Comment by Aachen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aachen | Hacker News Reader

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Lol. I paid 250 euros for the phone I'm typing this on, 240 for the phone before that, and 500-ish for my first Android because then it wasn't a high volume established market yet and that's simply what a good smartphone cost (past tense).

Paying 700 is not "relatively low", that's a huge premium which I'd be happy to pay to get my current hardware (from 2019) again but with ten years of software support and fair material sourcing and manufacturing wages. Unfortunately, the hardware is worse than what I've currently got (unwieldy size, no headphone jack, worse camera probably, no stereo speaker, no wireless charger), and the software downsides of the FP3 that I tried to adapt to for a few weeks were even worse than the hardware downsides. But anyway, that's all besides the point that 700 euros is not a normal price for a phone. If this lasts thrice as long as another 250-euro device then it's still not cheaper because the battery will need replacing.

Is 700 euro really that much? Considering it is probably most used device you have, something you use daily every day. For most people it is the only device with internet connection.

If you keep it for 5 years (until warranty runs out) is it 140 euro per year, 12 euro per month.

I pay 12 euro per month for netflix and I don't even think about it being expensive. Why wouldn't I spend same amount of money on the most important device I have? Except for computer maybe.

Water is vital for life but that doesn't justify paying three times more for water that is only better when doing a side-by-side direct comparison but is otherwise equally tasty (assuming it is also equally healthy).

I'd totally pay 7000 euros for a smartphone if it lasts five years and there are no cheaper options of virtually equal quality, but there are.

Saw a thread on Tildes yesterday where people argued for splurging on basically every necessity of modern life except water. If I tried to spend money on everything people were arguing for, I'd spend a significant fraction of my retirement fund before I'm done, and I'm happy with budget options also (but it takes a bit of time to find the minimum necessary, rather than buying expensive and it's usually fine)

The cameras are nice and the speaker is now stereo.

Headphone jack, add a $10 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter to the end of your headphones; it has a great DAC in it: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...

I agree. 700 is steep... I pay just about as much as you do for phone, in fact I paid £290 for my current one.

I paid 390 USD (excluding taxes) in 2019 for my phone - Xiaomi Mi9T Pro, I'm from relatively poor country, so i personally wouldn't pay 700 for a phone, it's a pretty high price for me. What is more interesting actually, is that Fairphone 5's SOC have the same performance as Snapdragon 855 in my at this point 4 years old phone, which is also cheaper. Accoring to GsmArena performance of Qualcomm QCM 6490 used in Fairphone 5 comparable to the Snapdragon 778G which has the same score in GeekBench 5 and Antutu 9 as Snapdragon 855 [1]. At least it has 2 more GB of RAM (my phone has 6)

Maybe it's a bit sad that there isn't that much progress lately (compared to early to mid 2010s), but it also means that i will be able to continue to use my phone for several more years without much problems (Except for Android updates, but I already have custom ROM installed).

[1] https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-compare/qualcomm-snapdragon-85...

The SoC in FP5 is industrial grade hence long term support.

A lot of people think custom ROM is going to give you a secure device but hardware vulnerabilities sometimes have to be fixed on a higher level.

FP5 sports an OLED. Xiaomi devices don't AFAIK.

Its apples to oranges to compare with any Xiaomi device.

Xiaomi is not modular, ever. Xioami have no user replaceable battery or screen. Xiaomi have a proprietary UI (non-standard Android) and many do not allow to run a different OS than it came with. I wouldn't trust Xiaomi or any of that Chinaware with my PII.

FP4 allows all of that and its likely FP5 does, too. The nice thing about repairable smartphone with long software support is akin to iPhones (though from like X till 13 was tough to repair); great resale value and good hand-me-down for your kid.

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