I am looking at getting one as my next phone when my Pixel 7 reaches EOL. Hopefully the Fairphones are still around by then and hopefully they get more support from custom ROMs. I know CalyxOS supports the Fairphone 4
I bought my Fairphone 3 back in January 2020. I’ve had it since. I love it.
Its not without its drawbacks. The camera in the stock Fairphone 3 kinda sucks. Not enough to make me buy a new phone, but compared to other phones in it’s price range, it is worse.
I tried to go full ‘unGoogle’ back in 2020 as well which led me to install a custom operating system. Namely /e/OS. While I love their mission and vision, the OS in general has been buggy as hell.
However, that’s mostly the OS. If you run stock Android, you will have a better experience.
I love how easy it is to repair. In the time I’ve owned it, its needed a new charging port. I ordered the part no problem from Fairphone’s website. It arrived, and was installed in a few minutes. Awesome. My phone probably needs a new battery now also. The battery health right now is at about 60% and it doesn’t last as long as it used to.
Overall, aside from the camera, I adore my Fairphone 3. I highly recommend it. I’m annoyed by the removal of the AUX / 3.5mm Headphone jack from the newer Fairphone 4 and 5, also I dont like how they were selling those wireless Fairbuds, those are not repairable and kind of fly in the face of their whole ethos. Their newer headphones, the Fairbuds XL are a huge improvement in that regard though. And I will probably buy them at some stage too.
So yeah 4.5/5 , it’s great!
Damn this is making me want the new one.
But I am struggling to give up a flagship camera. I have a new kid and it’s hard enough to get good photos.
Been doing the same with my fp3. Then reflashed to their normal firmware. Few weeks ago there came the Android 13 update to create a lot of mess, break everything. Check the official forums for the trouble people seem to have. Team fairphone seem to be late on updates yet still manage to squeeze all the bugs into them that they could find. I’m not convinced any more. I’m sitting on a borked update with no patch on sight while they announce yet another successor. Have they gone full Apple?
I have been using /e/OS for almost a year now and haven’t encountered any bugs this might be due to the the OS maturing since the time you tried. Just adding as a clarification for anyone who may wanna try it
Thanks to the fact that the 4 (and the 5) do not have a headphone jack, no, I have decided against buying it. That’s a damn shame
For a phone whose entire selling point is being the cool, down-to-earth, for the people, type phone. It’s kind of odd to me they don’t include something like this.
More importantly, BT headphones are inherently not sustainable compared to wired ones
I used to think that too. Then i got some wireless ones. I spent way more money getting replacement wired headphones and adapters than replacing my wireless ones. Only thing is, you gotta charge em.
This is the opposite for me because I keep losing them if I don’t put them immediately back in their charging case. But I don’t like bringing it wherever I go, so that’s the only draw back imo.
I do always put them right back, since i know me and id be the type to lose them otherwise too
Why do you think so? My wireless Samsung Buds are about 2 years old and they are working great, as if new. Meanwhile when I had various wired headphones before that, 2 years was about their top life, mostly because of the cable getting damaged, which you can’t replace anyway. So the argument of battery not being replaceable is totally irrelevant for me, and I think for most other people as well.
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The main complaint with buds is that they are comparatively easy to lose, on top of the small size and lots of glue making repairs difficult and heat hard to dissipate.
The ifixit teardown of the FP buds was also scathing.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+True+Wireless+Earbuds+Teardown/146449
Like the other guy said, you can get headphones with detachable cables like IEMs. They don’t even have to be expensive mind you. I have a 22€ pair with a replaceable cable.
Wired is still an option though thorough an adapter
Their selling point is repairability and well sourced materials - hence the price.
I’ve had a FP4 since launch, and the USB-C to 3.5 adapter has been attached to my headphones ever since. I’ve never been in a situation where choosing whether to charge or listen has caused a problem.
This, my phone is the same, no audio jack but a $1 dongle and I can use any 3.5mm headphone jack without problems
It’s probably a demand/cost offset. The demand for it probably doesn’t outweigh the increased cost of adding that component. Simply not worth it for them in the long run.
At the end of the day they are still a business and there to make money.
I get it, at the same time. It sucks. I just wish I could buy a swappable component or something. I know that’d be more expensive than just putting a headphone jack. It just sucks the options are limited.
Also this price. More expensive than a brand new iPhone, I wish I could buy one but it’s way too expensive.
Some parts of the Fairphone 3 are available anymore. A 3 years old phone that you can’t repair yourself anymore.
The price is due to repairability and better sourcing of materials. Much like cheap chocolate, iPhones, etc, are artificially cheap due to terrible labour practices in the supply chain.
If all someone cares about it technical performance vs price, they will never choose a fairphone.
Does the FP4 or FP5 can use a $1 dongle usb-c to audio jack?
Love the passive-aggressive tone of this one, lol.
USB-C is for charging and transferring data. Dongles suck, they break and ultimately they’re just an uncomfortable workaround.
I will never understand why people are so willing to defend companies that have decided to take away a pretty big feature from their phones with the only clear intention of selling garbage BT headphones
USB-C is 24 pins, taking a ground somewhere and 3 pins for left/right/mic is the best thing for phone. I have super solid braided adapter to plug my 3.5mm audio jack. No need to use Bluetooth even if my phone supports LDAC, AptX HD or AAC.
I have had a FP2 for 6,5 years and I’m pretty happy with it. It is still mostly functional but I’m having issues with the bottom mic. As I don’t make phone calls so often, it is not too big of a deal for me to use my bluetooth headphones when I do. But I know that getting spare parts for FP2 has become very difficult now so if the USB plug breaks down it will probably be game over this time.
Anyway, I repaired it a few times, either with new replacement parts I bought from the fairphone shop or ones I traded on the community forum. Bottom module, screen and even mother board.
I have had a premium experience with their tech support, also. When I purchased another used FP2 on the community forum for a family relative, it happened to arrive with a broken bottom module. Mic was not working. As this part was already sold out at that time and I could not find any on the aftermarket forum, I reached out to fairphone to kindly ask if they would agree to sell me one, as they were claiming to keep a few of them in store to fulfill their legal requirements in terms of warranty and stuff (not sure any FP2 was still covered by a warranty at that time but this was what was stated on their shop). To my biggest surprise, after reading my begging, they offered to send me a refurbished module free of charge. And when I asked if I could buy a battery at the same time to avoid having a separate parcel to be shipped for that, they just slipped a free battery along with the bottom module. Free of charge. I had never had such an amazing experience with any customer service before.
I’m running LineageOS and I’m happy with it. In terms of software updates, Fairphone went beyond their initial promise and it has been only recently that they dropped support for FP2.
When my FP2 dies, I’ll consider buying a FP5 and I’m happy to have this option. But for now, I’m just hoping it can last for another few months!
Holy shit that’s awesome. I’ve considered getting a Fairphone or comparable alternative for a while now. Only think holding me back was the design and limited color options (first world problems, I know) as having bricks to carry around is something I despise which is also a problem with new phones in general. They simply are too thick or the screens are too big.
I know for a fact that the FP2 is quite thick and bulky and often gives a bad first impression to people from an aesthetics point of view. Personally, that has never been an issue for me but that’s a matter of taste.
Anyway, I believe that anyone buying a Fairphone should do it for a reason and not like they would buy another a regular product. I wrote in this other thread (in French, unfortunately) that buying a Fairphone is like buying a compromise between fairness, repairability, environment concerns, aesthetics and technical performances. There have always been loads of reasons for people to complain about Fairphones. Either they are ugly & too massive or outdated or expensive, the list goes on. While those complaints can be true, one has to keep in mind that improving on one aspect (making a thiner phone, for example) has direct consequences on the others (like, a thiner phone is probably more difficult to be made modular, so either more pricey or less reliable). Someone replied that rather than being a purchase of a tradeoff, it is a purchase of another type of innovation. Instead of being technical innovation, it is social and environmental innovation. I kind of like that way of approaching it as well.
Also, I pointed out that there is no doubt that giants in the smartphone business would make fantastic ethical and repairable phones if they ever wanted to. Only they would have the ability to propose a series of models which would fulfill anyone’s needs. But hey, they don’t seem to care, do they? In the meantime, I am willing to support the only tiny actor in the field that is striving to at least try with their unique model.
Honestly, a bit of a mixed bag. The FP4 has some weird software issues sometimes, which you probably won’t see at the big name brands: ghost touches, camera crashes (requires a reboot), problems with call quality, etc. I think the pros probably outweigh the cons, but something to keep in mind.
Not sure how big the problems are with custom ROMs. Also, FP5 is coming soon(-ish), so maybe some of the problems will be fixed?
Why don’t you flash GrapheneOS onto your P7?
This is the answer
Because it is locked from my carrier ☹️
Who says I have not done that already?
I have a FP3 and I’ve been hugely disappointed with it. The fact that it’s repairable is only useful if the specs of the hardware are good enough to also last several years at a reasonable level of performance.
Also, some of the parts are rubbish - the prime example being the fingerprint sensor which always requires several attempts and then fails as often as not.
I knew I was getting a “budget” phone and I do still use it, but I had hoped it would be a better than it is. I feel like their business model is a huge missed opportunity in terms of upgrades and modularity. In theory, if they were doing it properly, why would they ever release a new model?
Unpopular opinion but I much prefer having polished hardware like on my Pixel 7 pro and have to melt glue to repair it, all while being able to update the software after eol (lineage, pixel experience, graphene, etc) than to have an already last gen phone that’ll only last for a few years more officially.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely behind For, but I can’t even get one in the United States. Framework on the other hand has latest gen components in a repairable form factor. I’m just waiting on a 2-in-1 from them.
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I have a FP4 and I’m very happy with it! It’s a little chunkier than my last phone, but I think it works great. I haven’t needed to repair it yet, but just knowing that I can is awesome. I never was one for the absolute cutting edge of smartphones, so I can’t really tell you how it compares to those, but the camera is more than enough, and everything feels as new as it needs to be!
I had some issues with occasional ghost touches before, as someone else mentioned, but they seem to (finally) have patched them out just a couple of weeks ago :D
I haven’t tried any custom roms on my FP4. But I can say I wholeheartedly support their work. Maybe the older ones had issues, but mine has been running smoothly ever since I bought it when it launched.
I’ve also dropped it like 200 times already, and haven’t a single crack. The back cover is cracked though, but that’s because I took it off so often to show people :P
All in all, 10/10.
I’ve had the fp4 since launch and instantly put e/os On it it works great and I love it. Hidden bonus, any in app ad/purchase straight up cannot load since the internal service is missing.
Though yes, the camera is nothing to write home about.
Edit: typos
What is the “I eternal service”?
What is the “era”?
Fixed
I had a FP2 that lasted maybe twice as long as an unfair phone. Played a game on it that seemed to be too much for the processor/RAM. I bought a FP3 just after the new camera for it came out. It’s starting to show similsr signs of processor/RAM issues. Thing is I haven’t used the FP3 nearly as much and all my gaming is on tablets now. I’m unsure if I can justify buying another heavily expensive phone like this. Maybe a used one for me instead?
I do love the repairability tho and how it tries to be Eco and socio friendly. Installing lineageOS was super easy and I love not having google know my every move (I get adverts in Greek and … Russian? Now as well as stuff for Muslims, I think they really don’t track me well anymore.) It’s probably also the only smart phone customer service who understands and was helpful when I wanted to know how to responsibly deal with a broken cover for the FP2.
I have a Fairphone 4 but it is my backup phone now. I got it over a year ago. Stock software sucked and it took forever to get Android 12, which came six months after everybody else had Android 13, and when it finally arrived it had broken bluetooth audio. So instead I ran with CalyxOS and that was fine and pretty much bleeding edge. The haptics suck and there are always ghost touches, which resulted in weird pocket dials of people on Signal and having to explain it away. The camera is not good at all, and no gCam mod makes it decent. The phone is repairable but only to a point; you can’t buy a new frame which sucks because mine bent and scratched the aluminum because there are no good cases for it. The plastic back cover tore where I took it off exactly four times in its life.
The screen is very good and the fingerprint reader works well every time.
For what I paid, it’s just not good hardware. The saving grace is that it’s a decent software experience because you have the option to install another OS and re-lock the bootloader.
Mine was daily used and abused for over a year and didn’t quite hold up to what I had previously gotten from iPhones in an Otterbox, and the selling point that I could repair it wasn’t really realistic because I can’t get the actual part that I need.
Fairphone really needs to partner with somebody to get a ruggedized case made.
My daily driver now is a OnePlus phone that I got for free, and OxygenOS is a better Android than stock, it has a good camera and meets my needs better. It also takes SD cards and has a 3.5mm jack and has a rugged case from Poetic.
