Still no headphone jack and FM tuner though.
In my European country a law forces manufacturers to include a Dab+ tuner if it includes an FM tuner. Including an FM tuner is almost free, but a dab+ tuner isn’t. Samsung reaction to this law was to push an update that bricked the FM tuners in their phones sold in my country
I still love my fairphone 3+. Had it for several years and have yet to need to do any repair or replacement. Pleasantly surprised and impressed! I also love that I can easily put a different OS on the phone (currently using e/os).
I’m loving my Fairphone 3! Upgraded the camera modules to the 3+ camera, and changed the charging port once after water damage. Also used /e/ for a while, but back to stock now.
The improved camera of the Fairphone 5 looks tempting (also OLED), but can’t justify upgrading when my Fairphone 3 ia still perfectly fine. I guess it’ll have to wait until 5G becomes an absolute necessity and I’m left with no choice. :)
I heard you’ll be waiting a while. I remember seeing videos and stuff that 5G capabilities are overpromised.
In the city I live in 4G/3G is actually a little spotty already, while 5G is working great. But I think that’s just Italian infrastructure rather than the old networks being phased out already…
/e/OS is the GOAT
hopefully by the time my s10e is ready for landfill companies will be making reasonably sized phones again. if I wanted a tablet I’d buy a fucking tablet.
As a repairability and sustainability advocate … This is good news.
As a Fairphone 4 owner … This is bad news for my resolve 😅 when I got my Fairphone I decided that I want to use it for at least the 5 years they guarantee updates and replacement parts … So I guess I’m stuck now … Which isn’t a bad place to be I love my Fairphone 4 it’s great … I just still have the “new shiny thing” mentality stuck somewhere
If you can sell or give the old phone to someone else, they are also displacing a non-fair phone. So filling the market with fairphones (That are still supported) is a GOOD thing. And you are still supporting the company, and all the people they pay as well.
In general though the best thing is to just stick with your current phone if you can. Every new phone still consumes resources to produce and probably replaces some other phone which then has to be recycled or might even end up in a landfill.
Most people will switch smartphones anyway. Nothing you or I can do about it I’m afraid.
Better we get then hooked on fairphone then.
Most people will switch smartphones anyway
That’s the best case scenario, worst case scenario however you sell to someone who otherwise wouldn’t have switched. In that case, it’s still one more new phone. And who is guaranteeing that other people will actually use their Fairphone for its whole lifetime?
Better we get then hooked on fairphone then.
True, but I feel like selling your used Fairphone isn’t the solution to this.
No headphone jack, no sale. I have three hard criteria:
headphone socket usb-c charging expandable storage
I’ll stick with my Sony. Two-out-of-three isn’t good enough.
Same. I can’t imagine having to remember to charge my headphones.
There’s always the option to get a headphone jack adapter for USB-C. I haven’t used one personally yet, but I’ve heard it to be a viable alternative.
My experience: via iPhone 8 + Apple adaptor, it couldn’t drive big cans, and even for earbuds they lose significant volume. My phone has the 3.5mm jack, and it can deafen me. This matters more when hooking up to sound systems because it raises the noise floor.
It’s better than nothing, but it’s not good. I don’t know about the USB-C alternatives though - I can only hope they are better than the ‘lightning’ connector ones.
I know USB-C is more robust than MicroUSB, but that doesn’t feel like it’s good for the connector. I’d much rather have a bit thicker (Apple said they’re getting rid off the jack to make their phones thinner.) or a bit less waterproof phone (not having a massive hole in the phone helps to waterproof it), than to loose the headphone jack.
Earbuds are worse, it’s always one that’s dead because it didn’t sit properly in the charging case.
That sounds terrible! I am already not very good at managing the charge of my phone.
Genuine question: How do you manage not to lose one of the earbuds?
Powerbeats Pro have hooks over the ears and only get used when a wire would be intrusive such as workouts. I don’t much like them but they are hard to lose. They’re notorious for not charging properly and worked much better on Apple than Android, but at least I still both left and right buds.
Very cool. Great reviews as well from what I’ve seen. Definitely on my top contender list. Currently, after flashing a custom ROM, I’m happy with my OnePlus 6T - and upgrading without a clear need certainly goes against Fairphone’s values.
Im using a stock 6T and the wifi disconnect issues and screen locking when reception is bad is really getting on my nerves. Any tips for which ROM i should try that could fix these issues?
I am using LineageOS with zero problems.
Dammit, what’s it gonna take for the Fairphone to be brought to the US? The only options are buying it from the Murena shop with their /e/ OS installed or to get the European model from somewhere like eBay or Newegg.
What’s the downside of the Murena route? I’d probably install /e/OS anyways.
And you can also overwrite it and install stock Fairphone Android, it’s pretty easy.
No downside really, guess I’m just more curious what the stock OS is like for the Fairphone
The stock OS is pretty comparable to AOSP with the Google bits installed, a custom camera app and the Fairphone app (which can be disabled or removed IIRC).
It’s very barebones, the opposite of a (cluttered IMO) Samsung touchwiz or similar customised UI
Does the european version work in the US with their slightly different frequencies? Personally, I’m a little leery of the entire Murena thing. I get the privacy angle, but I’m more interested in the hardware.
From what I’ve seen as long as you’re not using a CDMA network like Verizon it reasonably works. There might be some minor issues when it comes to network performance on 5G/LTE but lots of folks claim that it’s been working just fine for them.
At this point the only thing stopping me from getting a Fairphone through Murena is the fact that they only support the T-Mobile network. All the MVNO options on T-Mobile seem bad. They all have ridiculously low data caps, even on the “unlimited” plans.
Metro has unlimited for $25 no hard throttle, but lower priority after 35gb and restricted tethering. the TMobile prepaid unlimited plans get priority data and if you top up with target there’s no tax and sometimes sales.
That CPU is weird, I wonder if “industrial grade snapdragon” is much more expensive than “consumer grade snapdragon” if the difference is just driver support
They’ve previously been on their own when releasing newer versions of Android onto older Snapdragon CPUs that aren’t technically supported by it, which hasn’t helped things when the updates take a while to arrive as is.
At least now with the industrial CPU they’ll have support available from Qualcomm 💪 and the various performance enhancements and security fixes associated with that
This is the first one that’s actually attractive to me, mostly because the screen didn’t impress me on earlier models. I hope it comes down in price by 200€ or so.
699€ so far… That’s a lot
If you calculate what you’d spend on regular phones with a 2-3 year lifetime instead of a single one for 8 years (even including a few repairs), it might be actually cheap.
Anyone know if fairphone will work on Google Fi?
I wish fairphone was avaliable in some Asian counties at least.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
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Like its previous devices, the Fairphone 5 is made with ethically sourced materials by workers who are given a living wage bonus and is designed to be easy to repair with a lengthy software support period.
But this year’s model is specced-out much more like a modern midrange smartphone, with an OLED display, fast 30W charging, and dual 50-megapixel cameras at the rear.
If that sounds normal or even a little pedestrian, then that’s kind of the point — Fairphone has never been a company on the bleeding edge of smartphone specs.
That should keep the phone usable from a software perspective until 2031, though Fairphone’s press release says it’s aiming for 2033 as a stretch goal.
Like the Fairphone 4, there’s once again no headphone jack here, and the handset is available in three colors; black, blue, and (the correct option) transparent.
A living wage bonus is paid to the 2,000 people who assemble the phone and components like its battery, PCB, and vibration motor.
Saved 80% of original text.
Interesting for the alternative OS options - a device like this one would be great if there were some really good serviceable Linux distro for phones … And yes, I know they exist, but they’re not up to the level needed by most people for a daily driver. As for Android, it’s a nice idea to have a phone that lasts that long, but would it actually be reliable and fast enough to use for 8 years?
Sadly, no option to get this in Australia besides grey import, which is going to be pricey. I’m going to keep an eye on the way this line of phones goes in future, but for me at the moment there are too many unknowns and the price tag is too high.
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