Fairphone 5 - The Ars Technica Review

Environmentally friendly and fairly sourced, except for the consumable blue tooth earbuds we will sell you as a consumable to push our profits while creating e-waste.

I know it's a crutch, but there's always a USB-C to 3.5mm converter. There are some versions sold that still keep the charging port.

My phone came with usb-c earphones.

Is that not an acceptable compromise?

Works fine for me.

There are headphones that use the USB port. Headphone jacks are kinda dead tech at this point.

I switched to using wireless headphones a good decade ago and I've never had a set die die to the battery going.

I've had plenty of wired headphones die bectthr cable became frayed or loose though.

I am still surprised at the lack of a headphone jack in the Fairphone, but I don't agree that wireless devices are somehow more prone to becoming e-waste.

The battery will fail to hold charge and they will become useless. Not the truth for wired headphones.

I don't know how you use your headphones, but in my case I switched to wireless because every single pair of wired headphones I had would break. Usually the cable, earbuds because they were in my pocket, and the overhead ones I'd drive over with my office chair.

Switched to wireless a couple years ago, no issues since then.

Just leave one of these on your headphones and you'll never know the difference.

USB DACs are quite small now. I don't mind having to plug mine into my phone to use wired headphones.

I refuse to buy a phone without a headphone jack but in my experience wired earbuds last about 9 months while my cheap JBL 110bt bluetooth buds are still going strong after more than 5 years of almost daily use. The battery still lasts about 7 hours.

I believe the reason they don't is because:

1. They have a small team. It is not worth it at this point to support more devices.
2. The Pixel series is considerably more secure, and that is the area they specialize in.

I'm honestly surprised GOS hasn't supported the FP yet. CalyxOS has for about a year or so now, and I imagine they'll support the FP 5 too.

Graphene developers might support it, its their kind of crazy, as long as the hardware security updates keep getting released for long enough to make it worth while (2028 which yeah... why not).

I had to scroll way too long (on fairphone.com's FP5 page) to find the data sheet. It feels like they're trying to distract from something. Maybe no easy LineageOS support - maybe shitty battery life. My FP1 is still in perfect working order, lasting 2 weeks in standby on the original battery, but obviously doesn't support LTE or get SW updates - but the FP2 is dead within 24-48 hours on standby :/ And battery drains within 20 minutes watching youtube

Because they promised and continue to deliver more on Fairphones 2&3

I think due to the custom designs involved in making it modular / repairable, combined with the niche appeal, it’s expected that these devices will be produced in low volumes and therefore will always cost more than the equivalent Pixel, due to missing out on economies of scale.

I wonder if they're considering making a cheaper version equivalent to the Pixel a series

I doubt it. Every different iteration of the phone means producing less pieces, which will inevitably drive the cost up. I doubt Fairphone can afford it.

Sustainability has a price. You're indirectly paying that price for the Pixel too btw, it's just not on the bill.

I am looking forward to them eventually release a modular smartphone, like the framework. Since most component in a phone last way more than 5 years, yet the chipset is unlikely to be snappy after that amount of time.

Pearphone 5?

Iirc, a lot of them also have efficiency as a secondary priority, since whatever the chip is running will always be plugged in.

Lol, they were funded 10 years ago snd when fairephone one came out people were already saying what you're saying.

There are customers for this kind of phones and the idea to not throw away perfectly working electronics.

But customers accepted to not be able to replace their batteries or being sold phone full of glue.

Outdated hardware isn't really as important on a phone than it is as a PC. Unless you are gaming on your phone, phone hardware is plenty powerful enough these days for the grand majority of tasks.

The software updates are the biggest concern and they intend to do 10 years of updates. That is more than long enough for this device before it becomes obsolete.

Its only 2028 for hardware security updates anyway, so don't think about the 10 years. You could always run any old phone with lineageos on it and get "software updates" from lineage for the same experience.

There are such pads that plug in via the usb and can be hidden under a case, if you had no other option. I've used it for my android mp3 player.

How about, fuck no.

People have a right to demand a very simple feature that costs almost nothing and is incredibly useful. If that's a major requirement, then who the hell are you to say they can't depend it?

For a phone who's ethos is sustainability buying a 2nd device just for music is antithetical. When my FP3 eventually goes out of support I'll have to look elsewhere.

I've bought 2 wireless Samsung earbuds pros because 1 stopped working. The second one also stopped working so I bought 10 dollar wired earbuds and haven't had an issue. I wasted like 250 dollars before finding a 10 dollar solution.

You realize you are on a social media platform primarily funded by the European Union right?

Jokes aside, it's not like the same argument ever comes up if the new is about US internal laws about net neutrality or their ISPs having to tell customers what they bill.