With 5 years of OS support and 8 years of security update.
Related threads:
Threads for Fairphone often fill up with “it’s not going to work if they don’t X.” Lots of people don’t seem to understand that their personal viewpoint can be quite different from other’s.
There are people who are aware of the trade-offs of a Fairphone, but still choose to get one.
I’ve always been in favour of a phone with a shitty camera. I don’t give a fuck about posting on social media, and these days a huge chunk of a phone’s price is determined by how powerful of a camera they were able to cram into it.
I recognize that this apparently sounds insane to most people.
My socially isolated self rarely if ever needs to take a single picture. I’m doing perfectly fine with the base camera that my old devices came with.
I don’t post on social media either, but my phone have replaced the compact camera that I used to pack for family vacations.
I suspect that’s what most people use their phone camera phone: to take personal photos that will only be shared with family members.
In terms of BOM the cameras usually aren’t even that much. It’s just one factor that allows them to differentiate “premium” phones they can gouge more for.
The cameras aren’t even bad, they are perfectly acceptable for a mid-range phone. If you use a GCam port they can look great.
It’s nice to have a decent camera, but honestly, 90% of the people (including myself) are so bad at taking pictures, that the difference between mid range and ultra premium is almost zero.
The only thing that’s really really cool is night mode. My Pixel can take really great photos with extremely low light levels.
If it a) comes to the US, and b) comes with stock Android out of the box, I might get it for my next phone. Currently leaning toward a Pixel with Graphene.
b) is already given and a) depends on whether you’ll find someone to bring it to you.
b) is not already given. The only company that brought the FP4 to the US loads it with /e/.
Which you can remove easily. Or just organize someone buying itv in Europe.
Just wish it had a US release…
Fairphone 4 is sold and supported in NA, hope they will carry fairphone 5 as well: https://mander.xyz/comment/2699680
Nice 👍
still waiting for the next unfairphone release
September 12th for the new iPhone.
a day after the
I wonder if IP55 is enough to mount to motorcycle handlebars in heavy rain.
Well, IPx5 is technically water resistant for water jets and up to 12.5 liters per minute. I think that sounds enough to be used it rain. I also saw some reviews of other devices that even IPx4 is fine in rain.
Doubt it but for that use an otterbox case or similar would be your best friend, hell nowadays you can mount phones within a waterproof bag.
Does OtterBox make cases for Fairphone?
Not the literal brand, no, but there are dozens of knockoff waterproof cases for exactly fairphone 4 on amazon.
Edit: No.
Doesn’t seem like there are any waterproof cases for the 4, so I doubt we will see any for the 5. Maybe more likely now that the phone is available in the US at least. Not a fan of the waterproof bag idea myself.
At least my tank bag has the option for a waterproof cell phone pocket though, I doubt the touch screen would work through the thick plastic. Never tried it because I don’t have the pouch required to keep the phone in place on the bag.
That’s not what I mean when I talk about a case, I mean something I can keep on all of the time. Something like an otterbox fre would be more appropriate. Or the old lifeproof cases like I had for my iPhone 4S. I live in a climate where it is pretty much always raining. My Pixel 3 can get drenched to the point you cant even use the touch screen anymore with no issues. Plus it can mount straight to my handlebars with a quadlock case instead of having to put on my tank bag and strap it to that.
Oh wow, that sounds like an infinitely better experience.
I pre-ordered already.
Ok, so honesty time: The fact that this company is good for the environment, pays people well, etc… is NOT my main “thing” for wanting to own this phone.
It’s the fact that it is open. I can unlock and flash whatever I want, I can fix things by ordering replacement parts, a new screen is TOTALLY do-able both price wise and doing it myself.
Also it does not come with bloat, or vendor-lock in software like on ALL samsung shitty phones.
Out of all the phones, this one makes the most sense.
(And my current FP4 goes to my mother, perfect for her and many more years of support)
What OSes support the fairphone? I’d consider one if I could run something other than android on it
What are you currently running? Just curious what non-android and non-ios is working well for you.
Nice, I still had this in my browsing-history: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/operating-systems-for-fairphones/11425
That’s quite a list. Nice.
I see Google Drive, Gmail, Google Messages on screenshots so it does come with bloatware.
As a side note, Google Messages replaced the recently discontinued AOSP SMS messaging app
Easily removed, though. The great thing about Fairphones is, like Pixels, they have loads of deGoogled OS support.
While unfortunate, not shipping these standard Google apps is not really an option for any Android manufacturer due to Google requirements. Including them is required if you want to use anything from the GSM, which includes things like the Play Store and everything it touches. You can technically ship a different Android distribution like Lineage or /e/, but that’s not really what most people will be expecting of an “Android” phone and will narrow the viable target demographic even more than the value proposition already does.
That’s correct, and people who want a fully degoogled OS usually know how to install it, people who expect to see the Play Store and other Google apps are less likely to know how to install that.
I understand why is the device so expensive (they wanted to make sure that everyone in the manufacture pipeline is properly paid, and that the materials are ethically sourced as much as humanly possible) but yeah, unless I can be absolutely sure that I won’t be changing devices in the next five years, I don’t think I’ll be able to afford this one.
Isn’t it wonderful playing a rigged game?
Here is a phone that ticks many, many boxes for sustainable and ethical production. It’s the phone that “free market will fix it” neoliberals insist should bring the downfall of companies that just release e-waste.
But of course the free market won’t fix anything.
Neoliberals built a managed democracy and giant corporations were allowed to use outsourcing, slaves and environment-unfriendly manufacturing.
The influx of cheap goods subsidised by the misery of foreign workers and future generations made it harder to notice our shrinking wages. We could still afford to fill our homes with tat, just like our parents did.
But your grandfathers tools lasted 30 years and yours will last 3 (and be worse for the duration). Very few companies even bother offering good products, let alone ethical ones.
Because nobody can actually afford “good” any more. Not the consumers who want to buy it, nor the handful of companies trying to sell it. You have to buy crap. Companies have to be unethical.
It’s dug us a very very deep hole that’s going to be a lot of hard work to climb out of and it’s looking like politicians and billionaires are only interested in selling us new shovels.
Millions of people could afford this phone, they just don’t care about ethics.
Instead the Samsung S’s, Folds and iPhones sell by the tens of millions because they are trendy and give more “bang for the buck”.
And millionaires could afford to pay their workers fair wages, but apparently you’d rather blame the general public instead.
It’s not at all unreasonable for people to assume the goods they buy are ethically produced.
If someone gets food poisoning from a restaurant, do you blame them for eating there? Do you try and shame them for not reading through 800 reviews to check it was safe to eat there? Do you insist they should have gone somewhere that was twice the price for half the portion?
Of course you don’t. But apparently this deeply flawed logic is only used when it comes to corporate greed and only because rich people don’t run restaurants.
All those are fair points. There’s not much freedom of choice because common people are struggling to live as it is, to splurge on something with a bad camera and battery life makes no sense (I believe those are some main points people upgrade their phones).
I’m running a 4 year old phone and probably will be going on 5th year because of economical strain.
In your analogy, it also doesn’t help that there’s only one ethical restaurant among hundreds of unethical ones. It’s expensive because nobody goes there and nobody goes there because it’s expensive.
I understand why people would hesitate to pay the price. Realistically, the Fairphone could have put in higher quality parts but that would have just blown their costs out further.
But exploitative wages – for both foreign and domestic workers – are at the core of many problems and I hate to see customers blamed.
The one in a hundred restaurant might be full of empty tables, but where would people eat if you doubled their wages? If there were two chocolate bars with identical taste, being offered at an identical price, except one of them used child slaves (and said so on the packaging), how many people “wouldn’t care” then?
Ethical choices shouldn’t be a luxury, unethical choices just shouldn’t be an option. If that means people can’t afford chocolate, they can take it up with the executives who have been pocketing their payrises.
That was my thought as well. I am unfortunately not able to afford an expensive phone if it won’t last significantly longer than a regular. But then again, my Xiaomi phone became unusable after about 2, maybe 3 years I think. It was just to unbearably slow. So ok, it’s about 150-200€ every 2 years - maybe 700€ for 5 wouldn’t be that bad then. I also saw there is something like a subscription thing where you pay per month?
There is an official subscription called Fairphone Easy being offered in the Netherlands exclusively. For other European counties there’s Commown, but it’s pretty expensive.
The big draw for me is that it’s modular and easily repairable. If you crack the screen, the battery life gets worse, or whatever else, you can replace it without too much issue. With the relative stop of phones getting better over the years (not saying they need to either, because they do everything that I want and way more, which is mostly just browsing the internet/Lemmy) I’m much more looking for something I can just use for many years instead of replacing every year or two.
I can understand that. The next best option is a second-hand phone, which will also help with your financial problem. However keep in mind that Fairphone are offering a minimum of support for 8 years (and aiming for 10) so it may work out as less overall depending on what you normally spend on a phone.
If I ever will be able to use Android phone for more then 2 years without the system getting all wonky I will consider spending more than $300 on a phone.
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5 years of OS updates is more than you get from any other Android manufacturer. For everyone else in the space, you are lucky to get 3.
- It’s 8 apparently
- 5 years is as long as most phones that I used last so there would be no point to buy it
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slower
How fast do you need your phone to be for sending messages, streaming video, or browsing the web? Every phone made in the last decade can do these things.
Fair wages for the people making the phone is also a selling point of this phone. It’s not just about repairability.
That said I’m also not writing this from a Fairphone, because the price is too high for me.
That may be true but how are they guaranteeing this on a component level? As far as I know, they use off the shelf stuff so they only have assembly wages. And that doesn’t justify the price imo.
You can take a look at their impact reports they release every year: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Fairphone-Impact-Report-2022.pdf
They keep close track of materials used and wage paid for all their suppliers. They also pay wage bonuses to the workers at some of their suppliers (page 41).
The high price actually cancels the point of the repairability. I can get a similar phone for easily €400-500 less. If I budget that extra price for repairs, I can get the battery and screen replaced quite a few times.
I say that as an FP4 owner, who did the same calculation mistake there.
According to Fairphone “We plan at least 5 Android OS version updates after Android 13”.
Let’s see. There is still no Android 13 on the FP4.
At least CalyxOS, DivestOS offer Android 13 builds for FP4 (and obviously LineageOS, but it doesn’t have OTA updates, afaik)
Samsung offers 4 years of os updates for many phones and watches. And news reported that pixel 8 will have better.
If I recall correctly, Xiaomi recently declared the same for some of their phones.
There’s a clear trajectory where this is heading. From 2027 the EU will enforce replaceable batteries and it looks like some other markets might follow. Software support duration is increasing a lot as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d get most of the Fairphone’s benefits on a regular Samsung in a few years.
Yes, very realistic scenario. TBF, I cannot remember if I ever upgraded a phone due to the battery issuses.
So, for me personally, replaceable battery is not a significant benefit.
Happens if you run a phone for long enough ^^
Well…aside from the fair supply chain, liveable wages, humane working conditions, environment footprint…
4 years including security updates though right? If that’s the flcase then fairphone’s doing 8 years.
No really. Samsung offers 4 years of os updates and 5 years of security updates. Samsung releases os updates really fast, so 5 years basically means 5 os versions.
Fairhone declares 5 os versions and 8 years of software support. Fairphone users here mentioned that fairphone is very slow with updates, so it could happen that 5 os versions really will take 8 years. If Fairphone will keep same cadence as Samsung, its 5 os versions can be coverted into 5 years.
But we have a bit of apples vs oranges here.
I personally find samsung’s policy good enough for majority of users. I expect that I will upgrade my phone every 3 - 5 years for different unpredictable today reasons anyway.
They are offering a minimum of 8 years of software support. 5 years is the warranty. I’m not sure why OP wrote that, it’s not what was announced.
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It’s not, according to Fairphone “We plan at least 5 Android OS version updates after Android 13”. So, 5 years of os and other 3 years of security.
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Sorry, I misunderstood what OP was trying to say. I didn’t realise they were talking about feature updates when they mentioned the 5 years. A security patch is still an update to the operating system and evidence of support, so my initial reaction was that they were wrong when they said “5 years of OS support”.
ah… I will flash it with a custom rom anyway from day 1 :D
🙂
With the pace of OS updates that Fairphone had so far, it will be 8 years of OS updates. But only because the OS updates will be 3 years late.
The FP4 just got Android 12 earlier this year, with no Android 13 in sight.
A good point.
Unfortunately it’s impossible to offer support for longer than the chipset
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The price is also higher because they use fair trade gold and whatnot. Given the mission to clean up the electronics industry it’s plesently suprising it doesn’t cost more
Actually in the past they updated their software even past the support from qualcomm, rewriting by themselves what was needed to allow and old chipset to run newer android version
Yeah, well, they are just doing what custom ROM makers have been doing for a decade and a half.
My old Droid 4 was also EOL after Android 4.1. Custom ROM makers pushed this up to Android 7.1 by ignoring the parts (e.g. the Kernel) that they couldn’t update.
Sure, but the good is that this is the only company doing it. Also my Galaxy Nexus received a big kernel update from people at xda developers, but was by chance and good will of the people involved. Here they did it because they kept up the commercial promise behind the product they sell, something that basically no other company in this sector does (or they do, but with very short term promises).
I was exited for this phone, but as I said in another thread: I am a bit disappoited about the CPU and the substantial price hike, but most of all aqout the size increase. Is there any market research at all indicating that customers want 6"+ displays?
It’s roughly the same size as the Fairphone 4, isn’t it? Like 1mm less thick.
I get that they wanted to increase the battery and put out a new cpu, but I’m disappointed they’re not offering any camera or screen upgrades for my Fairphone 4.
Were you actually expecting that? No manufacturer has ever created an upgradeable smartphone, let alone one as small as Fairphone. The Phonebloks concept died ages ago.
The situation with the camera on the Fairphone 3 was unique and mainly in response to problems with the original module. It shouldn’t be taken as evidence that they have the ability to do this with every edition of the Fairphone, or extend upgrades to other areas like the display.
Fair enough. Framework is definitely able to do those sorts of upgrades, but laptops are a lot more standardized than phones.
That’s the focus of Framework’s business. Fairphone is a lot more focused on improving working conditions, pay rates, reducing environmental footprint, etc. The modular design is really more of a side-effect of that last bit rather than the reason the company exists.
With you on almost all points. Only the size didn’t actually increase. The phone’s dimensions are exactly the same. Only the weight went up a bit. The screen size was increased by using up more of the phone’s front side.
The phone is still a massive brick.
substantial price hike
it’s €50 more expensive than the FP4 with the same RAM/storage configuration on its release (€650 fot 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage).
Also it’s 3x cheaper than my pentium that i bought in 1997 and it has 3000x less ram than this. I know that we don’t have that kind of exponential growth of hardware like we had 10 years ago, but still there is progress and it’s expected to have a better product for the same price each generation.
Is there any market research at all indicating that customers want 6"+ displays?
Unfortunately, yes. People who buy smaller phones are the people who buy a new phone less often, and small phones tend to sell worse than the big models (see S10e, iPhone 12(?) Mini) so don’t get renewed. Would be nice if they did.
It’s so frustrating that this is true. I use devices until they’re dead or at risk of serious compromise before getting another, but the only options are ones that I can’t even hold comfortably with one hand. I’m seriously considering the Jelly 2 at this point.
I picked up a 13 Mini back in March, and will ride this bad boy for as long as I can, in the hope that Apple eventually release another Mini model.
So perhaps it’s true that we hold onto our little phones for longer, primarily because we’re waiting for another little phone to come along.
This is so true. I had a 12 mini and upgraded to the 13 mini in December. The battery is better, and I plan on keeping this until the next mini phone arrives. (If any)
For the FP4 they said one of the reasons they remove the aux input was that more people asked them to reduce the size of their phone than to keep the input.
The CPU choice is great, why are you disappointed with it? It’s the reason they can offer a minimum of 8 years of support on this model.
I would also like to know what the problem is with the CPU. My current phone has this CPU and it works fine.
Edit:
Geekbench FP4 Vs FP5 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/2432096?baseline=2439889
Unfortunately I think a lot of people just have zero understanding of how the smartphone industry works. They think small manufacturers like Fairphone just have free reign to get whatever parts they want, offer updates for however long they want, etc.
The reality is that Fairphone have to find a way to work within the system that has been created by big tech. That means selecting parts based on their suitability for the long-term support goals they have. It’s one of the reasons why the specs are mid-range, because these parts stay in circulation for longer. For example, the 4 had a very generic 60 Hz IPS notch display because it was a widely used panel within the industry at the time. Now that higher refresh rate OLEDs have become more common on mid-range devices, Fairphone has been able to put one into the 5.
You have a Qualcomm QCM 6490? Google told me, there is basically no phone out there that uses it, because it’s an IoT SoC, not one made for phones.
Crosscall Core-Z5 https://www.crosscall.com/en_FR/core-z5-COZ5.MASTER.html
How did you end ab with that phone? I never heard of that company.
I live in France, I wanted a phone with buttons that wasn’t just an ODM with a different logo on it. It is an interesting company. I’ve had some contact with them. They are legit going to pull out of China and move production back to France. They uphold their 5 year warranty promise as well.
And, they update their stuff. I’m on Android 13 and apparently older devices are still receiving updates too.
I’m getting some low-key Fairphone vibes there. Cool stuff!
Looks pretty nice tbh! Probably going to stick to my current phone a few more years until it stops being updated but if I manage to break it this might just be the replacement.
The first company that produces a phone with
- removable battery
- maximum 6in screen
- 3.5mm jack
- open bootloader
will break the market
People want big phones for some reason, so it’s unlikely it would break the market. Those who want what you described are (unfortunately) very few.
People want big phones for some reason
Bigger battery, better for content consumption and overall usage if you use it frequently. It’s not that weird, yet you treat it as if we were talking about aliens.
What’s weird is that it’s the only option. They discontinued the iPod since the phone did it all, but then also stopped making phones that are convenient sizes and any analog sound option.
Not sure where you got the aliens conclusion.
I mean, almost complete disappearance of smaller phones is kinda puzzling? The difference in screen/battery size between a 6" and a 6.8" phone isn’t that big, yet one will fit pretty much any pocket, while the other one won’t. I still find it counterintuitive that most people would put that much priority on gaining screen real estate over mobility. Another interesting thing is that these smaller sized phones are still present in flagship releases, so they’re kind of a premium feature now.
I mean, almost complete disappearance of smaller phones is kinda puzzling?
Yeah, my bad there, I understood the previous comment as somewhat of a “Well I don’t understand how people can like big phones”.
My guess is, as with many other things, corporations pushed towards a certain thing (big phones in this case) enough to make it the default and then the bigger audience just stopped caring as a result.
It is interesting indeed, but I guess that’s just it, aside from the obvious fact that the bigger the space, the easier is to design stuff (my previous comment + better heat dissipation + more space for cameras), so probably a mixture of all of these things together and a couple more.
I don’t think that we are very few, I mean look at the upvotes…
It’s just the market that is going the other direction and we just take it instead of spending a little bit of time looking for other solutions.
The Fairphone 3 has that. It also supports Android 13.
Yeah that would be nice, unluckily it’s been discontinued and whenever I find one on the secondary market the price is prohibitive…
Fairphone 3.
I do not see any suitable replacement anywhere on the market 😭
And a transparent back cover
Fairphone Fold when?
Fairphold
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That’s what I want to see. Real choice in smartphones.
This is a preorder, not actual release.
it’s better than nothing right? 😂
I know what you mean, but because you’ve allowed yourself to miss my point completely - I’ll do the same.
No, it is not, in fact, better. Nothing would be better, because we would not have a false impression of the situation.
Anyway I preordered
I sort of wish I could justify it, but my current phone is more than capable.
My current phone is a Lenovo P2 from 2016. I’m waiting 7 years for this upgrade.
