As someone who used a Galaxy S3 for over a decade and has now "upgraded" to a friend's old S9, I can't understand this at all. What kind of quality of life stuff am I missing out on? I'm missing having a removable battery, but at least it has a sd card.
In summary though, it's a phone that has 1-3 year old performance metrics at nearly-flagship pricing.
I'd take a removable battery all things being equal, but it seems abundantly clear that FP5 would be making compromises in device performance compared to current flagships. That tradeoff just isn't worth it to me. Maybe it is to you.
How so? Comparing [1] and [2] shows the geekbench scores between the fairphone 5 and the pixel 7 are pretty similar.
> missing some fundamental quality of life stuff that other phones have offered, usually for years
I'd argue that statement is backwards: the non-mainstream phones have been offering quality of life stuff that the mainstream phones have abandoned years ago, namely user-expandable storage via microsd cards and user-replaceable battery.
[1] https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/1891321
[2] https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/google-pixel-7
As per how they compare, reviews of the FP5 seem to say it has the following deficiencies:
* Poor display - bad brightness, which hurts outdoor usability
* Bad battery life, even considering the wimpy processor
* Underwhelming performance, which will make it feel sluggish faster
* Mediocre speaker performance
* Mediocre cameras
You're paying a whole lot, in my view, for something that has an easily replaceable battery... which is something you might do maybe once in the life of the device? If you're keeping a phone longer than 5-6 years, I suspect performance of the chipset is going to become a big issue. Additionally, with the bad battery life/performance already, it'll incentivize you to want to upgrade even sooner.