Fairphone 4 has a five-year warranty and aims for six years of updates | Hacker News Reader

Fairphone 4 has a five-year warranty and aims for six years of updates

arstechnica.com

225 pointsiechoz6H177 comments

Having bought a Fairphone 2[1], I will never buy a Fairphone product anymore.

And I'm not a difficult customer here: I didn't mind paying twice the price, or software issues in their custom Android version. I'm only moderately annoyed having a proximity sensor that keeps keeps needing a reset, a phone that keeps rebooting for no reasons or a pretty bad power management (going from 15% to no-battery in less than a minute). They are a small company and have limited manpower, I can totally understand that.

What I'm really pissed off it them not fulfilling their promises. They sold me a modular phone, with the promise of hardware upgrades and maintenance. They sold me a “PC”-like smartphone, where there's no frequent release of new models but a continuously upgrade-able phone. But they didn't even try to deliver, and they didn't apologize.

[1]: in 2016, and I'm still using it btw, even if it's far from good at this point, because it “works” and I'm still pretty conscious about the environmental impact of smartphones.

Same here. Bought one on the promise of being able to purchase spare parts. 18 months later the battery is dead and I cannot buy a new one, ever again. That is worse than a regular Samsung on the principal measure they claim to be good at. If there should be just one spare part you sell, it should be the battery. Alas.

I came across https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts, seems like they do sell spare batteries for all versions

When I needed it for fairphone 2, many years ago, they said they would never sell that battery again.

They're still available at the store I don't get what you're complaining about.

So they sold you a modular phone, meaning you could change any piece of hardware in it, but you can't even change the battery. Talk about irony.

You can change the battery (I actually bought two when buying the phone, it makes a really tiny powerbank) like other parts, but they had a lot of sourcing issue making some spare parts unavailable for long periods.

According to archive.org, the Fairphone 2 was still a pre-order in mid-2017. Are you sure you didn't get the original Fairphone?

https://web.archive.org/web/20170610122224/https://shop.fair...

Indeed I'm sure about that, as I mentioned in my post I'm still using this damned phone!

I ordered mine in March or April 2016 and received it in May or June the same year, right before going on a 5 months bike-trip so I'm certain I'm mixing dates up.

Disappoint with the HN community reading the comments here. Sure FF is not perfect, but they are actually changing how the industry is working and deserve a lot of support. They are changing how mining is done, how workers are treated and are attempting the change the rules on planned obsolescence. And they are actually getting some advance on all these areas.

Oh and supporting the Open Source community, empowering users to own their OS.

> attempting the change the rules on planned obsolescence

What rules are there at the moment on planned obsolescence? I don't think there are any to change?

We don't have enough laws to protect consumers and the environment. Such laws actually help businesses that do want to do the right thing remain competitive. So how about a law that guarantees security updates for at least 5 years, so these phones don't become e-waste before their time? Or a law for user serviceable battery replacement?

Exactly, the EU has been working on that for a while, I believe some rules have been created recently.

I am equally disappointed when I read comments like yours that demand some sort of ideological purity and agreement. How selfish. Meta comments that disparage the HN community are so weird. This community is made up of a lot of different people with varying perspectives. We should celebrate its diversity.

It's fair game to make commentary about a community when there is obvious, widespread myopia.

Also quietly amused by the hypocrisy of your comment.

Do you know anything about the company behind fairphone?

The top voted comments criticizing them all have clearly valid claims. it does not matter if the "ethical" product is good if the company behind them isn't ethical.

You're making the position that everyone should have the same opinion.

I'm making the position that cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't productive.

My comment is about the focus being almost 100% on user experience, the fair phone is about much more than that. It's exactly the lack of diversity that was bothering me.

The top comment is about them not keeping up with their upgrade parts instead of replacing the phone promise, seems to cover sustainability as well.

From what they said in the presentation video QA, they will be keeping that promise.

> Meta comments that disparage the HN community are so weird.

I think I can provide an explanation for their increasing popularity: people have figured out that it gives a cheap boost to the "legitimacy" of their comment without adding any actual substance, partially because it stirs a feeling of guilt and wanting to "be better" (either than the rest of HN, or as an individual).

Needless to say, it's just another form of emotional manipulation that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

The guidelines already discourage this kind of thing: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

When did thinking about, or factoring sourcing issues, become "ideological purity"?

It seems to me that you're arguing the only way to not demand ideological purity is by demanding that the only factor that should be considered is end user experience.

Which, ironically, is demanding far more ideological purity than the person you replied to is.

I don't find it frustrating that people can't give credit where it's due. However I do find it frustrating that people will go out of their way to attack these efforts due to some unrealistic and idealistic expectations.

If a company, even one that is disliked, does something good - then that effort should be congratulated. That's how you change an industry - to treat such as pariahs merely proves that such efforts are not compelling to users and hinders progress.

Also the author (and most of HN) seemingly forgets that wired headphone options exist for the USB-C port.

Those block the USB-Port, and to rely on dongles is so Apple.

The headphone jack is a signal. When Apple removed it people like me pledged to never support such a customer hostile move. Google's flip flop on that issue just made this conviction stronger. To remove that port is simply unacceptable, especially in a product aimed at minimizing waste.

I wonder whether this position is rare, or if FP just does not know its customer base.

They say they had to ditch the jack in order to have water-proof certification and still be user repairable. Also to avoid having more bulky design.

Then they should have not released a new phone, but a new board for the FP3(+).

They are not a regular company that needs to do such moves, and besides: The Framework laptop shows that there usually is a way, despite what companies say.

The smartphone market evolves very quickly, much more so than the laptops, which also have a lot more of wiggle space for components.

> They are changing how mining is done

There's no chance that this is true. They're buying the same components from the same suppliers, and they're laughably small compared to Google, nevermind Apple or Samsung.

Yes but, they are. They are supporting fair mining projects and contributing to players that certify fair mineral sourcing. And they're raising awareness in the process.

I went looking for sources and found this nice article that neatly lays out the land of rare earth mineral mining:

https://www.fairphone.com/en/2021/02/08/fair-mining/

I've seen some videos of ASM lithium mines, stuff is nightmare inducing. The videographers spotted a handful of children in the hills trying not to be seen.

I think it's doable, it'd be similar to setting up and auditing your own green coffee beans; it wouldn't be particularly capital intensive.

They are talking about changing mining. They are not changing mining. They talk about how they are using their purchasing power to change things, but they have no purchasing power. The person at Qualcomm who makes those decisions probably has no idea that some company called fairphone is a Qualcomm customer. This is the same but even moreso for lithium.

"We are working with our battery supplier to integrate lithium from IRMA-assessed mines into our battery supply chain" this line could mean anything from actually doing something to "we sent one email". Before you believe that someone is making a difference, be sure they are. Fp is not.

Do you got any evidence that they are changing anything? Talk is cheap, any links to an article where they actually changed something and not just them talking about changing things?

Hope you have Google it in the mean time.

Then I'll just assume that you didn't have a point. You can't really get angry at people for not understanding your side as you did in your original post without giving any reason for people to take your side.

Edit: The main reason to be wary of "fair" brands is that they put extremely huge markups and motivate that by paying a tiny bit more for their parts, making them really profitable. You'd need to show people that it is better to pay for a fairphone and that they actually deliver on their promises, over paying for a cheap phone and donating the difference to a good cause.

Well it's your word against independent certifications and transparency reports. It's on you to show otherwise, unless you just want to troll fairphone.

I used to have a Fairphone 2, but it had multiple problems. A partially working touchscreen, a malfunctioning headphone jack and then a bad battery. and the shipment of replacement parts were so slow that I finally had to buy a second, cheaper phone while waiting for the new parts, which isn't really part of fairphones mission statement.

Next next phone I bought still works today, mich longer than the 1.5 Fairphones I had bought before.

Whats sad about that experience, is that it made me sceptical. I now need to wait for the new model to prove reliable in reviews before I'd buy it, but by that time the mid-tier hardware would be completely outdated alteady. In essence it'll take years for them to gain my trust back.

Still i hope that products like this or the framework laptop take off.

I'm still on my Fairphone 2, but indeed it has a number of issues. Most of those are caused by it being relatively fragile due to being repairable without tools, which I've demoed a bit too often to people. My girlfriend has a Fairphone 3, which is much better in this regard: while the tools-free repairability is a nice gimmic, the 3 requires a standard screwdriver. That's slightly more work, but perfectly fine for something that is used (hopefully) so rarely, and as a result, it's a lot more stable than mine is.

Which is to say: sure I'm disappointed, but it's also part of the risk when buying a company's second phone, and the first they designed themselves. When the issues with my 2 become too much, it looks like I'll be getting a Fairphone 4.

But first let's see how long I can make this one last.

I know lots of people had issues with their FP2, but I have to say I used mine for just under five years (before it stopped booting). I'll give that it didn't always feel reliable (random reboots etc), but it worked well enough.

I bought an FP3 earlier in the year and it's been very decent so far.

But I'm extremely disappointed by the lack of the headphone jack in this new one, and I think I'm going to go write an angry e-mail to them now.

I'm the same about FP3: I'm writing this reply on one, running e/OS/ with no googly stuff on. I'm delighted with it so far. I intend to keep this as long as humanly possible. I'll take a new phone on my 40th birthday (I'm 32)

My $2700 dell xps keyboard died less than 2 years after unboxing. Dell tech came to fix it after 2 months of cat and mouse with their support. He changed all the parts, and the machine stopped booting, then he left. One month of battle later, he comes back, and plays the same song, then live.

4 months after the initial blip, laptop is still dead, there is talk about a replacement but they will get back to me in 48h. It's been 2 weeks.

If dell does that, I guess we can forgive a noob player like ff.

Can't comment directly on the FP2 as I never owned one, but I've heard a lot of similar stories with the FP2, and a lot of positive stories with the FP3 (which I do own).

There's a strong sense in the community that the company were really just finding their manufacturing feet with the first two models, with the 3rd being the first very stable long-term-reliable one that they got right.

The only broad criticism I have heard of FP3 is the specs being slightly on the low end, and it looks like they're attempting to at least partially address that with FP4.

But FP3 at least seems broadly very reliable.

They did successfully sue the manufacturer over those quality issues. The Fairphone 4 is produced by a different manufacturer and is expected to have much less of such issues.

Too bad they are chasing all the bad trends (notch, no audio jack, camera bump, flatness over battery size, growing size). That pretty much kills it for me.

Especially the audio jack is a hard sell when their mission statement is sustainability.

Is wireless audio inherently less sustainable?

If you consider that earphone in general are not that much durable and a wireless earphone has more environmental impact to be produced (battery, bluetooth components) while the old audio jack is simpler and still a standard.

yes. It includes batteries.

It's worse in every possible way: worse quality (improved recently, still worse), expensive, includes non replaceable batteries, therefore requires charging and increases pollution when the user is forced to ditch the phones just because the batteries died.

My first wireless headphones are 5 years old and not showing any noticeable battery degradation. If they die, they’ll be sent in for recycling. Assuming the battery gets recycled, I don’t see a significant difference other than the lack of copper wiring.

most bluetooth headphones i’ve seen will be useless in a few years once the non-replaceable battery wears out

wired headphones can literally last decades

The audio jack sounds weird in terms of sustainability, but supposedly it's to make the phone itself last longer:

> A notable downside compared to previous Fairphones is that the Fairphone 4 no longer includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, a choice that feels at odds with the company’s otherwise customer-first approach. Fairphone tells me it made this decision in order to be able to offer an official IP rating for dust and water resistance, which was missing from the company’s previous phones. It’s only IP54, which means it’s protected from light splashes rather than full submersion, but that’s impressive in light of its removable rear cover and modular design.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/30/22700014/fairphone-4-rele...

That would be a good explanation if it weren't for the fact that there have been phones with IP ratings and headphone jacks.

The difference of course being that those don't sport the Fairphone's modularity.

Motorola can include a 3.5mm jack in the moto x4 and get an IP68 rating. Why does Fairphone have to eliminate it to get an IP54 rating? Clearly, having a 3.5mm jack is not an impediment to getting an IP54 rating.

The S5 had a removable battery and backplate with headphone jack exposed, and had a IP67 rating. It's easy enough to do just no one wants to put in the engineering work.

> the audio jack is a hard sell when their mission statement is sustainability.

Yeah, especially when they have a blurb on their preorder page about how they don't include earphones with the phone "for sustainability, so that you can re-use the ones you already have".

That's going to be difficult if I can't plug them in, no? I think your marketing team just accidentally that entire premise.

Consider Librem 5 if you want to go against all those trends.

To play devil’s advocate, my iPhone has already achieved 6y of updates and why would I pre-pay for fixes in the form of a warranty? (Right to repair issues aside, and I don’t say that lightly, just don’t think it changes the answer for the avg consumer)

And Apple are still shipping security updates for iOS 12 (last one a few weeks ago), so even the 8 year old iPhone 5s is still getting updated.

Same here. While I am not a fan of Apple because of the recent privacy debacle, my iPhone 6S is still working from 2014. I just updated it to the latest iOS 15 last night too. Other than the battery, everything else works fine in it.

If you haven't done it yet do consider a battery replacement from Apple. It's $49 for a 6S, and it made a huge difference for me after about five years with the same phone. When I did it, I believe the replacement was able to be done in store while I waited. https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/battery-powe...

I have been considering doing it myself using iFixit or cheaper alternative. I am in Canada so after taxes and CAD, it comes close to $90 I think.

> Surprisingly, there isn't a headphone jack, which seems like something Fairphone's demographic would really have wanted. Wired headphones last indefinitely, while Bluetooth buds turn into garbage after a few years when the batteries die.

Every wired headphones I've had started to break down after a year or so, including ones with a detachable cable.

BT headphones are much more reliable. If you buy something like the Sony's you can probably get replacement batteries.

I have been using my Bose bt headphones for 3 years now and they still seem as good as the day I got them. No noticeable battery issues.

The new gen yes, but old gen jacked products in my mother living room are still kicking.

Granted, they were never attached to a mobile device, which wears the cable.

No headphone jack doesn't imply wireless headphones. On my Xiaomi Mi 9 SE I just had to use a USB-C to jack dongle.

interesting, I didn't realize usb-c supports digital and analog audio signals. kind of neat

Supporting analog audio out over USB-C is definitely something that varies from device to device. Some adapters are passive requiring the device to send analog signals or some devices can be active in which they have their own DAC and expect a digital signal. Some devices will have their own DAC on board and can support a passive device, some devices do not have one and will require an active adapter.

Generally speaking, you'll probably have more success with active (DAC-based) USB-C to 3.5mm adapters.

I wouldn't get too excited. my pixel 2 came with a headphone jack dongle. the audio quality was not great, and according to forums I read at the time, that OEM dongle was actually one of the better ones.

to be fair, I believe that was an actual DAC in the dongle. I suppose in theory you might get better quality with analog passthrough from an onboard DAC. I doubt anyone other than apple would bother putting a decent DAC in a phone with no headphone jack though.

They don't support analogue audio signals - USB is a digital interface - you use a DAC to convert the digital audio signal to analogue.

USB-C absolutely supports analog audio signaling, it's called "Audio Accessory Mode" in the standard.

this is incorrect, look at the spec. I would not have commented something like that unless I verified it first

I have wired studio headphones for 20 years.

> Every wired headphones I've had started to break down after a year or so, including ones with a detachable cable.

To counter your anecdotal evidence, let me offer mine.

My AKGs are almost 20 years old now. I only had to relpace the plug once which was a cheap repair I could do myself.

I use the $7 to $10 Panasonic HT21 for many years at a time, for the past 15 years.

Looks like durability is exactly the reason, though not necessarily of the headphones, but of the phone itself:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/30/22700014/fairphone-4-rele...

Interesting because my Samsung Galaxy S5 has a rating of IP67, and it has a 3.5mm jack.

Can you easily disassemble the Samsung Galaxy S5?

I have a Samsung XCover Pro - it has a removable back, physical buttons, an impressive replaceable battery, a headphone jack... and an IP68 rating.

It's probably not as repairable as the the fairphone, but clearly it's possible to be waterproof with a removable back/battery and a jack.

I'd imagine a little glue helps ;)

It was very easy to take apart as it just used same size Philips screws.

Replacing cracked glass was hard as you had to soften glue and required a uv curing glue to attach the replacement, but would assume the fairphone treats the digitizer screen and front glass as a single replacement assembly also.

I think that's why the quote ends with

> that’s impressive in light of its removable rear cover and modular design.

Fairphone says it had to nix the jack to get IP54. If another phone can include the jack and get a much better rating, it goes to show that Fairphone is not telling the whole story. The 3.5mm jack was nixed for reasons other than IP rating.

I feel like I'm just restating my parent comment, but Fairphone has the rating while being user-repairable. Not being glued shut is what makes it more challenging to get that rating, as I understand it.

(In the live stream they also mentioned that a headphone jack would make the phone bigger still. And also that they had a lot of back-and-forth on it - I don't know why you would attribute this to malice rather than a balancing of constraints.)

> I feel like I'm just restating my parent comment

Because you are not listening that it is only about the 3.5mm jack. If they can do a USB-C port, they can do a 3.5mm jack. A USB-C is quite a bit more difficult to deal with than a 3.5mm jack.

> but Fairphone has the rating while being user-repairable. Not being glued shut is what makes it more challenging to get that rating, as I understand it.

What does that have to do with dropping the 3.5mm jack? There are other holes which present the same problem as the 3.5mm jack.

> (In the live stream they also mentioned that a headphone jack would make the phone bigger still.

Making the phone bigger would give them space to add seals to keep stuff out. See, nothing to do with the IP rating.

> I don't know why you would attribute this to malice rather than a balancing of constraints.)

Attributing it to "reasons other than IP rating" is not attributing it to malice. It was pretty clear it was more about making it thinner like every other phone and not IP rating.

It was "not telling the whole story" that sounded like attributing it to malice, but if you meant that part of the reason was making the phone smaller than I agree.

I imagine (but know little to nothing about these ratings) that the more holes and crevices there are, the harder it is to be water and dust resistant. Modularity and the USB port add these, the jack might have pushed it over the limit, and when forced to choose between those three, the jack seems to me to be the sensible one to sacrifice. Still a shame, of course.

So a headphone jack is an ingress point, but the charging jack isn't?

It's not that they can't seal an ingress point so much as that every one they do adds cost and complexity.

The phone is already wildly overpriced as is for its specs. By default your market is already restricted to niche enthusiasts. Sacrifices like this make zero sense once you're already at this stage.

"The most fair-trade and repairable phone you can't plug headphones into" isn't the nicest selling point.

Had this problem woth headphones, but not earbuds.

I now only buy headphones with replaceable cables to avoid this problem

That is... Unique experience.

I have two pairs of 15y sennheiser that are pristine and used all the time. And they seamlessly plug into any audio device I own or my friends do, are never out of charge, and I can listen with two headphones from one tablet when wife and I watch a movie on airplane or tent with kids.

Bluetooth will sooner or later loose battery - never mind the lag of 15y old Bluetooth standard.

Haha, I was just about to reply to the parent with "sounds like you should spend the extra cash on a pair of sennheisers that will last you the rest of your life" when I saw you'd done it for me.

You're buying bad headphones then. The industry pros have been using wired headphones for decades and they've been incredibly reliable.

My focal headphones have the best of both worlds, Bluetooth aptx, but also a cable you can attach to use them as normal analogue headphones.

Yeah I've been using a pair of Audio-Technica that have both and I've enjoyed them a lot. I see no reason to upgrade.

Sounds like you've been getting cheap headphones. Bluetooth headphones are inherently less reliable due to far more points of failure.

You say you can "probably" get replacement batteries but we've already seen that it's damn near impossible to source the tiny batteries for things like true wireless earbuds.

> Bluetooth headphones are inherently less reliable due to far more points of failure.

Really? They seem to have less points of failure to me - they're fully encapsulated (usually glued shut) and don't have to physically interface with anything less than simple metal charging pads. Compared to physically being shoved into something and yanked out and a cable that is being manipulated.

software is a point of failure :) also, batteries

Software, batteries, and the bluetooth comm protocol are three giant points of failure. An example, I can no longer use my car's (2012) bluetooth with any modern device. At least, it is horribally laggy and doesn't display data, when it works.

Points of failure on wired buds are the cord and connector construction and materials. So you can generally know the "more you spend", it's likely being put into the construction (for reputable brands).

> They seem to have less points of failure to me - they're fully encapsulated (usually glued shut)

This just means they're harder to repair? That's not a reduced point of failure in really any sense.

Wired headphones are some wires, solder, also often glue, and a driver. Wireless headphones have batteries, internal computers that need to communicate wirelessly with devices and - in the case of True Wireless Earbuds - themselves, and in general more parts that are more delicate crammed into the same or smaller space.

> don't have to physically interface with anything less than simple metal charging pads. Compared to physically being shoved into something and yanked out and a cable that is being manipulated.

What a strange point. Unless you're wirelessly charging some AirPods then... You're gonna have to charge those things with a physical cable. That will have to be, as you so hyperbolically put it, "shoved into something and yanked out."

Fortunately, any decent headphones worth your money anticipate such rude treatment and have their cables be easily replaceable.

Wireless headphones can't be said to do the same for their batteries that will inevitably wear out.

I don't know if maybe you don't use Bluetooth headphones, but no they don't have a physical cable you plug in. They do it wirelessly and with pad contacts.

Maybe they were saying the case needs a charging cable unless you do wireless charging?

And what are those pad contacts in? A charging case. Which needs to be charged via physical cable.

"BT headphones are much more reliable. If you buy something like the Sony's you can probably get replacement batteries."

I don't think I've read many comments as airy as this one. You can't get replacement batteries.

I have a pair of bose wired earbuds from 2013 maybe that still look brand new and the quality blows me away. Literal plug and play.And the type of wire somehow never catches/jumbles/splits etc.

In thatsame time I've had at least 5 pairs of bluetooth buds and over ears 9that I can think of). sony, sennheiser, jabra, and some amazon brands.

The user experience is different for every one, random buttons, different time to sync, etc. Hundreds of dollars wasted, largely due to battery degradation or one of the buds straight up not working. There's no reason why batteries in bluetooth modules can't be consumer replaced besides planned obsolescence.

They chose that path because it enabled them to be water proof and still user repairable.

Also, for a less bulky design.

There are a lot of comments about technical issues with previous iterations of the Fairphone - but, to be Fair, you can also find a lot of comments about technical issues with any technology (even if it's open-source!) on the internet.

What would be very helpful, and consistent with the ethos of the Fairphone organization (or, at least, what I think it is) would be to provide actual repair data. "n% of devices have had to be replaced entirely, m% of devices have had a technical issues requiring a hardware fix, here's the number of repair requests made per phone generation", etc.

I like the idea of a Fairphone, but I don't want to buy a product that is going not do the thing that it's supposed to, but I also don't want to avoid buying a product that is generally reliable just because I read comments entirely from the users whose devices broke.

> Updating an Android device without chipset-vendor support is unprecedented, but Fairphone still spent the money and partnered with the LineageOS community to make it happen.

I know it is unprecedented . . . for a manufacturer to endorse releasing Android versions without chipset support. But, seriously, LineageOS does this all the time with their supported devices.

LineageOS does not have certification (i.e. does not meet Google's quality standards) to install the Google applications. Manufacturers who want to ship with Google Apps have to take everything up a notch to get the certification, which is a huge amount of work (on top of everything that LineageOS and the likes are doing).

Previous discussion that's 26 minutes older and links to Fairphone's website instead of an article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28705037

Extremely happy with my Fairphone 3. Look forward to five more years with it before buying another one.

Pretty happy with my FP2. Looks like I'll skip the FP3.

I have a Fairphone 3+, bought about 6 weeks ago. I might have waited if I'd know this was on the horizon. I flashed mine with /e/ OS (WTF's with that name?) and it has been fantastic. My only complaint is the fingerprint sensor is a little clunky.

That's what I'm about to do when my iPhone will pass away eventually (but probably from eSolutions directly). Though I really want my phone to be small, and rather don't want the Predator-like optical aiming device; just a basic up-to-date camera would be fine with me.

Have the FP3+ for about 6 months with /e/OS as well, very happy with it until the USB-C port stopped working. I can either ship the entire phone back for repair (ordered from fairphone.com) or buy the bottom module and replace it myself. I prefer the latter as it's one of the reasons I bought the phone for. Unfortunately that part is currently out of stock... Looking at forums, it seems to be a common issue.

Tip: Scotch tape. I was immensely frustrated with the fingerprint sensor on my FP3, which would only register in perfect conditions, so I had to type my password half the time. Somewhere online I read the tip to put a piece of scotch tape over it, which sounded utterly ridiculous, but at the same time so straightforward and harmless that I tried. I have no idea why it works, but I'm only typing my password whenever the "extra security" counter kicks in now.

FWIW, the sensor works flawlessly on mine. Maybe how the fingerprint is recorded matters ? I moved my finger slightly between each take in the calibration process.

Mobile phone technology is still progressing too fast to be stuck with a device for 5 years. For example, I used to think that 120hz screens were a meme until I bought one myself and immediately saw the difference.

Speak for yourself. I've happily been using an iPhone SE since 2016, and will probably keep it until iOS 15 is EoL. It turns out, I just haven't added any new use cases to my phone since around 2013.

I don't think I'm speaking for myself looking at the industry. Most people do indeed replace their phones much faster than 5 years.

Instead of trying to make phones last longer I think recycling is the better option.

For most waste, recycling isn't the magic bullet many people have been led to believe it is. I do wonder about the viability of designing electronics to be easier to recycle, though.

That's part of the balance they're trying to strike I believe. They are trying to gather more people around the concept of good enough tech and durability. Agree recycling is not ideal, there is always energy and material loss in the process.

Tech must slow down in my opinion.

I'll stick with one for 10 years if I can. Smartphones are just not that interesting other than the fact they seem to become more and more important to live in these times. If anything, that's where FP shines; it's just good enough to not worry too much over.

I always reccomend the gen 1 iPhone SE to anyone that wants a "modular" phone. No, you can't upgrade the parts, but you can replace them when something breaks. I'm going on 5 years now with mine, and I've replaced nearly every component but the main board. I've replaced the lightning connector, main screen, main camera, headphone jack (remember those?), battery twice, even the SIM card slot. Everything is just screwed down (no glue) and replaceable with a $7 toolkit from Amazon. Parts are dirt cheap and readily available on eBay. And it's still getting the latest OS security updates 5 years later.

I'm fully onboard with fair sourcing of materials etc. But what is with "repairability" as an excuse to make fragile, inferior phones?

I had a pixel 3 and I swapped camera, microphones, usb c port. The iFixit kit needed for this costs a few bucks but that's it.

It is just having good instructions that matter, and parts. A fully waterproof high end Pixel device is not less "repairable" that a fairphone.

iFixit gives the various Pixel phones between 4-6 in "Repairability", while Fairphones gets between 7-10 (7 to Fairphone 1, 10 to Fairphone #2 and #3).

Are you saying that iFixit knows less about repairability than you? They seem to directly disagree with your statement that Pixel devices are not less "repariable" than a Fairphone.

You can check the scores here yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability

Edit: Going deeper, apparently France is running a Repairability index as well, you can check how Fairphone is doing against Pixel there too: https://www.indicereparabilite.fr/ (spoiler: Pixel gets 6.3 while Fairphone gets 8.7 [out of 10])

I have a Pixel 3a whose battery is slowly starting to degrade after two years of use (~80% capacity left). Unfortunately, changing the battery requires removing the glued-in screen, which is quite fiddly and has the danger of cracking the OLED in the process [1]. If I had bought a Fairphone 3 instead, I could simply buy a spare battery for 30€ and change it in a few seconds.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+3a+Battery+Replace...

Too bad it's Android. The mobile OS duopoly is killing all posibility of true innovation in smartphones.

True but the Fairphone company's core focus has been firmly on hardware & manufacturing sustainability and ethics, which I do respect.

Ideally I'd like open source, sustainable, ethical hardware along with an open source, user-controlled independent OS, but in today's world, 2 out of 4 ain't bad. And I can understand one company not wanting to spread their priorities too thinly trying to solve every problem at once.

I do somewhat agree but there's only so many niches you can cater to at once before you doom your product to obscurity and failure

How is this duopoly when atleast in Android the manufacturer can offer customisation as they see fit?

Looking at the struggles of Pinephone and Librem 5 and the various Linux flavours available for them it seems to be a really difficult problem to get something that has a good UI, a good feature set, is fast, stable and has good power management.

I expect /e/OS and LineageOS ROM's will be released soon, around the time they start shipping. They work closely with both. Still Android, but AOSP based.

Edit. confirmed it should be shipped with /e/Os as a choice. https://twitter.com/deivei/status/1443579458531692561

There's no mention of any Open Source OS, it lacks the analog audio jack (the USBC adapter prevents charging during use, so it's not a substitute), and also lacks FM radio, which would have cost pennies to add. I see it as fairly big step backwards. Not interested.

Agree with the jack part, although the work around seems ok for me. They work pretty close with /e/ OS and LineageOS, so I expect different ROM's will be available more around the time they start shipping. (it's still in pre sale)

Here: they said they'll be able to ship it with /e/os installed. https://twitter.com/deivei/status/1443579458531692561

I looked into getting one when my old iPhone had to be replaced, and the main complaint seemed to be how far behind the firmware updates were. It's a hard thing to scale for, but I hope they figure out the bottleneck to adoption of an otherwise cool idea.

at this point, an iphone up to v8 seems most sustainable. but of course no one knows how long an 8 or even 13 will be updated or receive service.

i would still like an alternative option that is a) user reparable b) can be updated on an open source/non corporate basis

We would have saved a lot of waste if societies skipped smartphones altogether. The world is now littered with basic phones that have either been sent to landfill or abandoned, besides all the smartphones with obsolete 'smart' functions.

No headphone jack? 555-COME-ON-NOW.

That said I really like Fairphone and its principles, but I wonder why they never partnered with the Linux on phone community.

because that is an open source initiative(they can't exxacerbate development costs, and because it would be a barrier of adoption to their target base: rich, "eco" conscious people.

Anyone know what this Snapdragon 750 performance would be like compared to my OnePlus 8 Pro?

I'd like to move to a more sustainable phone (I smashed the screen of the OP8P in the first week) but I suspect my OP8P will still outperform the Fairphone 4 by the time a launch unit 5 year warranty is up?

The OnePlus 8 Pro uses a Snapdragon 865. This comparison makes it seems like it would be a drop in performance, especially if you game.

https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-compare/qualcomm-snapdragon-86...

Thanks, that's useful, it's a pretty huge difference.

whats the deal with the 3 camera holes and only 2 cameras? is that future proofing?

The article says its for a autofocus system, as well as colour and time of flight sensors.

I didn't realise that the 4 came out [0], cool. However, there are several problems with it (and unfortunately most modern flagships have them also). The phone is huge, 6.3" + bezel. If you look at the picture of the woman holding the phone it looks like the phone is either about to fall out, or the phone is simply photo-shopped on. Another issue is that the camera sticks out the back. If this camera falls on its back, the camera is the first thing that will be hit. That is the absolutely worst place to have it hit first. The price is quite expensive ($751.47), but if the phone lasts as long as they claim, then that shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[0] https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4

You mean it has a camera island like every other smartphone out there nowadays?

As for the price, dude, how can you even complain about that with a project like this, don't even mention it. I think it is wonderful. Less expensive than an iPhone 12 mini and it just feels so good + you can experiment with OSes.

The headline should be the aluminum body which finally puts it on par with flagship phones on environmental footprint. I wonder if they also managed to remove the remaining plastic from the packaging as Apple has done.

The environmental impact of producing aluminum is probably higher than plastic unless that aluminum gets recycled after you're done with it.

Energetically, yes, producing aluminum metal from bauxite/aluminum oxide is very difficult, requiring tons of heat. If this energy is sourced from coal power plants, it does emit something like 12 kg CO2 per kg aluminum.

However, there's no reason that the electricity has to come from fossil fuels. Aluminum refineries are an incredibly useful base load, able to turn up the heaters when energy is available and inexpensive, but to reduce the load when energy is less available and more expensive. This is highly compatible with renewable energy sources, providing a useful sink for excess capacity.

Aluminum production can and will continue well after fossil fuel energy sources are phased out, at which point it will have a lower environmental impact.

Also, aluminum is extremely easy and cost-effective to recycle.

It is quite true that Aluminum could (and hopefully one day will) be more environmentally friendly that plastic. If more than 1/3 of the aluminum we produce in the US came from recycling and/or the majority of energy used in primary aluminum production came from renewable sources, then aluminum would be a big win.

Unfortunately, I don't think we are there yet.

Aluminium is the second most recycled material on the planet, after asphalt, if I remember correctly.

Unlike plastics, metals are recycleable wirh 100% efffectiveness, the later product is not lesser or worse quality.

They have a certification for the aluminium sourcing.

I would have bought a Fairphone last year instead of a Realme, when the camera wasn't ten years behind :-( Is this state of the art? (Not very fancy just a state of the art sensor and optics).

Providing updates isn’t too hard, but are those updates significant or just security patches? That’s what people care about.

But is a fairphone something I can buy in the US?

Only EU and the UK at this time it seems.

Is it really repairable? I mean if a chip in the core module fails, can you buy just the chip and replace it or you need a whole new module? If the latter, then what makes it different from any other phone?

It's all other parts: display (90€), camera (50€), battery (30€), etc.

The typical pieces which are exposed to the outside and can suffer damages.

See: https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts?phone_type=4

Why is the display so expensive? I just had the display in an iPhone replaced and it was $60.

I guess in a typical phone the display is basically a unit that is comprised of the glass, the actual display, and the digitizer sandwiched and glued together; that makes it more than a single component already. And the price difference between the iPhone and the Fairphone one might mostly be demand. There's probably a lot more iPhone display units out there than even Fairphones of all generations.

It's more expensive most likely because they're not outsourcing environmental and human rights costs. Also, they are not gathering and selling your data unlike many others.

As I understand it is mostly made in China so it's isn't true.

They are outsourcing but they're specifically negotiating contracts that guarantee living wages, ethical worker conditions and ethically sourced raw materials, so that's gonna be factored into costs.

See:

https://www.fairphone.com/en/2020/12/18/living-wage/

https://www.fairphone.com/en/category/good-working-condition...

According to the articles, that explains about $2 of the difference.

That's the change as of that blogpost: they're using their own initial costings as a baseline so it's still going to be much more than a $2 increase over average manufacturers.

The only reason it is more expensive is that people will pay the mark-up and they are a for profit company. There is no more reasons than that needed for it to be expensive. The $2 to workers is nice, but the main thing that is used for is marketing as you shared here which allows them to put another $20 mark-up on the item. Of course it is nice that workers gets better conditions, but you'd be better of donating that money instead.

Economies of scale?

Marketing

The main difference, as far as I understand, is, that you are actually able to change these modules with desoldering SMD components and whatnot. Not sure if it's as easy as changing a SD card but from the looks of it, it seems to be that easy.

Not quite as easy as an SD card on my 3+, but it is only a few standard screws to remove and replace a piece. Never more than a few minutes.

SMD rework may look intimidating, but it is very easy. In most cases way easier to deal with than older tech. If you ever tried to desolder thru hole chip vs e.g. QFN.

I just went to the Apple store and I couldn’t find any spare parts for my phone only brand new phones. At the fairphone website they offered every spare part possible for sale. So for iPhones you have to get motherboards from unauthorized sellers from places like aliexpress or buy a parts phone off eBay. So yes you can basically replace every part of an iPhone but it is not as simple as asking Apple for the part. Also with Apple they actually lock some functions to parts so if that part breaks you are screwed without apples permission so yourbonly choice would be go to their shop for repair. I’m talking about for example the fingerprint scanner. And I know apple does that for security reasons but as someone who unknowing bought a used iPhone that had the home button replaced and fingerprint scanner didn’t work it would have been nice to replace that button to one that works and let me decide if the security risk is worth using an aftermarket home button. To me the difference seems huge. Apple really doesn’t want you fixing your phone if they could add self destruct when you opened it and get away with it they would.

> The only "noncommercial spare part" is the core module, which features the SoC, storage, RAM, device frame, and fingerprint reader.

So no, the chip in the core module would require a new core module - which often means buying a new phone (though I replaced it with that of a friend's when my FP 2 started having some issues). The parts most likely to break, though - screen, battery, USB port - are easily replaceable.

It is not open hardware. I don't think you can get schematics for the modules. But it is a lot easier to replace the display or the core board than in most other phones. For one, you open it with a screwdriver, not a hot air gun. And you can get spare parts straight from the manufacturer. Don't think anyone else really does that.

You don't need schematics to fix something. E.g. if a chip looks burnt or has corrosion, you could just swap it. If you cannot get individual components, then it's no different than most phones where you also have to swap entire boards.

But the boards are much easier to get to and more easily available.

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