> when one buzzes we all instinctively check our pockets because they all sound the same

Isn't that the same for every brand? I have a friend who worked in cybersecurity in a certain phone company and was getting very stressed whenever my phone, which happened to be from the same brand, was ringing :D

I guess one can change the default sound, isn't that the case with fairphones?

You did all those repairs to your iphone yourself? I imagine that was significantly more technically difficult than repairing a Fairphone, which is made to be _user_ serviceable.

It's nice that Samsung repair phones, I also don't know how long for, but you can't rely that they always will, and not all phone manufacturers are Samsung. You shouldn't have to rely on the whims of the manufacturer.

This is why phones should be modular so the parts that wear/break first are replaceable, and also why those parts should be available to you and third parties, not gatekept by the manufacturer. Repair companies can then stockpile parts themselves, instead of having to scavenge from dead phones, to repair your existing phone even when the manufacturer refuses.

I don't like how companies behave like that and basically push users to upgrade their phones

Garmin in particular makes it mandatory to use their app for SOME connected functionalities (while others work just fine on wifi or wifi tethering). They unsupported old version of android for the garmin connect app pretty fast (my mom's phone was incompatible within 4 years of its release) while they don't support you to connect older devices on newer phones and say they know it doesn't work.

As a user, I don't care whose fault it is.

I ditched both Google in favour of degooglized android on older Xiaomi and Pixel phones that support custom ROMs, and Garmin for any sport equipment.

My next phone will be a Fairphone if they make something with a smaller screen.

I don't know which app you're doing, but I would most likely permanently just not download it or find an open source alternative if it stopped working for me, as no app is essential. Pay attention to the user-base, in particular is your app is supposed to work with a web of users.

I haven't done Android dev in a while, but I remember the Android SDK offered a 'backwards compatibility pack' - you selected which version you wanted to target, and how old a version you wanted to support (you could go back to like android 5) and it gave you all the polyfills necessary. The only downside was that your app size would balloon to crazy levels.

I don't know for fair phone but I was not able to install tailscale for my old Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet. Fortunately I was able to install an XDA rom

Banking. It's always banking.

A friend of mine had a broken finger print reader (a few cents online), he couldn't find any repair shop who wanted to repair it (probably because the display would have to removed).

That's true-ish. The repairability of phones varies a lot, with some even having batteries glued into the model.

If you're just considering repairability, a fairphone is almost certainly one of your best options. But like you point out, that doesn't mean all other options can't be repaired at all.

But for Fairphone repairs you don't even need a repair shop.

> Nothing is saved overall.

This is not true. You're missing that, if there is no second-hand market, phones get an early, premature grave, meaning more e-waste.

Imagine there are 10 million people in the world and they all want a phone. 1 million neophiles only ever want the latest phone, released yearly. The other 9 million are luddites who are OK with a second-hand phone. All phones last exactly 10 years before failing, and never become obsolete or damaged.

No second-hand market allowed: 1.9m phones sold per year, 1.9m discarded.

Neophiles buy and discard 1m phones (into the dump with 9 years of life left). Luddites buy and discard 900,000 phones (they have no second-hand market to buy from, so they buy new phones, but they use them for full 10 years instead of just 1, so the 9 million only buy/discard 900,000 phones per year on average).

Second-hand market allowed: 1m phones sold per year, 1m discarded. 900,000 less!

Neophiles buy 1m new phones but sell their old phones to luddites, discarding none. Luddites then use them for 9 more years before discarding. There are 9 million luddites with 9 years of phone use meaning they need an average of 1m second-hand phones per year, which happens to be how many are on the market thanks to the neophiles.

> That’s a fallacy.

> Nothing is saved overall.

This might be the most ridiculous POV of the second-hand market I’ve ever read.

There’s definitely some people who are buying new phones purely because they are ok with eating the difference between the new phone’s cost price and the old one’s sale price. I’m certain that’s a tiny niche of the entire market. And there’s the even smaller niche that actually use their phone till its very last breath. On the other hand, there’s an immeasurably larger part of the new phone market, formed of people who just buy a new phone anyways when they feel like it and leave the old one in their drawer.

Source: User surveys and research I conducted in another life

I do that but I also feel kinda bad since I feel I’m taking it instead of someone else who’s more budget constrained than me

That's right, and buying new and taking very good care of your stuff + using to the point of being unusable probably beats serial-buying second hand devices you mistreat.

There has to be second hand users tough, otherwise the second hand devices that, for a reason or another, are not used to the end by their original buyer never get used again.

I'm happy that worked out for you, but the whole cryptography signature of Apple batteries that throttle your phone if you get the wrong one is VERY different from "just pop out the back and get your new battery in".

>still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience

That would product that I and countless others would be gladly willing to buy on the smartphone market.

Yes it is.

One thing important to take into account in the life of a device is what happens when it's thrown out.

A friend of mine works at an electronics recycling facility, and with regular desktop or laptop they're able to take them apart to scavenge some rare metals, separate inert materials like cases from dangerous ones like the battery.

That's much more costly for Apple products because of how they're integrated, so they end up not recycling much.

I don't know I had contemplated buying a second hand macbook for a family member and...most macbook available in the second hand market have hardware issues. Every time I checked laptops in the 300-500euros price range it was easier to find a lenovo thinkpad, dell latitude, or fujitsu in good conditions with a fresh new battery and ssd installed than it was finding a macbook.

Can't say about Framework, but between a Macbook and a Dell, that both got a glass of water on them, the Macbook was completely unusable, while the Dell still works (except issues with GPU) 5 years after the incident, after only one day in service for cleaning.

Yes, it absolutely is. Fair phones won't be scrapped because the company killed them remotely like MacBooks: https://www.vice.com/en/article/apple-macbook-activation-loc...

They are reliable but, are they marketed as such? How many HNers are routinely upgrading their 3 years old MBP just because they can and they want a new one? I bet many

Minor upgradability might as well be baked into a phone.