The new fairphone 5 came out, it looks cool but the price is really, really high…
If it’s a phone that can really last 10 years it could be good, but is that true? Is it worth it? I could get the one with /e/os from Murena because i want a degoogled phone with a bootloader locked, but is it usable on a daily basis?
Hopefully I’m not too late to say this: I would strongly caution against buying a Fairphone. My mum got a new Fairphone 3 in early 2021. Earlier this year, just after the phone went out of warranty, the USB-C port stopped working. The replacement bottom module was out of stock, it’s been out of stock for months, and the forums are full of people complaining that it’s been mostly out of stock since 2021. Fairphone claimed that they would have stock back by the end of August, and as of today, that is not true. This phone was supposed to have spare parts available through to 2025.
does the fact that they promise 8 years support now change your mind at all?
Did you read the comment you replied to? Fairphone may be well-intentioned but their promises don’t mean much when they can’t even fully support the phones they have out now
Still using my 6 yo Pixel 2 XL with a custom rom. Not planning to change and I easily see how I can get to 10 years. For instance, the repairability allowed me to change a cracked screen, as it would be possible with the Fairphone.
Downscale your needs and you can easily do 10 years in my opinion!
I don’t know dude, you can downscale your needs all you want but if you drop your phone on the ground and break the screen you can only hope there are third party manufacturer that still produces it or you can toss it away.
Most decent phones still have replacement parts available, though obviously they are not always identical in quality to the original.
I believe that the price is reasonable overall: it has good specs and now that FP is an established brand you know it won’t go out of business and support will last. /e/OS has become good enough lately to be reliable to daily drive (it requires some initial adjustment, but nothing to be worried about).
Also, they are phones that withhold their value in the secondary market: a used FP3+ on ebay costs more than 400€ and it had a launch price of 439€, so you can easily sell them for a good price if you ever change your mind about owning one.
The only thing that makes me hesitant to buy one is the fact that now the EU is pushing a lot of consumer friendly laws, like mandatory USB-C, replaceable batteries, extended software support and so on… So in two or three years the smartphone market might offer more high-end products that are long lasting and have a more accessible price tag. It only depends on how much time can you wait.Edit: added links to sources
I bought the FP3, then upgraded it to an FP3+ when the camera broke. Never had as much fun with a phone before or since. It has been my daily driver for years and it did everything well enough, if a bit slow. My friends either get new phones or use them despite visible damage because they can’t fix them. Now I ordered the FP5 to have the 3+ as a backup and test setup and I am confident I will use the FP5 for 3-6 years again :)
Fairphones are like an odd car: There are sleeker, faster, cheaper and maybe just better alternatives around. However you still like it and just learn where to hit it with a hammer when it starts making funny noises. If you can afford it and like odd devices, it’s for you.
Don’t hit your phone with a hammer please . 🤓
You can’t tell me what to do!!!
…but it kinda makes sense, so I won’t hit it with a hammer 😐
A second-hand phone is always worthier
Ten years is an extremely long time in tech and we might not even be using phones as we currently know them by then.
It might not be. Consider that moore’s law is coming to an end. I fully expect more and more products to be cloud based and ai based. I don’t think ai can run on our phone even in the near future. Battery is another issue, you can’t afford to run too much stuff on it.
We as consumers now need to adjust to the ending moore’s law.
God I hope so. I’m sick of consumer tech constantly being in a marketing cycle
To me it doesn’t look like that long a time for another revolutionary piece of tech to make its way, but what do you think would be the next big thing?
I’ve had a Fairphone 4 for just under a year running CalyxOS, and I am very happy with it. Not sure when / if CalyxOS will be available for FP5, but unless they have locked down anything, I don’t see why that shouldn’t happen. If I understand your post correctly, it is already available with e/OS/?
Maybe the specs are underwhelming, but with the FP4, it does not affect me the slightest based on my use case. Phones are more than good enough already. I do not play any games on my phone. Camera could be better - maybe it is on FP5? Is it the perfect phone? Nope, but at the moment, I think our choices are too limited if you want privacy and repairability. Supporting a company that pushes these kinds of phone is also a reason I went with this phone.
Swapable batteries are nice - I’ve not made use of it yet, but I am planning on getting one or two spare batteries for travel to keep in a printed case. In the EU, this will be mandatory in the future, but first form 2027. Other than that, I am happy with the ability to buy spare parts if something breaks. I can’t see myself ever buying something that is deliberately unrepairable again when there is no reason it should be. I don’t mind the lack of 3.5mm-port, which I know irritates a lot of people. If you swear to this, I can understand that this is disappointing. There exists an adapter, but my experience with these kind of adapters is that they quickly wear out. That was my experience with the iPhone and Apple’s own adapters at least. I burned through four in 1-2 years.
Running a Fairphone 4 with IodéOS (another de-Googled privacy focused Android) for close to two years now and I agree that it’s a capable phone which doesn’t limit myself in any way.
As you mentioned the biggest downside is the camera, which apparently has something to do with the firmware.
Edit: regarding the headphone situation: I’m using Austrian Audio (=former AKG engineering team) Hi-X25BT headphones, which are noticeably better than pods or cheap headphones and have been running well over a year now. They come with both (mini-)jack to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C cables, but I haven’t tried the latter yet.
If you’re not a power user, then it’ll probably work fine for several years. And it will be cheap and easy to replace the battery in 3-5 years when it starts to degrade, or replace the screen if you drop it. Not sure if a full 10 year lifespan is realistic, though.
And you’re right, the price is high, but it’s not supposed to be an affordable phone. The stated goal of the Fairphone is to be better for the environment and better for people than most other electronics. So, they have to do things like use sustainable materials and source parts from places that treat their workers well. All of that means that Fairphones will NEVER be as cheap as other brands. Because doing things right costs more.
We’ll probably never be allowed Fairphone in USA, which I’ve been eying since before launch. Curiosity got the better of me anyway; it’s still cheaper than iPhone https://eu.mobgsm.com/mobile/apple-iphone-14-pro-max-price-in-europe
From a privacy perspective: no
From a fairness and repairability perspective: yes
Why is it bad from a privacy perspective?
It’s not bad, it’s just that it’s an Android phone like any other. It doesn’t claim to be more “private”. It would be approximately the same amount of work to degoogle as any other Android phone.
Probably easier if they dont actively try to prevent you from unlocking & rooting
The default Fairphone OS has Google and a bunch of other trackers.
For a good privacy friendly Fairphone, you should get the Murena Fairphone (they preinstalled DeGoogled /e/OS)
So not really worse than any other Android phones
No worse, and with the benefits of a re-lockable bootloader and widespread custom OS support.
Depends on what you’re using the phone for. Personally, my usage isn’t very demanding, so having a phone that’s going to have security updates and a replaceable battery will probably let me use the phone for 5+ years.
I probably won’t keep the phone for 10 years, but it means I can upgrade on my schedule, not just because some company decided for me.
I can hear consumers now, “ But I want muh planned obsolescence!”
Had the fair phone 4 since launch running e/os, then there was an update that was rinsing the battery so I went back to stock android. Performance just wasn’t good on stock so i got fed up and got an s3 ultra. No more privacy but never had a better phone. Now the fair phone is just collecting dust; I like the idea of it but just needs a bit more juice
10 years ago the Samsung Galaxz S4 released, let’s compare its specs with the current phone
Samsung Galaxzy S4 <> Galaxy S23
Display size: 5" <> 6.1"
Resolutuion: Full HD <> 120hz 2k AMOLED
CPU: 4x1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & 4x1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 <> 1x3.36 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510
RAM: 2GB <> 8GB
Storage: 16-64GB <;> 128-512GB
The question is, do you want to run 10 year old hardware even if its software is supported?
Most of that progression was made in the first 5 years, the last 5 years for new phone tech have been a lot slower. I don’t know if any spec in the next 5 will really make me want to upgrade, stuff just works atm
I feel like we reached the stage where any improvements are really just incremental and small, you used to get a massively different experience when upgrading your phone even just a year later in the early days, nowadays you can barely tell the difference between new and 5 year old models.
When we get in that state of a technology, we should definitely be looking at how to make our devices last longer instead of renewing yearly / bi-yearly.
When we get in that state of a technology, we should definitely be looking at how to make our devices last longer instead of renewing yearly / bi-yearly.
Won’t somebody please think of the
childrenprofits?
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So
- 22% more screen
- twice the pixels
- the same number of cores, though undoubtedly faster
- four times the ram
- 2 to 32 times the storage
Not that impressive for ten years of development to be honest. In addition to that there are limits to what is required for everyday usage. Not to make a “640k should be enough for everybody”, but browser and messaging only requires a few GB of RAM and will do so for the foreseeable future. 8GB is future proof enough for the vast majority of use cases.
I have 2TB of storage in my PC. The actually important part (documents and programs) take up minuscule amounts of space. The remainder is for AI models, movies and games, all of which I could delete and download again.
That’s not the question. There is no singular reason to buy the Fairphone 5 and a purchase is not necessarily a commitment to a full 8 - 10 years of use. Focusing solely on one aspect of the device, like its modular components or the long-term software support, is missing the bigger picture.
But it is the question.
OP wants to know if fairphone will last 10 years. The retort is that even if you can have a phone that is supported for 10 years, you won’t want to use it that long.
Even if they use it for 5 years and then move to something else, it still offers benefits that very few modern phones have. And it’s still the most ethical by an absolute mile. You don’t need to use a Fairphone for the entire support period for it to become a worthwhile purchase.
I use the FP3. It’s an old device but I find it very responsive, and keeps up with what I need it to do personally. I like it, but don’t like Android. I wish the device had more RAM though.
The FP5 looks promising (and big 😳) the only turn offs for me are no 3.5mm headphone jack, and the price could do with another 150-200 off at least. Since FP is a niche company with some special supply chain arrangements, I think this price is the best we’ll get for now (unless you trade in an old device for recycling for money off), but it’s still expensive.
If you value the ability to own and repair your device, the knowledge that people further down in the supply chain get paid a little extra when they’re collecting materials for Fairphone, and that your device will very, very likely get supported for the full time they claim (and even longer in the case of the FP2), then it’s probably worth it.
Otherwise, a new/recent Pixel (eligible to recieve GrapheneOS updates) is another very good option.
Regardless of what device you choose, if you want to keep your next phone for 10 years, you’ll want a lot of onboard storage - but keep as much things as possible on an SD card. This is to avoid burning out your onboard NAND, since it has a finite lifespan and not replaceable.
Pixels don’t support SD cards AFAIK, so if you go for one of them I’d recommend going for the highest builtin storage that you can afford (especially if it’s a used one)
Another FP3 user here.
I wish the device had more RAM though.
I use lineageos with zram on mine. It works wonders
What is zram? It it a baked in feature of Lineage or is it an add on? I’ve got MicroG LOS on my FP3 and it runs well enough.
Zram basically compresses the ram. Afaik it’s enabled by default in LOS.
Nope, can’t find one here, first of all. And even if it were available here, I can just degoogle other model for much better price anyways.
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