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When I couldn't repair my Nokia and replace the 5 € USB-Port because there happened to be a small crack in the screen (of course you have to remove the glued on screen to accese the innards), I caved and bought a Fairphone 3.
Worst decision ever. The stupid thing refuses to break to let me even use the better repairability.
you got me
almost like a toyota, outdated and often too expensive for what it can do but will last forever.
too expensive for what it can do but will last forever
As far as I'm concerned, this is contradictory; if something is going to last forever, and not ridiculously overpriced, then it's worth the premium.
i think it's worth the price, but some people don't think as far. they just compare specs and say "this chinesium phone scores 2 points better in some benchmark and costs 200€" not knowing why it's that cheap in the first place. old toyotas are still worth something for a reason.
Can confirm, nothing broke yet :(
Fairphone existed for years now, and the title makes it seem like as if they made a new phone just now that is repairable.
Yeah, the Fairphone 2 is 7 years old and you can still buy all the important replacement parts directly from their store.
the main complaint from me is still the headphone jack. they faced insane backlash when they released the FP4. i thought this company cares about the user as well as the environment. but it seems they didn't realize that people want actual features (like wireless charging, the headphone jack, or a usable battery size).
don't get me wrong, i own a Fairphone 4 and love using it. but making these mistakes 2 times in a row now is just pathetic.
"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
I've been using the same pair of Sony XB50AP wired headphones for over 7 years now. It works fine (although not great) even after going through couple washing machine cycles. Meanwhile my wireless WH1000XM3 broke after 2 years of use.
Also I own an Android with no headphone jack, so I have to use a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle. And I can feel it's slowly destroying the type C port's connectors on my phone everytime I plug the dongle in, making the headphone connection sometimes not even recognizeable on my phone.
Not including wireless charging IS caring about the environment. Wireless charging is extremely wasteful and inefficient.
It's inefficient for energy, but it's efficient at saving charging cords. My girlfriend goes through one lightning cord a year.
A phone only needs like 5 watt hours a day max, which is a cost of 365 * $0.08 * 0.005 = $0.15 a year at local prices
I feel like having to replace charging cords is an Apple issue specifically.
I'm horrified by the amount of time my wife had to replace her Mac charger because the cord was breaking.
I don't think I ever had to replace the cord on any of my laptop, replacing the charger because the cord is breaking has never been a consideration before.
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.
Yes, absolutely. fairphone themselves say they want to create competition by making the fairphones. sadly, no one has really fully committed to this.
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.
I do sometimes feel like what we really want is something a little bit more like how Framework are doing things. Yes it's easily repairable, but it's also easily upgradable.
Upgradability isn't really a design consideration for fairphone. So everyone is stuck with the kind of mediocre camera that they decided to put on it. It would be nice if the option was there to have something a bit better.
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.
phones don't really need upgrades
Huh??? I went through 4 phones during the lifespan of my last PC
It's a great thing, and I hope the industry (with motivation by EU) will follow a trend towards repairability and sustainability. However I think the most sustainable way is buying used devices.
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.
That's true. I use LineageOS to get at least OS updates, but firmware is definitely problematic. I just wished mobile hardware would be more generic like in Desktop PCs, that would solve a lot of problems.
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
even better, a used repairable phone.
Hopefully in the future repairable and used can go hand in hand! Those are not mutually exclusive attributes.
they're selling refurbished FP4s now but yeah, buy used phones, or at least B-stock.
Own a 4 had to replace the screen, and it was refreshingly easy with the modular system. My only issue is parts availability at times.
My wife and I got new phones earlier this year, because her battery wasn't holding a charge anymore. The FP5 looked awesome and had everything we wanted, but they won't release it in the US. So we were stuck with the usual suspects. I understand why FP can't bring all of their stuff here, but it still sucks.
I feel like I still want a phone that is repairable but also upgradeable. Slowly being able to swap in a better screen, better camera, and a new mainboard when it's time to upgrade.
Sadly, their software QA sucks and thus the phone is buggy as hell.
Whitch is really frustrating because otherwise it's a pretty good (if oversized and overly expensive) phone.
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.
This is total green washing marketing bs.
They purposely removed the headphone jack and started selling disposable earbuds. This one move alone will generate more ewaste than any swappable parts.
This company is full of it. They don't care about the environment and they certainly don't care about their customers.
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?
I believe the concept behind Fairphone sounds interesting, but I think this thing about being environmentally friendly shouldn't be focused on high-end devices, if the Fairphone 5 costs the same as 10 cheap devices(considering cheap devices have a lifetime of 1.5 years) and a biggest % of people would be able to afford a 60 bucks device vs a 600 bucks one I don't see the point here, maybe they should make a device focused on the cheap budget pocket to really fight with the devices consumerism who are the ones what mainly create the e-waste problem. I'm not an expert but this is my humble POV.
When are we going to get worldwide shipping Fairphone? Next year maybe?
I am happy with my FP3, only weaknesses I perceive are the low res camera and the almost never working finger print sensor. Besides that it´s a really good phone. When I got it I completely disassembled it and put it back together -just because- and it still worked!
