The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years
With five major OS ugrades and eight years of patches.
Fairphone’s latest repairable device is for people who hate saying goodbye to an old smartphone more than they like buying a new one.
As someone who knows a good portion of the Fairphone staff in person, and knows they have a great atmosphere and are mostly great people: Fuck you @Fairphone for leaving my perfectly working FP1 dead in the water without SW updates, and removing the spare parts for the FP2 from the store around the time my FP2 needed them (USB charging port, battery), and for making every new fairphone larger, not offering a SINGLE phone in a proper pocket size (like the FP1).
For users who can live with the tablet-size of modern smartphones: Yes, repairability and longterm support for more recent phones appears not too bad, certainly better than most competitors, but still - if you are someone like me, who treats a phone well, you can not expect to be able to find spare parts by the time wear & tear from normal use will make it necessary.
If you can't buy parts a decade after something is purchased, the repairability is a gimmick, a sales trick.
I'm not making a joke, that's the truth of it, imo.
That's how old the fairphone is.
My lgg3 is a year younger, and it's a pain in the ass to find a real battery, but LG didn't sell the thing with the idea of users being able to repair and upgrade. You expect an LG phone to have poor parts availability after a decade.
Like you said, a phone under normal use should last a decade plus. Barring failure of the main board, which is kinda where replacing that part means it's a new phone rather than a repaired phone, if you're still left with a device that you can't get parts for, it's landfill waste. Kinda puts a damper on sustainability as a factor.
Fairphone is a gimmick, and it always has been. A good gimmick to be sure, but a gimmick.
Sadly yes, I like the company philosophy, and I understand that - with regards to device size - due to them being small, they can only run 1 product line, no parallel small phone. But what I do not understand then is how they feel they have to release a new model every 2 years, which also drives switching the production lines for older model spare parts. That's not sustainability in my eyes. I was severely disappointed after Fairphone advocated for repairability with "the most sustainable smartphone is your old one, if you continue using it", and still having my Fairphone 1(!) in tip top condition (the only part that broke was the power button, which I repaired myself with an iFixit tool & a soldering iron) but no longer being able to use it because SW support is discontinued. I was even more disappointed when my FP2 finally started having problems charging because the USB port was becoming wobbly / loose, and not being able to purchase a new bottom module because "sorry, we're on FP4 now, only spare parts we still ship are FP3 and higher".
So now I am on shiftphone 6mq - which is not necessarily smaller, but might be usable with free OS + docking station sooner than a FP ever will.
As you say - a good gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless.
I always think about auto repair when repairability comes up. I could still get parts for my 30yo jeep. Hell people make parts for collector vehicles, even 90 year old Model A cars.
Now, you might say modern cars are less repairable but I can also get software to diagnose and configure my 5yo Toyota 4Runner. And if I upgrade some parts it doesn't void the warranty because of consumer friendly laws.
Tech would be very different if it followed these patterns.
That's interesting. Can parts be found on other resellers or sites or is Fair phone the only suppliers for these parts?
This kinda defeats the purpose of buying one.
From other people you would only get used parts. To be fair, the Fairphone community is quite good and supportive, and there are people there that collect broken phones from users, salvage them for parts & repair phones for users. But if you would like to procure original, new parts, you should not count on the FP company to provide any beyond the support duration that they promise in writing (not sure what that is right now).
My understanding is that they alone can't give driver updates, which is why they choose a chip for FP5 which will get supported longer. (That doesn't explain regular software not getting updates)
I assume you looked elsewhere for Fairphone 1 parts?
You mean FP2 parts? I could have gotten them only from the Fairphone community. But I spent some time waiting for an opportunity where we would have met anyways, and I found no battery replacement, because tjat was the first component in most FP2s to fail (apart from a Display problem which was early on though and fixed under warranty)
Same here, they lost me after fp1 which didn't receive security updates anymore. FP2 had this weird rubber band that got loose quickly with everyone I know who had one. Stopped following after that.
Ultimately the problem is Google. The minimum system requirements for Android keep going up with every release and Google stops providing updates to older releases at some point (typically 5 years after that version was initially released). That effectively puts an upper bound on the lifespan of any phone as at some point the phones CPU and memory aren't good enough to run the latest Android version at acceptable speeds. The lower end a phone was at original manufacturing the faster this all happens as well.
Apple is just as bad (far worse in some ways).
I've tried to find a solution, and the best I've seen is Linux phone, but that comes with some major downsides that are going to be deal breakers for most people. The two biggest ones are that battery life is abysmal unless you enable hibernation, but doing so, at least a year or so ago when I looked into it, disables your ability to receive calls while the phone is in hibernation. And secondly that NFC essentially doesn't work, or at least not for anything you care about like being able to make payments.
The FP2 rubber casing was discontinued for that reason, but the cheap plastic shells also broke quickly (well - from falls, mostly :D so they did accomplish what they are there for: protect the phone itself from breaking). I think beyond the initial rubber shell (which also disconnected from the harder plastic shell for me) I went through 3-4 hard shells, all of which I got for free from FP though on community meetings @ the FP HQ.
I'd prefer a smaller phone too but my main problem is fairphone ditched the headphones jack.
Then sold Bluetooth earbuds.
They don't care about electronic waste, they want their customers to throw away wired headphones and buy earbuds with batteries and wireless.
Oh did they? That is insanely dumb.... :(
This is why I've been holding off on getting one myself. I know murena sells the phone in the US, but last I checked they didn't sell parts, so there's no point in a repairable phone if I can't get parts.
Nokia has decent phones dirt cheap that you can repair yourself, and you can buy spare parts cheap too, and it runs completely vanilla Android, with good multi year upgrade policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh-7sMEDxyw
My wife has her eye on a Nokia G42, and it has both Micro SD slot and minijack. So you can use a 1TB MicroSD and laugh all the way to the bank at those who bought an S24 Ultra with 128GB 😂 🤪 😆 😜 😋
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=kh-7sMEDxyw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
S24U comes with 256GB, not 128
Yes you are right, I just remembered it was small for the price, especially considering it does NOT have micro-SD.
Sadly, Nokia doesn't support custom ROMs. But apart from that, they're great.
Fuck them for removing the headphone jack, it makes no sense at all
They have literally an explanation for this on their website. You might disagree, but saying "it makes no sense"...makes no sense.
Also, they discontinued the earbuds and still no jack on FP5, so the idea that "they wanted to sell their own buds" doesn't seem to be likely.
It makes no sense to me, their whole deal is sustainability, by removing the headphone jack it forces me to buy Bluetooth headphones that all have batteries in them and are presumably not up to Fairphone standards of sustainability.
And saying we're just following market trends sounds like a shitty explanation to me. I have the 3, I'll use it for as long as it works but after that no Fairphone for me.
I'm surprised they discontinued their buds. Thank you for pointing that out.
They're still selling a 250 Euro Bluetooth headset with the phone as a option
It makes perfect sense. They wanted to sell their own branded ear buds.
i carry an emergemcy audio adpater ony keychain now, thanks fairphone.
also, two of the 4 audio adapters i have are starting to break down, forcing me to buy new ones. real sustainable you guys
and yes, the one fairphone sells is one of the broken ones.
punish them by not buying their phone
I see so many be "angry" at them and yet they still buy the phone
I'm not buying it, I have a Fairphone 3 and I'll use it for as long as it works
I have the 4 and haven't missed it once 🤷
That seems to be most people, but for me it's a deal breaker.
Good for you.
Maybe the best part of the FP5 that is talked about little is that the main SoC is not a consumer grade Qualcomm chip, but an industrial grade one that will get driver and firmware upgrades for a much longer time than the consumer ones.
In addition it is fairly similar to other slightly older Qualcomm chips that already have main-line Linux kernel support, so the prospects of running Mobian or PostmarketOS on it are quite good.
Yeah, its about what comes in the Future
Google sure is creating a lot of Pixel-fanboys by instilling this myth that if you dont get daddy google's precious over-the-air updates delivered to your phone in 30 seconds after their release your phone might be at great risk®™ (exactly like if you dont let google play store scan the apps on your device to look for malicious software, like F-Droid, a common known attack vector).
Because surely Fairphone users are all government officials with nuclear codes and Kim Jong-un's nudes saved in their notes and teams of indian hackers are 24/7 waiting for a security update to release, so they can unpack the zero-day-vulnerabilities before fairphone gets their release-cycle
Can you please elaborate further on this "component lifespan" thing? Because I think they were quite clear on the processor life cycle.
Don't forget the fact they manufacture it in an oppressive authoritarian regime, where the sales tax goes to fund over 1 million Uighurs being held in literal concentration camps.
Imagine if 80 years ago there were products labeled "Ethically Made in Nazi Germany", and the marketing team said it's important to help the individual small businesses there so that the good people can have a higher standard of living.
It's mind boggling to me that people are falling for this.
They make the problem of their supply chain clear. And still, it is probably the most "fair" phone you can get, so I dont understand the critizism really.
Why arent you criticizing all the other manufacturers, that dont even try to do anything positive? Its always the small companies, that try to improve on things and then get shitted over for not going all the way. I dont understand it...
Less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years sounds like most video games now.
Early access phones!
I'm on my 5th year with my Oneplus 6.
I suspect I'd I do a full wipe, a new OS and a fresh battery I should be able to keep it going for a couple more.
Phones plateaued for me. It runs fast. It holds more then enough data.
Camera is a little slow. I've been told to stop using the default camera app. But then the double click to open won't work.
Same, running a xiaomi mi 6 since early 2018 with LineageOS and it's still perfect for me. Sure, new phones have better cameras and screen but the difference is not that noticeable. I'm using a google camera app so that improves the pictures significantly so that compensates for my needs
This is exactly what I did on my OP7 (only 4 years old). A new battery, a new USB port and a new back (thank you OnePlus for the back in glass).
I installed another ROM... And the only drawback on that "brand new" phone is that the camera is slow and not as good than the stock one ( even with Gcam or others derivative).
Yep, Oneplus 5 with 6 years in use here.
Battery time is a little shorter but still enough for a whole day of intensive use.
Phone cameras have gotten better in the last years for sure but if I really want to make good pictures I use a DSLR.
I'm going on 4ish years with a OnePlus 9, and the battery is starting to shit out so bad
I have had my fairphone 5 since October, and I am contempt content with it, ive noticed a few software bugs and made the customer support team aware about them and while I'll admit their responses are rather slow at times, ive never had a problem with attitude or unhelpfulness so far from them.
I will do what I can to genuinely keep this phone going until the security updates stop, being able to buy and replace the battery for a respectable 20 quid is incredible.
I'm also very excitied to see what 2027 brings as that is the year manufacturers are required, if they want to sell in the EU, to make their phones extremely repairable
i think you mean content, little bit different meaning than contempt ;)
Damn words sounding the same
I'm also very excitied to see what 2027 brings as that is the year manufacturers are required, if they want to sell in the EU, to make their phones extremely repairable.
Now that is something I did not know. Now I'm also very excited.
I expect these companies will still be on top even if they made phones repairable. Like for example, you can only buy parts from official store or else phone will not work
Wow a site that doesn't fill up 90% of your phone's viewport with ads? Color me impressed
why wouldn't you use AdBlock?
Yeah, one of the very few sites not hit hard by enshittification
That's the first positive thing I've seen someone say about The Verge.
Thanks to the verge I now know to always carry a pocket knife to build computers with.
So "Occasionally sluggish performance" now at launch? Surely it won't be much better 5 years from now
The phone is great and things can be replaced easily. My only issue with the phone is it's price. It's quite high compared to phones with similar specs.
It's because they try to ethically source as much of the phone as possible, and go out of their way to pay fair wages and ensure no forced labour is used in the supply chain.
Unfortunately that adds significant cost.
Yea that’s what happens if the company at least tries to make it repairable and not made by exploited people.
No offence but I don't think this phone will be any good in a few years because of the CPU choice.
If it's already sluggish now, what will it be like in 5 years? Unusable.
I'm writing this comment on a Fairphone 5 right now and it doesn't feel sluggish at all.
It doesn't seem to me like the increased performance of phones has had much effect on the actual experience for a while if gaming or content creation is not done on the phone. As a daily driver I think this phone will last me a while.
I mostly can't get over paying more for worse specs. It doesn't have to feel bad now but with 8 years of support it could very easily not feel good in the future. It's a $760 phone that benchmarks close to the Samsung A54 a $400 phone.
The selling point is the ethical value of the phone but it'll never top how much waste buying a used phone saves.
I'm typing this from a smartphone with Snapdragon 765g, a basically older version of the 778g. The 778g is better in every way compared to the many years older 765g and my phone does not feel sluggish in any way for my use cases: messaging, phone calls, video calls, media consumption, but no gaming. For me the 778g would be the perfect chip (like the 765g was): a perfect compromise between battery life, capabilities and price.
for people who hate saying goodbye to an old smartphone
laughs in Fairphone 3
Why are you posting an article from september 2023?
The FairPhone 4 had a screen brightness bug that made the phone (mostly) unusable outside in the sun that lasted from Feb 2023 to Oct 2023.
Since the Android 12 update, the FP4 has a cooling feature that reduces the maximum brightness even when the slider is all the way to the right.
This occurs when the phone heats up to ~40 degrees at the CPU, which is not a lot at all.
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/random-screen-dimming-while-brightness-slider-stays-at-100-after-a12-update/93195
They will have to work very hard to make me consider buying my next phone from them.
They do seem to listen to their users and learn from their mistakes though - FP4 was often criticized for the short firmware support offered from Qualcomm. FP5 will have Qualcomm's extended firmware support for its SoC.
https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Press_release_Fairphone_5.pdf
Its mediocre camera is a deal breaker for me. Camera is the most important phone feature to me
For me the price is the biggest limiting factor, that and it doesn't work around here anyway. it has almost Flagship level price for just a little bit better specs than your everyday $300 phone that you can buy off the shelf.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
There are those who are happy to be in the market for a new device, who delight in discovering how phones have improved since they last upgraded and who can’t wait to reap the benefits of better low-light camera performance, a prettier display, and more premium build quality.
They’re the people who respond with despair when they’re told that their phone has reached the end of its software support period or that it’s no longer cost-effective to repair a seemingly minor hardware fault.
But now the phone comes equipped with technological advancements such as a modern OLED display with a high refresh rate, more robust waterproofing, and a higher-capacity battery.
To that end, there are actually more individually accessible modules this time around, which is nice if you, say, only need to replace one rear camera that’s broken or swap out a faulty SIM card tray.
That’s better than the IP54 rating of the Fairphone 4 (which was still resilient enough for me to use throughout an exceptionally rainy hike), but it still falls short of allowing you to fully immerse the device in water like you can do with an IP68-rated phone.
In low light, the phone produces superficially nice shots, but peer a little closer, and it looks like this is the work of aggressive processing, with a lot of fine detail smoothed out and colors artificially boosted.
The original article contains 1,968 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 88%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I'm in the market for a phone and love this idea, but 8x digital zoom without optical zoom options in 2024 is a non-starter for me.
No headphone jack means fairphone now encourage Bluetooth earbuds and electronic waste.
They're dead to me.
I still don't get this level of rage. I just have a USB C adapter on the end of my ear buds, problem solved, one less physical port to have to replace as I keep my phones until they're dead dead.
I guess you could argue you need an extra cable on you to plug direct into a HiFi system, but I cant even remember the last time that was something I'd want to do.
Aldo in the case of a repairable phone and having replaced the USB on this fp4, I struggle to see where they would have fit an extra daughterboard for a 3.5mm jack to make it repairable
Yeah, the rage seems to usually stem from two misunderstandings:
You already pointed out why neither of those are legitimate reasons. For 1 you just need a simple dongle, not new headphones. For 2, because the Fairphone is modular and repairable, it's not just the 3.5mm jack but also a custom replaceable daughterboard they'd have to develop and keep in stock.
Not having a 3.5mm jack is a minor inconvenience at most, I don't get the rage either.
what phone do you use?
A Nokia.
5 years of security updates. Cheap. Repairability commitment.
Headphone Jack Dual SIM
Very good camera.
Dont get me wrong, Im pissed about the removal of the headphone jack too. But its not really their fault, or to be more precise: its complicated This guys explains it quite well
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EAogtqyN22M&pp=ygUYZmFpcnBob25lIGhlYWRwaG9uZSBqYWNr
Man I watched that whole video, it has nothing to do with the headphone jack. It's about how fairphone releases repair schematics. The title is clickbait, he still says "the removal of the headphone jack is still bullshit and I stand by that, but they sure do release schematics which is nice".
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=EAogtqyN22M&pp=ygUYZmFpcnBob25lIGhlYWRwaG9uZSBqYWNr
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Making a modular phone is complicated.
If they can't deal with complicated things they should shut up shop and get out of the way so someone genuinely ethical can take their market share.
To be clear, if they only failed to produce a phone with a headphone jack I'd be happy to just not buy it.
The fact they went on to produce electronic trash in making Bluetooth earbuds means it's clear they've reached the enshittification point They are just out to make money from their user base now like every other manufacturer.
Thanks, now let me buy expensive components specifically for the phone
That title sounds like what you'd say running a Kickstarter scam.. yeah sure its not good yet but if enough people keep preordering our not complete product eventually it will be good.
The Framework laptop seems to be doing well. Makes sense that if no one buys it it will fail. That's just how business works. I just hope enough people are fed up with current popular business practices to make these mainstream too.
Yeah, but given that this is the fair phone 5, they at least get partial credit in my book
