I don’t like smartphones. I use a dumbphone.
But this is a wonderful initiative.
Fairphone 6 approaching? They are great, the project is amazing and I wish every brand would be like them in terms of caring about users and environment
Still like the idea behind it and wish there was support for GrapheneOS (going even further than /e/o) as well as better camera quality but this is the price we have to pay for flexibility and sustainability I think. Like the concept here but never tried to go with one so far.
Can even get it pre-installed with /e/OS to minimise snooping by Google
Fairphone don’t sell replacement mainboards, presumably to stop people building phones from parts but they look very serviceable in other respects.
I’ve owned the 4, for a couple of years. Was really excited to get one.
Parts have been unavailable for a long time when I needed them. The battery is pretty dead after 2 years meanwhile my pixel which is about 5 years old still going strong. The os is the buggiest experience I’ve ever had, sluggish, going from portrait the landscape kills UI formatting if it switches to power save it’ll skip a video. Boot loops constantly.
Never again I’m afraid it’s neat I could fix things with it so quickly but they fail hard past that.
Example navigation buttons have just covered the voyager ui
Navigation buttons covering the Voyager UI is an Android/Voyager bug. It has happened on my last two phones.
It works fine on all my test devices.
Wow. I got the 4 at launch and honestly never had any problems except calls get fucked up more frequently recently. Didn’t know they stopped selling parts, what’s the point?
They didn’t stop selling parts they were just unavailable which when you need them as you say defeats the point.
That’s a distinction without a difference. If things are consistently out of stock, they’re not actually selling them.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I believe the F6 is likely expected by autumn and was considering this as my next. I often wondered about parts as time goes by, as I suspected the company wouldn’t want a huge inventory of spares and the costs involved. If I do get one, I’ll likely buy a spare screen at the least.
The UI stuff is disappointing, however maybe not a deal breaker as I’m trying to reduce my usage. Perhaps a buggy smartphone could be a decent dumbphone alternative.
The hardware is good and I like the idea in principle but Fairphone’s support and software QA is dreadful and you need to hope you never need the former because of problems with the latter. My FP5 was bricked by an update they pushed out and after six weeks of trying to get a solution from their support (four weeks of which they didn’t respond at all) I ended up claiming on insurance and buying a Pixel. According to the forums this problem is far from unique to me.
I’ve been running FP4 for about 2 years now. the software bug fix cycle leaves something to be desired.
for example, the first 16 months of my ownership had every single phone call screaming at me. I mean, the volume was loud enough it was quieter than the speaker phone.
the did eventually fix that bug, but not two months later there’s a bug that breaks my running processes button(square at the bottom). as of right now there’s no fix other than using the OEM shitty launcher. so, 5-10 times a day I have to go to settings > apps > default apps > launcher > bliss launcher > running apps > settings > launchers > my launcher > close what I just had to use > go back to what I was just doing.
I enjoy the phone, don’t get me wrong. I just wish they performed better software testing on their own hardware.
I got the phone for the ethics, reparability, and privacy. I’ll never go back.
Get on LineageOS.
Please get through the FCC and open sales in the USA before Fairphone 6 is made.
I really don’t want to buy another unrepairable phone.
Do you know why it’s not in the US?
Anything that emits radio signal must receive an FCC certification. Fairphone has not submitted the Fairphone 5 for certification. Certification database search. It’s annoying but a super important regulatory process.
Thanks for a great and in depth answer. I love Lemmy.
Idk, but if I had to guess, the answer is almost always money.
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I’ve been meaning to look into PinePhone myself.
As an owner of an old pine phone, I can confidently say avoid for now. Not remotely ready or reliable enough.
I just want something to have decent Linux support. I want to run postmarketOS, mobian, or something of that ilk on my phone, and I want all the basic phone features to work properly:
- battery - phone should sleep and wake properly so I can get a full day’s use out between charging
- modem - calls, SMS, MMS, data, etc should all work consistently
- wifi/bluetooth - should be reliable and something I don’t notice
- audio - speaker and mic should be sufficiently good and reliable
And so on. I don’t need any special app support, I just need the phone to be able to reliably do phone things.
Here are issues I’ve heard about from the PinePhone (Pro):
- battery - well short of a full day, though OG PinePhone is much closer than PinePhone Pro
- calls - I think this is okay now?
- SMS/MMS - the best solution I’ve seen is to hook up an MMS bridge to Matrix, upload everything there, then download; that’s ridiculous
- wifi/bluetooth - I think it’s okay? Honestly, it’s not something I’ve bothered to check up on
- audio - I’ve heard audio quality sucks, both on the mic and the speaker
That doesn’t get into actual usability issues. I’m honestly pretty tolerant of a laggy interface, but I need those basic phone functions to work properly.
I really want this to come to the US as well…
Is this phone also more secure?
The problem we are running into right now is Apple and Google are colluding with the US government over fascism and they are supporting their Nazi regime
They have all the power and they can change all of these services overnight, they can track you and everything and you will have no idea and no way to get rid of it
We really need an open replacement. Phones are now used for everything
Is this phone also more secure?
Probably not.
Apple & Google have spent considerable amounts of time building out hardware security infrastructure for their products that I find it extremely unlikely Fairphone would have been able to match.
For example, the popular alternative Android OS GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixels, because: (Emphasis added by me)
“There are currently no other devices meeting even the most basic security requirements while running an alternate OS. GrapheneOS is very interested in supporting a non-Pixel brand, but the vast majority of Android OEMs do not take security seriously. Samsung takes security almost as seriously as Google, but they deliberately cripple their devices when unlock them to install another OS and don’t allow an alternate OS to use important security features. If Samsung permitted GrapheneOS to support their devices properly, many of their phones would be the closest to meeting our requirements. They’re currently missing the very important hardware memory tagging feature, but only because it’s such a new feature”
If even Samsung, the only other phone brand on the market they consider close to meeting their standards, doesn’t support every modern hardware security feature, and deliberately cripples their security for alternate OS’s, as a multi billion dollar company, I doubt Fairphone has custom-built hardware security mechanisms for their phones to the degree that Google has.
I used a Fairphone 4 with /e/ and it was good. Not great, but useable. I expect the hardware bugs I ran into (using the camera only worked like 20 times before the phone needed a restart, Bluetooth randomly not working) to be ironed out by now. Currently on an old Samsung and it is more solid, but I also liked the environmentalism with the fairphone. Anyone with a Fairphone 5 and something like a glucose sensor thats in constant use?
The headphone jack user to lemmy user ratio is apparently nearly 1:1
Yeah, Lemmy is full of people stuck in their way and insisting older tech is better because they refuse to update
Aaaand it’s impossible to buy in the US. Even if USians want to do the right thing, we’re not permitted.
Of course, not being a billionaire is illegal here.
I’m using this phone right now and I love it. it feels solid. Im using a degoogled ROM and it just works, there seems to be a lot of people pressing for graphene os specifically and discrediting the phone for what it is. its so easy to take apart and cheaply repair its great. it’s perfect for folk who want a decent smartphone that you dont have to worry about being thrown around. sure it’s not perfect but it is still a very good
I have been shopping for a rom for my FP. Which are you running?
calyx os is what I use
I use CalyxOS on mine. It has microG all working by default so if you need that sort of thing it’s probably the easiest way to get it up and running
What’s the cost to replace a cracked screen?
You can buy the OLED display as a spare part for 100 EUR on the official website. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?category=4&filters=31
Yeah, that plus labor is 80% of what I typically pay for a whole brand new phone… I know why it is this way, but it really is this way and that makes it very hard for low volume players to enter the market.
Smartphones of this price would be low quality, impossible to self epair, and very likely made with very poor social and environmental conditions. It’s the opposite of what Fairphone does, so the comparison is not possible.
Only 400€ to go until I can afford it.
I wish they could implement the parts of the Pixel phones that allow GrapheneOS to be used.
What parts are these? I’ve always wondered what this was about, why the pixel was the only phone that could support GrapheneOS
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
So, graphene could be put on those phones if the devs wanted to do it, but it would be less secure since the bootloader would remain unlocked.
Also, supporting a small line a phones is probably infinitely easier than a range, of devices, but it would be nice to have another option. Especially now that the Fairphone pice is reasonable.
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
That is not the case. SHIFTmq, Motorola and Fairphone allow the bootloader to be relocked with a custom rom. There are many requirements the Fairphone lacks for GrapheneOS, but relocking the bootloader is not one of them.
Thanks! I guess what I read before was either old or just wrong.
The Fairphone can be locked after flashing a custom rom. /e/-OS is officially supported. You can even buy it from them with /e/ preinstalled. iode-OS also works. I don’t know about Graphene OS, but tbh, I don’t see the benefit of Graphene OS for the average user. /e/ has built in privacy features, is google-free and runs MicroG as alternative to Google Play Services. Most apps run fine. You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
I’ve been using Fairphone 5 with /e/-OS for over a year and love it.
/e/ has built in privacy features
/e/ uses a for profit 3rd party for unencrypted backups. That alone should be a big red flag.
is google-free and runs MicroG
So it runs google. MicroG just limits what data is sent to google.
You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
not if the app attempts to verify its license through the play store. you need microg for that, or patch it
It a perfectly usable Android for the average user. Everything works out of the boy. If it is not for you, fine. Buy a Pixel.
for the average user.
So we are talking about an average user, who
- fully understands the appeal of a degoogled Phone
- Willingly spends extra money for a fairphone
- is able to migrate away from google services to /e/'s services
- Is willing and able to troubleshoot any problems that MicroG has
- is willing to fix not working banking apps
- but somehow can’t use a simple web installer from Calyx
Tell me, is this average user in the room with us right now?
Everything works out of the boy.
So does (and does not) with Calix or Graphene
Buy a Pixel.
I think you don’t get what I’m talking about.
-It takes a base level of understanding why you would buy a Fairphone (or any degoogled phone)
- it takes a base level of understanding phones to be able to use a degoogled one
- If you already have that knowledge, you might as well just take an extra 5 minutes and use the web installer for calyx since it is literally the same AND has less vendor lockin than /e/
Edit: You want an average user friendly ROM? Just use Lineage for gods sake.
In 4 years I have never (and will never) used any service from /e/. There is no vendor lock whatsoever. That’s fully optional.
Points 3, 4 and 5 in your list are moot IMHO.
Also
It takes a base level of understanding why you would buy a Fairphone
It doesn’t really. “Phone is repairable and X can help me”, “they pay the makers fair wages” are not really complex value propositions that require some (technical) understanding.
The point of /e/ and similar distributions is that you can buy a phone with it (average user will never reflash) and just have a phone that doesn’t use Google (it does, for the amount that doesn’t require you to do extra technical stuff and have a sane user experience at the same time).
That said, calyx seems a great alternative and so are iode. I think the advantages of one over the other (for my brief search) are quite small.
Well even graphene os still runs a version of Android. So there is still some goggle code in that. But ripping oit google play, amd various goggle services means goggle doesn’t track you with those. Yeah if you still ise gmail and log into toutube every day they will.
there is still some goggle code in that.
But that code is open source, and it has been verified that it dosent track you.
e-OS is said to have the worst security of pretty much all Android distributions. Dunno if this is a fact, but apparently the upgrade schedules are not great.
They are usually a month behind
https://www.kuketz-blog.de/weshalb-grapheneos-aktuell-nur-google-pixel-geraete-unterstuetzt/
(From an Interview - The relevant parts are in English)
Security seems not easy.
I mean, you could use CalyxOS
It dosent have such things as 2 factor pin auth for fingerprint, but its the closest to Graphene
Not quite the same. The big thing with GrapheneOS is it can run the actual Google services, but sandboxed. Organic Maps is better than Google Maps in everyway, but it’s routes are so much worse because it has no traffic into to go on. It’s an anticompetitive network effect, but it’s hard to fight without law makers.
Really wish Fairphone would come to the US. I’d spend the money on it, but they only half-ass sold the last gen phone here on the US.
I don’t even understand why. They support most 4G and every mid and low band 5G in America. Even if I could just import it, I’d be happy.
AT&T has a whitelist system, they check IMEIs often and if your device is not approved, cell service stops working.
For Verizon, you have to call customer service to do a manual override.
Only T-Mobile allows any phone to work without explicit approval.
Probably some reason like they don’t want people complaining the service is bad because they use a “no-name brand” phone, so they just cut you off and blame your phpne because it’s easier for corporate. (Yay, capitalism! 🫠 /s)
I heard that Australia now has a Nationwide whitelist system that even block unapproved phones from calling the emergency number.
Technology is really getting enshittified. 😓
Unfortunately Telecomms in Australia seem to have a pissing contest on who can screw consumers more, America or Aussie companies.
I can send you one probably, but you know… tariffs (and processing fees).
I appreciate it, but I just got a new phone because I needed a new one recently. I wish it could have been something like a Fairphone, but thems the breaks.
