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Comment by dev_snd | Hacker News Reader

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new model to prove reliable in reviews before I'd buy it, but by that time the mid-tier hardware would be completely outdated alteady.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.

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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.

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.

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)

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.

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