are established and optimised.

Ultimately any business model based on chasing anything but the most money is going to be at a disadvantage under capitalism. Want to prioritise good products, less waste, human dignity, not destroying the ecology? Well, you're going to make less money, so you can spend less on capturing market share and you will always have a more niche and more expensive product that will be left behind by products that focus on money above all else.

Needs indefinite software support too. It has 8 years software support, which is the best that exists I think, but that means I'll have to trash it in 8 years for no good reason. The only reason I've had to get rid of old phones is because they weren't providing security updates anymore.

Imo, paying a small extra for the device makes sense because it's not a huge company, and the r&d must be expensive.

the OS is missing features, i'll give you that. but it's never as buggy as the 300€ phones people compare it to. trust me, i owned a Poco X3.

Indeed. I own the 3 and it's ups and downs. In the end it is still good enough plus the aspect of more fairness in the whole process.

Do report these on the FP forum when you encounter them, the staff seem pretty proactive at getting these fixed, although it takes them a while... (at least they were for the FP3 - even community requests for a very low screen brightness were honored, and now they're supporting two versions of android for the FP3 due to Google's fingerprint sensor requirement nonsense on Android 13)

Own a fp4, dont have any issues. But i am running lineageOS on it :')

While the headphone issue is problematic, it's a single issue amidst a deluge of ethical and sustainable practices by the company. Including, but not limited to:

Fairphone carefully sources the components in every device, and the workers who put them together have safe and healthy working conditions. Where possible, Fairphone uses recycled materials (plastic, tin solder paste, steel, and nickel alloy), sources Fairtrade gold, and buys cobalt and silver credits to support the improvement of working conditions for miners.

The factories that make the Fairphone pay a living wage to workers. It also employs 100 percent renewable energy. Fairphone invests in projects to reduce CO2 emissions, and to balance bringing a new phone into the world, Fairphone recycles the equivalent amount of e-waste. It has a B Corp certification, which means its claims have been independently vetted, and Fairphone regularly releases impact reports.

(As reported by wired.com)

Absolutely they should get push back on the headphone situation. But calling it "greenwashibg marking bs" is textbook "letting perfect be the enemy of good". Simply put, almost no other company even competes with Fairphone in the field of ethical phone manufacturing.

Are you going to back that up with something or stick to "my word is truth"? Because it doesn't take much to go to their site and see that the earbuds are discontinued. Or that for a company full of it they sure go to great lengths about being transparent. They even have a page explaining why they removed the headphone jack.

I get that their own site could all be "just marketing" but that's why I'm asking where's the proof that they're as shitty as you claim?

they certainly don’t care about their customers.

Yes, because if they did they would make sure to provide the security required by GrapheneOS.

I mean, how many people still use wired earbuds? I'd be surprised if it is 5% of users

The headphone jack is worse off than just the USBc port.

While I'd like two USB ports (one in top and in on bottom), the headphone jack won't be missed.

I can disagree with this a little. At least the bootloader isn't locked. But overall, you're right.

I have to say that in terms of software the team is amazing. They seem to listen to the community, and work super hard to keep up with the updates.

USB C Port is a little looser than I would like

Maybe yours is one that barely passed QC. That's one of the replaceable modules though right? Might be worth contacting CS about.

Couldnt the fp3 camera be replaced with the plus camera? Or is it low res too?

I run /e/ OS on my FP4, super easy install. Been loving it.

small company, my dude. they only have a few hundred employees, but they have said numerous times that they are planning to bring a full release to the US.

Technically you can buy one in the US, but spare parts (especially the battery) might pose some issues

Link

But it's deGoogled running something called /e/OS, and it's only compatible with T-Mobile and stuff that uses their network

I'd love a fully featured one here in the states that can be brought to any carrier over here

Well they don't ignore that market. They decided to not sell there yet. Because going to a new large market far away from all your warehouses and with a potential large demand cause a lot of headaches. Not to mention all the regulations and rules they need to abide by.

While you might be right, does that mean we should all stop trying to be sustainanble because "oil company bad"? At least they're trying to set the right example.

Prices for parts and the actual service being carried out are often more than half the price of a new device so even people that would want to repair end up not doing so. The Fairphone is seriously improving that equation!

have you tried to repair a regular phone? i have disassembled my fairphone down to the motherboard numerous times just for the fun of it. there are no adhesives to replace in the entire phone. you just need a screwdriver.