Fairphone makes their fair share of blunders. Software updates are a big issue, especially around the times that critical vulnerabilities need to be patched.

With the hardware I'm not impressed, and on their own forum I've seen plenty of people reporting issues with overheating on the Gen 6. Hopefully kinks have been ironed out on their 6+.

The current CEO also has a persona that would stir up any community (read a few of his AI-gened posts on their blog, if interested of context).

Still holding on to my FP4, but they are not of consideration on my future phone purchase, unless there is some kind of reality check over there and improvements materialize beyond words.

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Grombobulous 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ultimately, a lot of the “fairness” of the Fairphone is offered by “just buy a really popular manufacturer.”

Everyone and their dog can repair an iPhone because it’s the most popular phone on the planet. Are those repairs accessible to the consumer at home with amateur skills? No, not really. However, newer iPhone models are significantly easier to repair and come along with lower repair costs direct from the manufacturer compared to previous models.

You want years of software updates? Yeah, an iPhone has you covered there, too.

And of course, fairphone’s hardware and OS are nothing to write home about. For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it.

Who is the Fairphone for exactly? Who is buying it and why?

I think the fairbuds are their best product, but I also imagine AirPods Pro 3 are on a whole different level of sound quality, noise cancelation, voice quality/voice isolation, and firmware/software polish.

And let’s be honest about repairability with tiny earbuds: being able to replace the battery is has such a tiny impact on their footprint. If I have to throw out my AirPods Pro 3 every 5 years due to battery degradation, that’s such an insignificant quantity of material being wasted, so it’s probably worth it to get a better product. I could offset my environmental impact by eating a little less beef or riding my bike instead of driving a few times. You drive 30 miles and that’s an entire gallon of refined petroleum product, how much material and energy is used to make one pair of AirPods? I can’t imagine it’s a lot.

I don’t say any of this to be a big corporate or Apple shill. I am rooting for the little guys. But the little guys need to be realistic. You look at products like the Framework 13 Pro and you can actually say, okay, here’s a product with really legitimate benefits over its incumbent competition. There is a reason to buy this product for a certain buyer. I just don’t see that with Fairphone. I can’t think of a customer profile where that person is getting a better ownership experience with Fairphone products.

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neobrain 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not big on this general line on argument, but one point in particular:

> And of course, fairphone’s hardware and OS are nothing to write home about. For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it.

For the "freedom nerds", FP is one of the only (if not the only?) vendor to have official support for microG-based operating systems, seamless OTA updates and everything included. The Murena e/OS offering in particular is simple enough that the non-nerds that (perhaps less outspokenly) care about freedom can just pick it up with little change in habits.

	▲	Grombobulous 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I guess that’s true, although we could possibly split that camp into two sides: the folks who believe that Play Store sandboxing is going to be more functional, and the folks who prefer microG are willing to accept the issues that come along with it. To be fair on either side of that debate, getting a phone that comes with /e/OS installed from the factory is going to be easier than flashing GrapheneOS on a Pixel or LineageOS with microG on another device.

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yjftsjthsd-h 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it.

Not quite. The people who care about security first are better off with GOS, yes. However, GOS's threat model very specifically treats the user as a thing to defend against; the freedom-first crowd should avoid them.

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luqtas 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

isn't the main point of Fairphone to not use conflict minerals?

by using FOSS only myself and hating monopolies like Apple etc., i still pretty much convinced that being "green" or "ethical" is more about participating/volunteering/doing-something towards a better world than off-loading your duty to other companies... one could easily make a point that Apple products despite locked down, are still green (Apple has a bunch of zero-emission and whatever policies) and much more if one uses their devices for a long while. i had a 2° hand iPhone SE 1° gen. till 2021? if stuff breaks despite your not being able to fix it's not like you can't hop into a specialized shop to change batteries or even pay the expensive service Apple offers... sure that allows exploitation and it's always nice to get rid of it, that's why somehow these emerging companies are important and/or policies like the right of repair will make them obsolete

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awelxtr 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The new Sennheiser earbuds have replaceable batteries too so the fairbuds are no longer unique in that regard. I haven't read comparisons on sound quality though

	▲	lentil_soup 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		According to FixIt Fairbuds are the best ones for repairability, not just battery: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone_Fairbuds Do you know how the Sennheiser's compare? I'm looking for some for using at the gym, but wanted something I can easily fix if needed. The Fairbuds are also quite a bit cheaper
	▲	Grombobulous 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And of course, wired headphones still exist as an alternative for those who really don’t like the battery aspect, and it’s not even terribly inconvenient for phones without a headphone jack. I suspect that the venn diagram of the kind of person who takes issue with Bluetooth audio batteries and the kind of person willing to use wired headphones or prefers them outright has a lot of overlap.

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Foobar8568 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I have an FP4, and when it'll die, I will just buy an iphone. Security updates are slow, and after the bullshit of the android upgrade, yeah but no.