Unfortunately, there were quite a lot early reports of users whose FP6 volume buttons broke or their logic boards during charging. Both are components that are not user-replaceable and it often takes Fairphone 4-6 weeks to repair them. Similarly, the head band on their FairBuds XL regularly break for a bunch of people (user replaceable, but you still have to go through their slow support if you do not want to pay for the replacement yourself).

Fairphone (in contrast to Apple) are also known for introducing really bad bugs and then not fixing them for months. Like how the FP4 could only keep a single app in memory after they introduced a memory management bug or how currently a lot of FP6 users are affected by a bug where WiFi stops working (due to an IPv6-related bug) that has been reported in March.

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/dns-over-tls-ipv6-issues-apps-...

Then there are the really weird design decisions on the FP6. Like, they put the fingerprint scanner in the power button, which makes it nearly impossible to use it one-handed with your left hand if you actually want to unlock it or use fingerprint unlock in an application. And they put the power button on the exact opposite side of the volume down button, so you make a screenshot when you want to lock the phone half of the time.

And then we haven't talked about the hardware. The speakers are pretty mediocre. The camera is only mid. The SoC even caused render slowdowns in 2026 in /e/OS, it's going to be wholly underpowered after 7 years (the new CPU in the plus is barely going to help, the 7s Gen 4 is the Gen 3 with slightly higher clocked cores).

I had the Fairphone 6 and I am happy that I was able to get rid of it for still a fairly OK price (I got it because I like their mission).

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Maken 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> so you make a screenshot when you want to lock the phone half of the time

I share that pain. I use a Fairphone 6 as my main phone, and my only real gripes with it are the extremely weak haptic engine and that power button placement.

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Noaidi 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> And they put the power button on the exact opposite side of the volume down button, so you make a screenshot when you want to lock the phone half of the time.

To be fair, Apple has nearly the same design.

> I got it because I like their mission

Same here. This is why we need to be buying them now, while they are working out the bugs. Small sacrifice in my mind.

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microtonal 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair, Apple has nearly the same design.

Yeah, I should criticize them for it too. Though the issue rarely occurs for me on iPhones I think the reason is that the volume buttons are much higher up on the iPhone. So when you do the movement one-handed where the left side rests on your palm and you use a finger to press the power button, the palm doesn't hit volume-down, which does happen on FP6 since the volume buttons are much lower on the side.

It still happened all the time on the FP6 for me after 2 months or so.

Same here. This is why we need to be buying them now, while they are working out the bugs. Small sacrifice in my mind.

Fairphone has been around since 2013 and all of their models have been plagued by really bad software and hardware issues. I think part of the problem is that the actual hardware and software development is not done by them, but a Chinese ODM (T2Mobile). For clarity, this is not a "everybody produces phones in China". If you look at their Git trees, most commits are from this Chinese ODM. I guess this introduces a delay in fixing issues plus Fairphone is probably just one of their customers.

Also, for anyone worried about security, yes it uses opaque binary blobs of Chinese origin (camera processing stuff by TCL). Well, that aside from usually being months to years behind on Qualcomm firmware blob versions (who do monthly security bulletins) and Linux kernel sources. So Fairphones typically have many known high/critical CVEs.

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Fnoord 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Not all of the development. For example, Luca 'z3ntu' Weiss works at Fairphone [1].

As an owner of Fairphone 4 and 5 I disagree with you that all their soft- and hardware had really bad design flaws. Fairphone 3 was an improvement over Fairphone 2 (which had quite severe flaws), but 4 and 5 have been good. They innovated long-term support and repairable smartphones, which contributed to legislation in EU.

Fairphone 6 WiFi IPv6 has known workarounds. But it takes too long till the known fix is backported.

I also have no issue using my Fairphone with one hand, while it is in a car kit. For using it with one hand solely, device is too large (and heavy) for me.

There's enough I don't like about Fairphone. For example, software switch on side, silly change to green, renaming Gen 6 (nobody calls it that), too much marketing BS, long support queue (for like, ages), no SFOS (should've partnered with Jolla; I was excited for such announcement today). I wish they spend some more money on support instead of marketing.

And the charging issue with Fairphone 6 seems severe, but there's only like 50 people on forum who reported. It isn't a common issue, but FP 6 sold more than 4 or 5. Ie. yes it is an issue, but the WiFi issue is way more common, as were the many issues with the 2.

[1] FOSDEM 2026 - Luca Weiss https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/speaker/luca_weiss/

	▲	microtonal 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Thanks for the long-term perspective! 100% agree that official Sailfish would be awesome. I don't think it is at the point where I could use a SFOS phone as my main, but I definitely want to try it at some point. It's great that there is a company that's working outside iOS/Android.
	▲	Maken 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Whoever came with calling it the "The Fairphone (Gen 6)" instead of "Fairphone 6" should have been fired on the spot.

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NetMageSCW an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It was dumb when Apple did it and it’s even dumber to copy it. Of course, it was also dumb when Apple repurposed the sleep/power button for Siri.