On the back, you’ll find a 50MP main camera and a 13MP ultrawide camera, while the front has a 32MP hole-punch camera for selfies and video calls. That’s a significant step down from the Fairphone 5, which used 50MP sensors on all three of its cameras.
No mention of camera quality, though, as it’s basically a press release post and not a hands-on or review. I wish this would be available in the US for a fair price.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jun 11:01
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4000x3000 (12MP) is completely fine for a secondary camera imo. 32MP for the front cam is more than enough too. Upwards of 12MP, the denoising and optics are much more important than the resolution.
32 MP is absurdly much, resized down to 10 MP you are not going to see a difference.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jun 11:05
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Basically nobody has this in hand yet. Its lighter (193g) and shorter (156mm) than the previous ones which is nice. Harder glass surface (Corning 7i) so less scratches. Its still thick tho at 9.6mm but i dont mind that. If gsmarena is correct, then they didnt include video output over USBC for some fucking dumb reason this time. Ridiculous.
I was thinking: Online-people have been asking for thicker iPhones and MacBooks in favour of battery for a while now. So I suppose this is that + repairability.
I think we as a community could highlight that a bit tbh
AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
on 25 Jun 11:36
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Haven’t had an FP6 in my hands yet, but I’ve been using FP since the Fairphone 2, am currently using the FP4 and besides the ethics in sourcing their materials and manufacturing (which they genuinely attempt to provide, and while there is no ethical consumption in capitalism, there are still degrees of fucked-upness.), I do enjoy the repairability, longevity and long-term support. They are also decently supported by de-googled-android and even pure Linux phone operating systems, if you want to experiment there, and come without a lot of bloat that nowadays is ubiquitous with most smartphones.
Do you have a bit of info on these Linux mobile OSs? The FP5 didn't convince me as a main phone when I needed a new one last year, but if it can take a real Linux distro it could be a cool toy.
AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
on 25 Jun 13:07
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Sure - check out this list from the community forums:
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
on 26 Jun 12:52
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You can also look at the MKBHD 2024 smartphone camera comparison test with the FP5. I would suggest taking the test yourself if that is still possible.
I would guess that the camera will be comparable. (Everything below if FP5 assuming about the same performance with the FP6)
For me, daylight pics were after all of the pixels but before anything else. I like the more neutral not supremely over-saturated over-sharpened/smoothed pictures that many phones take nowadays.
For me, it was middle of the pack for dimly lit photos.
For the overall ELO with everyone, FP5 was on the mid-lower end (of a comparison of all flagships + pixel A series), but perfectly usable for people who aren’t doing social media as a job.
blunderworld@lemmy.ca
on 25 Jun 11:03
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It’s too bad they dont ship to Canada. I’m in the market for a new phone and would seriously consider this.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 11:15
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The state of mobile phone market in Canada is so frustrating. Not only is our market dominated by 3 players who refuse to actually compete with each other, but we miss out on half the cool phones that the rest of the world gets too.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 12:55
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Clove Technology resells to outside the EU
But also consider potential carrier compatibility issues with importing
No earphone jack again. That’s a bit sad. Even though I mainly use BLT earbuds, I still sometimes wish I could use my wired headphones. It’s just a small inconvenience
I had a phone without before, that one came with a simple cheap passive adapter for USB-C to 3.5mm headset. You lose out on using headphones while charging, but other than that I was never really inconvenienced…
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jun 16:50
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If you need to plug the headphones into the adapter, you can just leave them plugged in after disconnecting from the phone
This way, the headphones almost become ones with USB-C connectors than auxiliary barrels.
HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 12:07
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You can find adapters that can charge while still having a 3.5mm back
Badabinski@kbin.earth
on 25 Jun 15:17
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I use one of those daily and god they're all terrible. They're huge and they all break really easily. My phone is fucking huge, just give me a built in headphone jack!
aw man, this is the first i’m hearing about discontinuation. apparently it’s because people want larger phones?!
i have a 5 IV and it is by far the largest phone i’ve ever owned… i wish it was like an inch smaller. but it was the only model i could find that doesn’t have a non-rectangular screen. these bloody camera cutouts are everywhere and i never even use the front camera.
I don't mind the cutouts (if done right), they just sit in the notification bar, so they never obscure anything anyway. That's a place Sony could have shaved off the extra height imo, the top and bottom bezels are pretty unnecessary.
We are slowly moving to under-screen cameras now though.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 15:50
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We are slowly moving to under-screen cameras now though.
Nothing better than a selfie from a low angle, right?
Yes that's exactly it. A camera under/behind the display. Not at the bottom of the screen aha (the bottom changes I guess too, depending on your phone rotation).
i mean the bezels together are less than 1cm. and the notch takes space from notifications, with two sim cards and a vpn active that shit overflows instantly anyway.
Fair, I suppose it depends on how the software handles it too. Personally I never let notifications stack up and the VPN for me is on the other side. I'd personally rather have the shorter phone and a cutout.
with two i get another signal strength and wifi calling symbol. it’s already collapsing them when not on the quick setting screen, which is very frustrating.
invisibleOcelot@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 20:32
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FYI, you can disable the icons you don’t want/need using (github.com/zacharee/Tweaker). Although that doesn’t solve the actual problem…
Thanks, I didn't know about this. Though it should just be default settings you can change... size, position, enabled/disabled. All pretty simple settings that should be provided.
What’s the use case for microSD slots on phones these days anyway?
If it’s (just) to avoid paying Google or Apple storage fees, you can work around that by buying one or several HDDs to keep at home and sync stuff over the local network, possibly even build a server and access your stuff remotely.
I really don’t understand the need for that much space on the go, though. Are you watching entire series on your phone?
"just", I think not giving money to Apple or Google anything is a perfectly good reason alone to want expandable storage.
Phone manufacturers charge a massive premium for more storage on a phone, storage which is then lost if the phone dies. A microSD card can be moved around and they cost little.
Not everyone has a home server, in fact a very very small percentage do and being able to store their photos and what-not on a microSD card is very valuable. The freedom to add more storage is a good thing to have. Most people can understand an SD card, but not how to setup an entire home server with syncing etc, let alone exposing that to the web to access it anywhere. It also costs money to run, a microSD card doesn't.
The only reason we don't have expandable storage or a 3.5mm port anymore is: money. They want to sell you that cloud service, upcharge you for more internal storage and make you buy their bluetooth earbuds.
I understand all of that and I agree with you. Not wanting to pay monthly storage fees is perfectly reasonable too. I know I did everything to avoid giving Google any money for storage.
But microSD slots on phones aren’t coming back, and manufacturers are giving you 512GB of internal storage at most, so we need to move on with the times.
I don’t have a home server (yet) either, but I do have 2 TB disks I use to store all the important stuff I want to save forever. Nothing lives on my phone so I’m fine with 128GB.
Local syncing can be done just by installing Syncthing or Omnisend, and everything gets transferred through your home Wi-Fi. No need for complicated setups. I mentioned home servers as an example but you certainly don’t need one.
MicroSD cards also die so I don’t know why you used that as a slight against internal phone storage. You should always have backups.
Storage is dirt cheap these days, it makes no sense to hinder yourself buying niche phones, often at inflated prices, just for a feature that is easily worked around. In my opinion.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 10:13
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I hope you’re not suggesting that people store all of their photos and movies and stuff on their phones SD card and SD card only……
SD cards are absurdly volatile and prone to corruption.
It’s really a small inconvenience, but using an adapter would mean I’d be prone to misplace it when I use my headphones on anything else, so it hardly makes anything better
The reason for not using a headphone jack is making it simpler for the manufacturer, one less connector to handle which also limits how slim a phone can be.
I’m not saying this is good for the consumer, but there are reasons for integrating the functionality into the USB-C port.
If you want easily replaceable parts and a system that can unlock the bootloader for example, your argument can be made for 99% of phones on the market. The more requirements you add, the smaller the scope gets until there are no devices left to choose from.
We were doing perfectly fine 10 years ago and manufacturing has only gotten more advanced, the only real reason the 3.5mm port was removed is because Apple wanted to sell people their AirPods. That's literally it. The rest of the manufacturers soon followed suit when they realised how many people were buying AirPods.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 10:19
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Then you’re going to have to go and start your own phone company. Good luck to you, let us know when your phone comes out.
hexonxonx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jun 16:17
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These points were all disproved long ago. The jack is a the same thickness as the display.
The reason is because BT headphones have a much higher margin, and need to be replaced every few years because of the battery (if not already replaced because they were lost or damaged).
It’s just a dumb cash grab.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 10:21
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This would make sense if the only Bluetooth headphones that worked with the phone were made by the same company, but alas, that’s not how it works.
The reason they don’t have a headphone jack anymore is because it’s easier to make without it, saves money, has a built in replacement in BT, and people overwhelmingly love BT headphones due to being wireless.
one less connector to handle which also limits how slim a phone can be.
The headphone jack is 3.5mm. iPhones are ~7.5mm thick, more than double. The smallest phone available on the market is 4.2mm.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
on 25 Jun 14:35
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I disagree about this being a good solution. USB-C is not meant to take the strain of being used as an audio port when being used in the go so there is risk of damaging the port while a headphone jack is more stable and allows the plug to rotate. Plus I don’t want to have a dingle I can forget when in a rush.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 15:52
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They should make cases with the adapter built in, the way they used to (still do?) for external battery packs.
Awesome solution. Remove the port that everything used to have and make consumers buy adapters. I have like 5 headphones. Should I go buy an adapter for each one? Not to mention that I can easily fix a headphone cable but if a 3.5 to usb-c adapter breaks, it basically becomes junk.
I use them and that’s more than reason enough to want a reliable, small, cheap, jack that literally has no downsides and lets me use my devices how I want to use them.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 10:17
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Unless you want to use them with a device that doesn’t have a headphone jack.
Interesting, I would think that they would consider being eternally connected to a power bank when designing USB-C.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
on 25 Jun 16:00
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I have a tablet that came with a C to 3.5 adapter and it worked well enough for a bit but soon enough it was only intermittently allowing the headphone connection to work, with a message about the port being dirty or something. Yet I could go right from unplugging that and putting the charger in and it worked fine.
There’s just no substitute for a dedicated port, especially when it barely takes up any room
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jun 16:40
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That means the audio still goes through another DAC, lowering the sound quality, compared to an analog 3.5 jack. Also, who wants to further risk wearing out\vreaking their charge port, jack inputs almost seem like they can’t break.
Technically it only goes through 1 dac, not “another one”. But still, yeah, your phone’s dac is most likely a lot better than the one on a $10 adapter. However, the usb-c spec does allow an analog audio signal passthrough. Whether that’s available or not depends on the phone I guess.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jun 22:59
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Too bad LG got out of the phone biz. They had the best dacs and some good phones.
You have these usb-c to mini jack adapters. They are like 5 to 10eu. They are small enough to keep them attached to your jack headphone. It works perfectly for me.
I think it is better to view the usb-c plug as ‘one protocol to rule them all’. If you do so, it makes quite some sense.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev
on 25 Jun 12:03
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I’ve never had one of those actually work…
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 15:13
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The sound quality on them blows no matter which you get.
Every adapter I had was broken after a year or less. I imagine if you keep them attached to your phone, they’ll break even faster. Do these adapters exist with a 90° angle which might help preventing broken cables?
Not really in the spirit of reducing waste.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
on 25 Jun 13:04
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For the amount of space a earphone jack takes it really doesn't make sense for them to include it, when you can just use a cheap adaptor cable
Ross_audio@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 21:58
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“For the amount of space it takes to include a second speaker or second camera it doesn’t really make sense when you can just plug in an external one”
You sound like an idiot.
I can buy a phone from HMD that’s more repairable, more modular, and has sustainable features.
Fairphone has been a busted flush since they ditched the headphone jack. It’s just the most obvious sign amongst many they started making landfill phones.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
on 25 Jun 22:41
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Resorting to insults really?
3.5mm Aux takes up a shit load of space to connect 4 analog wires. If a phone has Aux it should at the very least be 2.5mm.
It makes no sense to me why you can't just use an adapter.
More battery > Redundant analog cable most people don't use anyway.
I might be a idiot as you say, but the people at Fairphone don't seem to be because they ditched AUX as they should have
visikde@lemmings.world
on 26 Jun 00:06
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Having yet another thing to keep charged
a usb port is far easier to break
I hate earbuds, I want my same old over the ear $15 sony headphones that last for years
BT is just another thing to fuss with for no apparent benefit, I have an assortment of BT crap that won’t connect consistently.
Whatever convenience BT might offer is negated by the time wasted learning the intricacies of the ever changing APPs [software]
I mean … you don’t have to tell me that my opinion isn’t popular, it’s demonstrable. My opinion is statistically insignificant.
There’s a plethora of other things I’d give up like have a slighter bigger phone or a worse camera or wireless charging… I’d also trade those for an SD card slot but no one agrees with me and it’s just something I need to live with.
Big? The headphone jack is not large enough to protrude from a cell phone chassis. Any company telling you they can’t fit it is just lying to sell you BT headphones.
I’m assuming they are removing the headphone jack cause the internal components take up too much space. I can’t imagine these companies removing the jacks cause they cost too much money.
You’re vastly overestimating the space required for a 3.5mm jack, and the reasons for its removal.
The jack takes up some internal space, but not much at all. The components required internally like the DAC chip are insignificant. It is a potential source of water ingress, but that can be mitigated and has been done many times before.
The reason for removal is two fold, first you simply don’t have to deal with any of the above, so from an engineering perspective it’s always easier to not do something. The second, and most important, **is to sell wireless headphones. **
You’ll notice that Fairphone came out with their own earbuds at the same time they removed the headphone jack. You could of course use Bluetooth headphones with the Fairphone 1, 2, and 3, but you weren’t forced to think about it and could just use your existing headphones. Removing the jack ads inconvenience and breaks user habit, causing people to re-evaluate their headphones and consider a new purchase, which the manufacturer just happens to have and likely in a bundle deal.
Apple, Google, and Samsung have seen huge uplift in earbud sales with the removal of the jack. So the anger of some power users is of no consequence to them. Seeing Fairphone follow in this behaviour what’s disappointing.
I made the mistake of believing that Fairphone is an enthusiast company, like the Framework of phones maybe. There is some overlap, sure, with the repair-ability aspect and available parts and schematics, but that’s about it.
Other than that, FP wants to be a mainstream brand, the eco-friendly Samsung or Apple; the power users can get shafted with their audio jacks for all they care. While Framework has actual hardware modularity and release updated HW modules so you don’t buy the whole device again for an upgrade.
Looking at FP’s financial statements, I get the impression they aren’t doing too hot lately, so I get it if they need bigger margins to continue operating. Just don’t be a fucking hypocrite and lie about the reason of the jack removal ffs.
No one has been using aux cable mobile headphones for the past 10 years. Headphone jack is e-waste at this point. bluetooth audio is great and if you really want to be a boomer you can use the usb C headphones.
What the absolute fuck are you talking about? What am I supposed to do with the dozen wired headphones I already have? Some of them decades old? Throw them in the garbage? Sounds real eco-friendly.
bluetooth audio is great
It is. We had it on phones since before the original iPhone. No one wants to take that away.
Problem is BT headphones last 2 years then they go in the garbage because the batteries are dead. How eco-friendly is that!?
Yes if they’ve lasted decades thats their job done. Now people are buying usb C headphones and there is no need to continue to support decades old standards. The ewaste from a pair of headphones is tiny so its not worth fretting over.
Also BT headphones last longer than 2 years. Mine are 1st gen samsung buds and going on 5 years at this point and still hold enough charge to listen to music during my work day. If im going to be using them all day I have 1 in and 1 charging in the case and then I can easily have music for 10+ hours on a 5 year old device. If I threw them away today I would consider them to have not been ewaste.
Yes if they’ve lasted decades thats their job done
No it means they’ll essentially last indefinitely, unlike BT buds.
Now people are buying usb C headphones and there is no need to continue to support decades old standards
No, what’s happened is that we went from a single open standard for audio jacks to competing standards (actually 3 of them before the EU stepped in and forced Apple to quit their bullshit). And gained nothing in the process.
The ewaste from a pair of headphones is tiny so its not worth fretting over.
It’s not a pair of headphones, it’s millions of audio devices.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 10:10
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You can use your dozen wired headphones you already have with a $10 usb-c -> 3.5mm adapter.
Is it my fault when having the things in the first place is just a hacky workaround driven by corporate greed?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 28 Jun 03:36
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Yes, it is your fault for losing or breaking your own property. Take some responsibility. When I moved to a phone without a headphone jack while driving a car that I plug my phone in via headphone jack, I simply kept the adapter plugged in to the cable in the car. It never broke. It never got lost. It stayed there until I got a Bluetooth head unit.
I’ve still got it in a drawer ready for if I ever needed it again, but since I’m not an audiophile with a $10k+ sound system listening to FLACs from my phone I don’t need it.
Problem is BT headphones last 2 years then they go in the garbage because the batteries are dead. How eco-friendly is that!?
My 7 years old bluetooth headphone would disagree.
It is. We had it on phones since before the original iPhone. No one wants to take that away.
And no one except a vocal minority want to keep it. There are a lot on data on that, and manufacturer make their decision on that data.
But lets ignore that, and let’s take my viewpoint as a customer. I don’t want a port I have no use for. I don’t want a DAC I have no use for. I don’t want the extra weight that comes with them.
My needs conflict with yours, so what’s the only way to make both of us somewhat happy? That’s by making the 3.5mm jack an addon, which is what any manufacturer that does not focus on music listening would do.
And no one except a vocal minority want to keep it. There are a lot on data on that,
I would love to see the data that says everyone wants wired devices only. I don’t believe you.
don’t want a port I have no use for.
Why would you even care!?
I don’t want the extra weight that comes with them.
😆 Buddy if you don’t want extra weight you need to talk to these OEMs about making their phones out of giant slabs of glass. A 1g connector isn’t going to make a difference. You’re being completely ridiculous.
My needs conflict with yours,
No they don’t. They can meet both of our needs by including a jack. Simple as.
I’m voluntarily exagerating my point here for irony sake.
My needs isn’t more important than anyone else, but I wanted to point out the selfishness of the oposite point of view by making mine as selfish.
Those in favor of keeping a jack port voluntarily choose to ignore any alternative, while trying to force their need on other people.
But it is true I do not want that port back. It is redundant, has no advantages over a dongle, and it inconveniences could easily be overcome by simply adding a second usb-c port. No need for internal DAC, you’d be able to do far more than you’ll ever be able to do with a 3.5mm jack, and you’ll be able to charge it while listening to your music with a wired headphone. All that with a smaller and more flexible port.
And it would take you 5min searching the web to get good review about usbc DAC with actually good sound, even better than any internal DAC.
But to save you a click, you have the Apple one, which has good review while being able to drive almost all headphones but the most energy intensive of them. It cost a whopping… $10.
As for the precise number, you can find them on market studies. Unfortunately they are quite pricy, and as I’m not in that field, I do not have access to them. But Fairphone does, and if they don’t bother adding that port back, they are most probably basing their decision on them.
My needs isn’t more important than anyone else, but I wanted to point out the selfishness of the oposite point of view by making mine as selfish.
There’s nothing selfish here. Keeping the jack benefits everyone except Apple and other BT headphone OEMs. It doesn’t hurt anyone else.
has no advantages over a dongle
The advantage is that you don’t need a dongle…
and it inconveniences easily be overcome by simply adding a second usb-c port
Still requires carrying a dongle or buying a pair of headphones that only works with phones and computers, and not the vast array of other devices that still use headphone jacks, new and old. So that solves absolutely nothing. As I said elsewhere, we’ve created a competing standard, for no reason.
you’d be able to do far more than you’ll ever be able to do with a 3.5mm jack
What? Do you think we’re suggesting removing the USB port? What are you talking about?
And it would take you 5min searching the web to get good review about usbc DAC with actually good sound, even better than any internal DAC.
I don’t want to search the web. I don’t want a DAC. I just want to plug in my headphones. This is absurd.
It cost a whopping… $10.
$10 to buy something that previously cost me $0. Only it’s inevitably going to get lost so you’d better buy a half dozen of them and replace them every few years, so you’re looking at dozens of $ per year for something that was previously completely unnecessary.
As for the precise number…I’m not in that field, I do not have access to them
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
But Fairphone does
Where? If you know they have it, then you must have it as well?
and if they don’t bother adding that port back, they are most probably basing their decision on them.
No, they’re basing that decision on the same thing everyone else is: money. Greed. Much like Apple they also released their own bluetooth headphones at the same time as they removed their headphone jack. But I suppose that’s just coincidence, right?
Fairphone removes the headphone jack > realize they would need an alternative > realize most TW headphones are e-waste to be > make their own with blackjack and hookers a removable battery, making it a solution to TW headphones with non-removable batteries.
Don’t call fool without any proof, or you’ll have a very sad life supposing the worst from anyone you’ll meet. Coincidence is no proof of causation.
Cars have had bluetooth and usb on their radios for almost 20 years. Even older than that you can replace the stereo for like $30. My car is 2004 and i did a stereo replacement and i’ve got bluetooth, usb C and aux.
Mandrilleren@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 14:36
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I never use wired headphones even though I have a jack in my phone. But I have never bought a phone without a jack and probably never will.
Ipersonally think it’s user hostile to remove the jack and also goes directly agains the green profile Fairphone wants to have.
Goodeye8@piefed.social
on 25 Jun 17:47
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Honestly, I don't really get the people who complain about the lack of 3.5mm jack on a smartphone. If you're looking for quality you're more likely to get better quality out quality USB-C headphones than quality 3.5mm headphones due to the USB-C headphones picking up less noise and having its own DAC (which is probably better than the phone DAC that 3.5mm would use).
EDIT: I would've been surprised if this take wasn't controversial. But I guess it's a good example how the fediverse is not a leftist echo chamber. You have a loud minority complaining about not being able to use a century old technology that the vast majority in the mobile space has moved away from and any compromise on what you want is unacceptable. That's about as conservative as you can get.
Mihies@programming.dev
on 25 Jun 18:27
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I don't follow? If you mean simplicity in terms of ease of use you might as well use BT headphones as you don't have to worry about any wire management. Ease of use is the main reason BT headphones are the go to for most people. No carefully packing the wires so it won't break, no accidental wiring mess or anything wire related. You just turn them on (which for most in-ear ones just means taking them out of the case), stick them to your ear and you're good to go.
If you meant anything else by simplicity you need to expand that idea.
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 20:01
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I never have to charge my wired headphones.
Nor do I have to buy new batteries or new headphones when they die.
Fair enough, feel free to buy USB-C headphones then.
Edit: Time for the real reply.
I never have to charge my wired headphone.
But you still have to charge your phone. When I charge my phone I also charge my headphones. Most wireless headphones notify you in advance when they're running low, in my experience enough in advance to not run out before charging again. And finally, charging even once a day is still less overhead than having to manage wires every single time you use the headphones.
Nor do I have to buy new batteries or new headphones when they die
Yeah, you only buy new headphones when the wire gets damaged because that one time you didn't take good enough care of the wire. I personally had to buy a new set of headphones every year because I'm bad with wires. I'd either store them poorly because I was in a hurry or they'd get stuck on something and get yanked. My first BT headphones lasted me 5 years before starting to have noticeable battery issues and then I still used them for another 3 years before the battery was so dead it wouldn't live my daily commute.
overall my response boils down to "just use wired then" because the arguments are silly personal preference arguments and the wider consumer market has already decided that wireless is better. But if you want wired nothing is stopping you from getting USB-C wired headphones.
No consumer decided it would be better without it, there's literally no reason to defend it's removal. It doesn't exist because the phone companies wanted to sell their wireless earbuds, that's it. Anything else they tell you is bullshit.
Why are you trying to justify not having it? You can still use your wireless buds if you want if the port exists, you can still use your USB-C earphones or adapter if you'd like. It can exist in harmony along with other features, like it did for decades before capitalism called for more profits.
Why aren't you complaining about the removal of a keyboard? Or the removal of SD card slots? Or the removal or the IR light? Or the notification light? or something else that used to be there but isn't now. Why is the 3.5mm port so special it deserves constant complaining about almost A DECADE LATER? Why must you be these grumpy old men who can't fucking move on with the times.
I don't really care if the port is there or not, I'm just fed up with the constant whining about it. It's gone, the ship has sailed. The majority are more than happy to use wireless headphones, 3.5mm is a niche in the mobile space. There are alternatives if you really like wired headphones. What makes 3.5mm such fucking hill to die on? Nothing. It's just petty conservatism of people unwilling to move on with the times.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Jun 09:09
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the 3.5mm jack still exists on low to mid-range phones, the high end ones were the only ones that removed it and then mid-range phones copied it.
In addition to @timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works: I don’t need pairing, I don’t have to deal with bad reception, it’s harder to loose wired ones and even if I loose them, new ones cost a fraction of bt ones.
Also I still have some wired ones.
The simplicity of simply plugging them in and it just works is something really abstract to alternatives.
You have headphones on in your car, listening to music, while you're driving? I hope you've checked your local laws because that is illegal in quite a few countries. It's also a very niche example as most people would use the car stereo instead of headphones.
Then maybe don't make examples of something I never talked about? I think I've been very clear that I'm talking about replacing 3.5mm headphones with a USB-C headphones. I wasn't talking about replacing a 3.5mm in/out cable with some kind of a USB-C in, 3.5mm out cable. Such a cable would have to contain a DAC and if it's going to contain a DAC you might as well buy a USB hub with a 3.5mm out port so you can continue using your 3.5mm in/out cable while you also charge your phone. See how that's a completely different scenario with a completely different solution?
You are completely and utterly wrong. I’m pretty sure that a $700 phone’s dac is better than what you can find on a $5 dongle from god knows where. Also, by design there should be no “noise” or “interference” causing issues with the internal dac. If there is, you bought an extremely shitty device.
You know you've got not argument when you have to compare a $700 dollar phone to a $5 dongle for your argument to even make sense.
First of all, I seriously doubt any $700 phone without a 3.5mm port is going to have a decent DAC, because there's no reason for it. In those phones the DAC is used primarily for phone calls. If those phones had a a 3.5mm port and they were flagship phones then maybe they would have higher quality DACs in them, but then they'd also cost more. And secondly, I wasn't talking about some cheap $5 dongle, I specifically said quality headphones.
You know you’ve got not argument when you have to compare a $700 dollar phone to a $5 dongle for your argument to even make sense.
Oh, so I should buy $100 dongles then? lol Everyone’s argument about the dongles is that they’re super cheap, that’s why I made the comparison.
In those phones the DAC is used primarily for phone calls.
Oh really? And how exactly do you think that the phone is generating the audio that comes through its speaker when you’re doing anything else? Like listening to music, videos, etc? Does your phone really not make a single sound apart from the audio in phone calls?
I wasn’t talking about some cheap $5 dongle, I specifically said quality headphones
headphone =/= dongle
The dongle is what you connect TO the headphone. Regardless, be more specific then. What’s the one you recommend? Should I buy $50 dongles then and keep them attached to my headphones? Since I use 4/5 of them does that mean that it’s ok in your opinion that I now need to spend $250 in dongles instead of just having a tiny, cheap, reliable jack on my $700 phone?
How much more specific do I need to be when I explicitly say "USB-C headphones"? What do you think USB-C stands for?
You could've done a single web search yo find that you can buy wired headphones that go straight into the USB-C port.No dongle required. But you're too busy foaming from the mouth like a rabid dog to even understand what I said.
Well, you do need to be specific because like 99% of headphones terminate in a 3.5mm jack or a quarter inch jack. You were referring to a vert very limited subset of headphones.
It’s honestly kinda dumb to buy a headphone, which only needs an analogue voltage signal to work, that terminates in usb-c. Specially considering that there are still loads of devices that don’t have that port. Even if a computer has it, it’s likely that it only has 1 or 2 of them which might already be in use. For example, my work laptop has 2 usb-c and I’m using one of them to charge it and the other to connect a monitor.
Probably not a popular thing to say on here, but I think you’ve lost the battle for the earphone jack. It probably just requires way too much real estate to be practical on a modern day cell phone.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
on 25 Jun 22:36
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Exactly this, that's a lot of space taken up to connect what 4 analog wires?
That's insanity when a AUX to Usb-C converter does the job
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jun 21:25
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USB-C requires a lot of space for charging, data transfer etc.
Let’s remove it too and make phones rely on wireless charging instead.
It absolutely does not require too much space. And you can still buy phones with headphone jacks, just not any of the (ironically) higher end models because OEMs know they can push their first party bluetooth headphones to these customers.
Snapdragon 7s Gen3 is a pretty decent chipset. Decent display too. 8GB RAM is a bit on the low side. Camera is all about how good processing is. It’s not that crazy expensive if all works well and considering what their goal is.
I’m on an S10e with only 6GB of RAM and it’s still running smoothly. If it was still getting security updates I would keep it for way longer, but alas it’s not so I’m going to upgrade to the new fairphone (not thrilled about losing the headphone jack and getting a larger phone, but I support their overall goals so it seems like the best choice for me)
If I didn’t miss it, no wireless charging again… Some one told me they refuse to do it because it wastes electricity. To which I’d say, even just turning on a car probably uses magnitudes more energy than charging my phone wirelessly. I don’t want to mess up the USB C port if I don’t have to, thanks.
Yeah, the wireless charging is a no-go for me as well.
I understand that it costs licensing and wastes energy.
But the environmental impact of all the useless/lost cables is also a point,especially when you get your energy fully renewable/self produced.
And in a lot of areas (airline lounges,etc.) it has become widely adopted/the norm.
They could easily have offered a “swap” battery that has a little less capacity but includes wireless charging - give people a fucking choice.
nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de
on 25 Jun 22:41
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It’s also less waste if one of your charging methods breaks, as you can just swap over to the other method and might even find ordering replacement parts unnecessary.
Though ideally I’d also like to see more than one USB-C port for even more redundancy.
I agree wireless charging would be nice. But for a small company I don’t think they can do it “easily”. It’s 150 people team and how many phones do they even sell?
I imagine it’s not enough yet to support all that.
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 11:45
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It’s all about the heat. It’s not dumping 120w non stop even over 90% for example. OnePlus also use supervooc not standard usb pd. My phone legit does 150w max and while I mostly use my 80w charger because my tablet uses that I can’t say my battery seems affected much 2,5 years in.
2.5 years isn’t that long to evaluate battery degradation IMO, and as you said, you mostly don’t even push your battery that hard. And the article even seems to imply that faster charging does impact battery life, it’s just that manufacturers consider 100w a sweet-spot between charging speed and battery degradation.
troglodytis@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 12:44
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I saw list item 1 more as “I want my phone to last for 5+ years, so I will want to replace my battery eventually”, rather than “I wanna wreck my battery fast, so it better be replaceable”. Being wasteful with your battery like that goes against the spirit of Fairphone, IMO.
I’ve been through two smart phones, and both of them were down to eventual battery issues and randomly powering off at (allegedly) 30% remaining battery when you fire up the camera or something.
VirgilMastercard@reddthat.com
on 25 Jun 15:45
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To some extent, yes. But it’s not a feature you have to use. You can still limit the charge to 80% and use a slow charger if you really want to.
It’s a neat feature if you need to boost your battery quickly in a short amount of time, like if you need to go somewhere urgently and unexpectedly.
absquatulate@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 11:54
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Is it me or did they get slightly more vague on their marketing materials, wrt the environmental impact ( at least compared to fp5 ) ?
Also the battery seems a bit harder to replace, as you now need a screwdriver. It does appear to be more flush, so it may be due to size constraints.
Edit: and there’s “more” replaceable parts because the back is split in two. That split might prove better for durability tho, because pulling the back on their older phones felt like it would break every time.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev
on 25 Jun 12:04
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Not sure. This phone seems better in some regards and worse in others, so I’d say wait for reviews.
As for me I probably won’t get it. Already have a fp4 I got in a sale to experiment with and see if I can completely degoogle and couldn’t ( not completely anyway ). Now it’s more or less a paperweight that I might revisit in the future, when my daily phone kicks the bucket. The dealbreaker is Android15 because that’s when they shoved gemini in, so any phone with Android14 and security updates will do fine. God I hope that linux phones finally get off the ground already
I don’t mind having a few screws to remove every few years when I need to replace my battery.
Although there is another thing, I’m not sure but I wonder if it has any impact. My FP3 has made a few very bad falls and nothing ever broke. I wonder if its “bad” integrity makes it very good at dissipating the fall’s energy.
I’m sad that the battery swap requires a screwdriver, but it’s really fine. As long as it’s not glued in I don’t care honestly.
The modular back is cool, specs look nice, lighter and smaller than my FP5 is a great thing, cuz this thing is heavy and the battery is mid.
It looks cool! Good direction I think. Of course I want a headphone jack, but I am learning to live without
HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 12:07
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Looks like they hit the nail strong and sharp on this one. I am still using my 2019 Nokia which does not look like it’s going bust anytime soon. Too bad, I would have loved to use the FF6
Think I’m getting it, my Redmi Note 8 is aging and I’m pretty sure the current batch of custom ROMs is basically the last apart from the fact that the kernel is no longer supported, and Xiaomi is closing the doors on custom ROMs more and more it seems. Yeah, the new FP isn’t perfect but it seems good enough to pull the trigger, and while the Pixels seemed like a good alternative in some aspects, Google recently made it very clear where they see Android’s future, and it’s not more open.
Just to be clear, unless you’re shooting RAW you never have your “real” photos. Every phone/camera performs massive amounts of post processing, including using ml models.
AI is only a buzzword for something that has been the norm for a while.
ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 25 Jun 13:51
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I want my photos to be grainy, with natural lens distortion, instead of current trend of pictures being shouty to look good on social media
HandMadeArtisanRobot@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 14:58
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You can shoot RAW on your phone today.
ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 25 Jun 15:42
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Maybe you shouldn’t buy a phone if you want a “usable” camera.
And you shouldn’t buy a camera either as you don’t seem to understand those either.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Jun 09:47
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a camera should save the raw data from the sensor to a file along with potentially metadata, there is no reason for it to “enhance” the photo or video, compression only makes sense for posting online or video
Tell that you every single digital camera. Very few output RAW by default, many don’t even offer that option. This isn’t a “phone cameras” issue.
The fact that you think post process is compression says a lot, or that there’s no reason to apply post process when 99.9% of the population don’t even know what RAW is and won’t benefit from it.
Again, you want a proper camera, buy a proper camera. But learn a bit before
Also, working a bit on developing my photos from RAW over last years taught me how we actually expect a lot of magic from a regular camera. The brain does a lot of work and low/high light compensation, color balance, etc… are required to some extend. Of course sometimes it becomes a bit absurd : most smartphone pictures seems oversaturated, with clear blue skies and I one took a photo of a blue-ish mountain because (I think) some classifier thought it was part of the sky.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jun 13:08
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Yeah, it’s most likely just doing some “AI” (ML) denoising. Nothing to do with GenAI
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 18:30
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raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 13:06
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Fairphone has really gone off the deep end. 6 phone models in what? less than 12 years? That’s what they call dedication to sustainability? Really?
They used to say the most sustainable phone is your old phone, assuming you can continue to use it. Yet - my Fairphone 1, still in good working order hardware-wise, I had to “scrap” because no more SW updates. When my FP2 hardware (charging port) eventually failed, they no longer sold the relevant spare parts.
What good are exchangeable parts, if they are removed from the shop around the time that a well-treated phone might need them?
pulsewidth@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 13:19
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I’d love one and have checked back each year after their first model, but they still don’t sell to Australia - and I’m not going to buy something I can’t get direct parts and services for, and would need to go through third parties for.
If their model is a successful business I honestly thought they would have expanded beyond shipping/supporting only Europe by now, its been a decade since their first model. Maybe they’re still not a very big player / modest success?
There’s at least two limitations that they’ve mentioned before with shipping outside of Europe.
First is they need extra certifications (e.g. FCC ones for selling to the USA), which are expensive and basically redundant. Probably not worth the business cost to do it and maintain it.
Second is they do carbon neutral shipping, which is hard to do when you have to cross an ocean. I know in Canada our national postal service can do carbon neutral for packages, but figuring that out for every country and the international legs of the shipping is a lot of work.
Part of the cost of being ethical is being at a disadvantage with capitalism, so while they’re doing pretty alright they aren’t going to grow like big tech did.
I would prefer GrapheneOS (If I can live with the irony of getting a Pixel phone just to deGoogle it…). Sandboxing there is way better. But you lose the Repairability… Gotta check and compare the new EU metrics too.
They are just two different devices.
ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 25 Jun 13:57
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Degoogled version is €50 more, for whatever reason
the reason: support for developers. You can install it yourself to save that amount.
pinesolcario@lemy.lol
on 25 Jun 14:44
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People don’t want to pay for privacy. That’s the real problem with end users. Imagine if more people did so. What a world we could have. Nah. Let’s be cheap AF!
proceduralnightshade@lemmy.ml
on 25 Jun 15:21
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Locking privacy behind a paywall? Sounds like a nightmare.
That’s the real problem with end users.
The real problem with end users is that they buy according to whatever needs corpos inject via advertising.
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 22:40
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Because the built in software is usually there because the manufacturer is receiving money from the software company. That’s why consumer devices are always bloated with garbage.
I not only want a degoogled version but also a secure one. Sadly developing a secure android is rather hard. The Graphene team does it pretty well. Others try it too, but sadly they are not close.
sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
on 25 Jun 15:39
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I bet PostmarketOS will release for it
kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 25 Jun 19:33
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GraphineOS is more secure
sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
on 26 Jun 01:28
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We know GrapheneOS only makes their OS on Pixel phones or whatever their own device will be so it’s moot
kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 26 Jun 01:58
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Thats because pixels fit the rigid standards, if Fairphone met them they would make a version for them
sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
on 26 Jun 02:25
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That would be great but that’s just not the way it is unfortunately
Why do you think so? We still don’t have proper support for the Fairphone 4 on pmOS, why’d the 6 be any better?
sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
on 26 Jun 01:33
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Because as you said it is available in some capacity already. Plus people complain about the slow speed of the 4 so maybe people will want to develop quicker for the 6. I could be totally wrong but I’m hopeful
the degoogled roms like eos calyx lineage graphene are not just aosp zero work roms with no gapps inclueded. the devs do work on changing as much google related code as they can even within aosp. nothing is perfect obviously, but im pretty sure there are compatible mobile linux distros even.
Just an update, I learnt that GrapheneOS developers are ‘aggressive’ towards other FLOSS projects (following comments on other thread, but you can searx grepheneos+controversy and see for yourselves).
So now, I might just prefer an FP6.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
on 25 Jun 13:34
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Or two USB C ports, I don’t really mind using a USB to audio jack converter but it would be nice to be able to easily charge and listen to wired headphones at the same time
Would that be a problem when travelling to the… oh, right, we’re not doing that anymore… would this be a problem for Europeans travelling to Canada?
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 18:29
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why you gotta be so rude about it? like we’re forced to live here, your bragging doesn’t help anyone
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 13:57
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This looks pretty good. The main issue with Fairphone for me is the price. FP 5 is still about 2x as expensive as Pixel 8. I got my Pixel 8a on promotion for ~250 euros. FP 5 still costs over 500. I never paid more than 300 euros for a phone and I’m not planning to.
Fair wages and sustainable practices cost more than sweatshop labor
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 14:35
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Pixel is build by Foxxcon. Foxxcon has 3.5 stars on Glassdoor.
From what I found Fairphone is build by TCL which has 3.2 stars on Glassdoor.
It’s all still made in Asia. It’s really hard to monitor conditions there and it’s pretty much impossible to monitor conditions at every step of the supply chain. I understand paying extra for a more sustainable phone (repairable, longer support) but paying double for a vague promise of being more “fair”? Thanks by no thanks. Pixel has 8 years of support now so the difference in sustainability is minimal.
The final assembly is only part of the story though. As far as I understand, fairphone does actually try to check their supply chain to ensure the raw materials are (more) ethically sourced. As opposed to those optimizing for profit, who will intentionally look the other way.
“Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we collaborate with suppliers to develop improvement plans that are informed by detailed assessments and worker surveys.” p. 28
From their recently published annual(I think?) impact report. There’s a bit more detail under section 4.3, not crazy specific but definitely better than a vague promise imo.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 17:53
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The single best thing for sustainability is long lifetime of the phone. Now that EU mandates it and Apple, Pixel and Samsung all offer 7 years of updates Fairphone’s advantage here is slim. The rest are just vague promises. Apple also promises to support people and communities involved in its supply chain:
www.apple.com/supply-chain/
All the companies try to avoid sweatshops because it’s terrible for PR but unless you are actually going to assemble the phone in EU you don’t really know who made it. For me the difference between two phones made in China is not big enough to pay double.
Sure, I just showed you the report, you may draw your own conclusions upon reading it. But in my opinion they’ve long proven to be transparent and actionable when it comes to improving the industry, e.g. by co-founding the Fair Cobalt Alliance. And maybe they even had something to do with those changes in legislation, the EU itself seems to recognise as much…
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 22:07
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Probably. I’m not saying that Frairphone is bad and that what they are doing doesn’t have any value. What I’m saying is that their phones were always too expensive for me and now that there are other phones with 7-8 year lifespan on the market it’s even harder to justify the expense. I’m glad that enough people had the money to support Fairphone and I’m grateful for their contribution in changing the legislation. Maybe in 5-6 years, when I have to change my phone, I will get a Fairphone.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 16:51
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foxxcon? you mean the same company that had a mass suicide from workers jumping off the buildings?
edit: sorry wasn’t a mass suicide just dozens and dozens of people killing themselves because of the working conditions at foxxcon.
it’s hard to find details about the mass protest with the threat of suicide because there’s so many other single suicides at foxxcon.
If you’re using a pixel or apple phone I wonder if you’re using a phone that one of those workers put together 🤔
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 17:36
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Yes, that foxxcon. The one that has better reviews on Glassdoor then the company that assembles Fairphone. What’s your point?
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 21:01
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Idk man. you think the folks who killed themselves can put a review on a corporate shill website that’s been known to remove reviews for the right price?
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jun 22:01
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Why TCL didn’t pay them to also remove bad reviews?
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 22:05
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TCL doesn’t give a shit because they don’t have such a shit working environment that people literally commit suicide to get out of it.
I posted this elsewhere but the tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following:
USB-C 2.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output? That’s sad. Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs:
USB-C 3.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/display (also Android™ desktop mode)/Camera/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
But maybe it was not used enough?
KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net
on 26 Jun 08:56
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When I read that, it decided me on the phone. I was almost completely certain my FP4 replacement would be the FP6, but the USB downgrade makes it a no-go for me.
Too bad, because I love the easy repairability.
Shardikprime@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 14:44
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600 euros? That’s like 700 USD
Remind me again, wasn’t like 80% of the American population on the verge of poverty and homelessness if a 500 USD emergency happened?
Yes, sorry I fumbled the wording, I meant to say it makes me wonder what the other chinese factory workers make and under which conditions they work compared to the chinese workers that make fairphones. Maybe it’s all propaganda and fairphone uses slave labour, but that would surprise me. Another thing I thought about is that tech is just more expensive in europe in general. It’s common that we pay 20% more for the same phone or laptop in europe compared to the US.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jun 14:53
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They are hardly even in the US market. Only via Murena with their e/OS/.
You can literally buy an excellent phone that will last you for 3-4 years for less that 400 USD, hell I’d say it’s even better for the environment to buy used or refurbished phones and save even more money
Interesting that they seem to be using a consumer grade Snapdragon chip this time, typically they used weird chips ment for industry applications if I’m not mistaken. Wonder what sparked the change, did Qualcomm start supporting their chips for longer?
Starting with Android smartphones running on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform, Qualcomm Technologies now offers device manufacturers the ability to provide support for up to eight consecutive years of Android software and security updates. Smartphones launching on new Snapdragon 8 and 7-series mobile platforms will also be eligible to receive this extended support.
They only did that once for the FP5. It was a terrible choice, leading to high battery usage and compatibility issues. They only did that because when it came out, 5 years of software support wasn’t something crazy any more. Samsung already provided the same on their mainstream flagship phones. So to top that they chose that embedded chip with 10 years of support from Qualcomm. But 10 years is practically speaking really hard overkill, especially considering the very impractical downsides of that chip.
By now, most major phone brands have support times rivalling what Fairphone is bringing to the table, and for that to work, Qualcomm has to support their mainstream phone chips for longer.
Fuck these guys… Seriously. I bought a phone off of them hyped at the idea of the ethics. It didn’t work on arrival. Over 3 months later and not one single reply to my helpdesk request (other than the Automated acknowledgement of receipt).
Unbelievably bad user experience, I went from hyped at the concept of reducing my production of electronic waste to beyond disappointed at a brutally bad user experience.
Then to make matters worse, it is difficult to source spare parts for the fairphone 4 (according to a friend of mine who owns one that he bought a while ago)… Like is that not the entire point of the phone, reduced consumption of new phones by supporting repairs. If you’re going to stop producing the spares at least release the patents then… if you really believe in the promoted ideals that you spout… Which they clearly do not.
It turns out that it’s just another money hungry company hell bent on burning the planet down to see a line go up, as far as I’m concerned. All gaff to sell shite phones at higher prices.
Do not buy.
kopasz7@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 15:20
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All I needed to know was when they released their BT earbuds just when the jack port got removed to figure out where their priorities are.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee
on 25 Jun 16:11
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Yep same here. Also they’re not capable of installing grapheneos which is kind of a deal breaker for me.
The GrapheneOS team makes their hardware security requirments very clear.
Its up to the hardware manufactures to include a few additional components used for securely storing keys, so far Google Pixles are the only consistent line of products that do so.
So… they chose to make a very Pixel-specific OS and you’re mad at Fairphone?
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 21:00
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It’s not about being pixel specific. They built high security OS that uses HW components to deliver that high security. It can’t be delivered without them. These components are not google patented nor does GrapheneOS demands they use the exact pixel ones. GrapheneOS just refuses to lower security to support phones that lack these components, because manufacturers wanted to save maybe a $1 per phone by not including them at the expense of user security.
I think I had this all wrong. Fairphone isn’t / doesn’t want to be an enthusiast DIY brand at all (like framework for laptops) but a mainstream brand that’s eco-friendlier* and non-exploitative.
So of course they will not care much about niche features like other ROMs or audio jacks. The privacy focused, tech-savvy or feature focused buyers are not their target.
*IC and PCB related footprint is still roughly 80% of the FP4 and FP has little to no control on those processes, according to an independent study.
Of course they’re gonna offer BT earbuds if there’s no audio jack? Or did you want them included or something? A lot of people here are way angrier than justified.
kopasz7@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 17:15
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Of course they are going to offer dongles too! The profit margins are way better on those. Fuck what the users want, we want money!
I would say having a headphone jack is better than not having one, but stop short of crying conspiracy. You would feel better if they didn’t sell BT earbuds?
I’m saying it is very hypocritical and goes against their brand. If they simply came out and said: Look guys making phones sustainably cost too much, we need to sell higher margin items like dongles, BT earbuds and cases to have enough cashflow to continue manufacturing and R&D.
Ok, fair enough. I would say.
But trying to justify and greenwashing the whole ordeal is insulting. The tactic is straight out of Apple’s “Think different” book. Paying more for reduced functionality. Only for them to sell you more accessories for even more money.
I have to buy them? Every replaceable and repairable stuff is manufactured and has an impact.
About 90% of other brands you can throw them away if the battery goes bad or they break.
I don’t have any of those, for related reasons.
The best one can do is to consume less and less often.
Buying a USB-C-2-Jack dongle or BT headset is anything but eco-friendly. It goes straight against the whole brand if you need to buy new stuff in addition to make it work.
What about people who already have a BT headset, or people who are looking to buy their first headset and don’t own one yet? You just straight up assume everyone still had a headset with wires lying around and that they somehow never break.
Having to buy something makes it bad isn’t really an argument. The very post you are making right now is made from a devide that has been manufactured at some point in time. If you start reasoning like that its better to start living in the woods with no possessions at all.
Before BT headsets even existed, all of them were wired and none of them required lithium batteries or chips inside.
Having to buy something makes it bad isn’t really an argument.
It costs resources to produce. It is one of the main missions of FP to reduce this by having to not by a new device if your current one breaks. If buying a new one wasn’t a problem, why are they trying to make it repairable?
They are easily repairable and you don’t have to throw them away if the battery goes bad (just replace it).
You get it.
If you start reasoning like that its better to start living in the woods with no possessions at all.
Taking my argument to the extreme naturally makes it absurd. But living in the woods isn’t my point.
If you look at FP’s yearly financial statements, you can see how they are struggling. In 2021 and 2022 they were roughly at a breakeven point, turning basically no profit, in 2023 their operating loss was 37% of their net turnover.
See previous comment:
I’m saying it is very hypocritical and goes against their brand. If they simply came out and said: Look guys making phones sustainably cost too much, we need to sell higher margin items like dongles, BT earbuds and cases to have enough cashflow to continue manufacturing and R&D.
Ok, fair enough. I would say.
But trying to justify and greenwashing the whole ordeal is insulting. The tactic is straight out of Apple’s “Think different” book. Paying more for reduced functionality. Only for them to sell you more accessories for even more money.
sherlockhomeless@lemm.ee
on 25 Jun 16:22
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What do you mean with stopped producing spare parts for FP4? They are still widely available
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
faerbit@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 16:26
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The to make matters worse, they’ve already stopped producing spare parts for the fairphone 4
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
The to make matters worse, they’ve already stopped producing spare parts for the fairphone 4
Your comment made me laugh! There’s no need to criticize the company if you’re having a bad day or don’t like it. It only takes a minute to check their website for spare parts. Most likely, it’s your local shop that’s out of stock, not Fairphone itself.
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jun 19:01
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Then don’t spread information online that you don’t know to be true, Jesus Christ man.
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
In terms of your good customer service experience… I mean, good? I’m glad your experience was better than mine? Mine has been the worst customer experience I’ve ever had with a company and I genuinely went in to this with a high opinion of them.
I don’t know what more to add here, we had different experiences, I’m sharing mine… You’re sharing yours? Different things are different to each other…
Your experience being different to mine doesn’t prove my experience never happened.
This is nice for Europe I guess, and I want to like the fairphone, but unfortunately it’s not viable for me.
Besides basic phone features and the ability to run Android apps I have 3 requirements, 2 of which the fairphone fails at. I need it to be usable in the US on my phone carrier. I need to be able to use Google Pay or another mobile payment alternative (that’s accepted in most stores). Finally it needs to have at least a 48 hour battery life.
Fairphone unfortunately doesn’t work in the US with most carriers, and the one that kills not only it but all the de-googled phones, it doesn’t support mobile payment of any kind. I’ve done a ton of research trying to find some kind of fix for that second point because I’d gladly use something like GrapheneOS if I could, but every time the answer I come to is it’s just not possible.
That too has to to with the fact that all of that is an impenetrable black box. Google gets access, but if your oso isn’t Google, amor is rooted, they won’t allow you access “for security”
Never mind that the banking web version works fine in any OS including Linux, no safety issues there (nor should there be any) but the app? Yeah, Google only and it’s all because of security. Uh huh…
That’s certainly part of it, but I’d use any mobile payment app, not just Googles one, but there’s basically zero competition there. Some banks apparently had their own mobile payment support briefly, but it seems like just about every single one of them has removed that feature and replaced it with a wrapper around Google Pay.
TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 15:56
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For whatever it’s worth I have been using a Fairphone 5 in the US for over a year on T-Mobile.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 16:00
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I’ve been using the fairphone 4 in the us for almost three years.
Don’t worry, it fails in Europe too. I ended up giving away my FP4, because it fails to do even basic stuff like make a call after 3G was switched off in my country.
Worst phone I ever had, with quite a margin. And the only one I ever kept for under 2 years and the only one I replaced while it was still physically ok.
Smokeless7048@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 16:00
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I know people complain about big phones, but as a 6’5" guy i LOVE my big screens, and i think i’d struggle with a 6.3" screen. I have a 22U i plan to use for another year or two, and would go larger if i could.
Why does The Fairphone (Gen. 6) not have an audio jack?
After some of the criticism that we received about removing the headphone jack from Fairphone 4, we did consider bringing it back for The Fairphone (Gen. 6). However, we realized it would be at the expense of increasing the phone’s dimensions. We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack, so we decided to keep the same approach, although it was a difficult decision. We didn’t want to invest in OLED technology for the display and then not have improved the phone’s dimensions and weight. But just like with Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 5, we will still offer an adapter, which has had overall positive user reviews.
“We heard the criticism but decided that no, you would still need an adapter to use headphones, plus a USB-C hub to be able to charge the damn thing while listening to music or watching videos”
Funny how that’s the same excuses that we get for modern laptops terrible design. “We HAVE to make it thinner so there’s no space! You wouldn’t want a laptop that’s not complete shit if it meant it’d also be less thin and breakable, now would you?”
kopasz7@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 16:35
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Very strange how mine can somehow fit a 7000mAh battery, dual SIM + SD card slot and a regular jack. Hmm…
Are you a murican? Cuz you really sound like USA is your whole world.
dustyData@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 17:28
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Let me expand, as I usually deal with surveys and population feedback. There’s loud feedback, and there’s statistically significant feedback.
People who want a headphone jack are very loud. They will interject this issue into every feedback opportunity given. They will mention it on the comment sections, forums, q&a sessions, answer their surveys accordingly, etc. That’s all fine and their prerogative.
However, when you look at the statistics. They are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population. They are not statistically significant for decision making. They don’t have the volume to move sales significantly. This sucks, of course, and I personally wouldn’t mind the return of headphone jacks, smaller phones and bigger batteries as a fair trade for thicker phones.
But unfortunately, the vast majority of the market is pre-occupied with other things. The phone screen is too small, the phone weights too much, the phone is too thick, I want to bring my phone to the pool without fear of it breaking, etc. They are not as passionate about it, not like the headphone people are, but they far outnumber them in several orders of magnitude. In the end, if the product doesn’t sell, it won’t matter how much it was worth to a single passionate person. It will sink the company if it doesn’t have mass appeal. Making phones is already an extremely expensive endeavor.
People who want a headphone jack […] are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population.
People interested in paying more for fair trade materials and repairable phones are also a very tiny minority of the entire population.
Of course I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone that on the general population.
In my particular case, I’m still using my Fairphone 3, and I’m not buying a Fairphone again unless it has a Jack.
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 20:02
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Like I’ve said before- their market is small enough they should be trying to get everyone they can to buy it.
That’s what they’re doing. That’s why they remove the headphone jack in favour for a slimmer, lighter phone. Their market research showed that’s more important to a bigger portion of their customers.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
on 26 Jun 13:33
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I’ve never met someone that cared about a thinner phone, they’ve been too thin since 2015…
People that want their ducking hradphine jacks? They are everywhere.
Do you interact with people outside of audiophile circles? I’m not in any, and I haven’t heard anyone in person complain about a missing headphone jack in many years, not after a few years of airpods being available. Hell, I don’t know anyone who uses wired headphones anymore. I have heard people mention that my phone is too heavy, and I’m using a pixel 9 pro. Before this phone I was using a pixel 5, and I had people telling me my phone was too small/plastic-y. I don’t think you have an understanding of “normal people” They aren’t tech enthusiasts, they aren’t audiophiles, and they are genuinely shocked when I tell them about how egregiously most tech companies are violating their privacy, but are quick to say that they don’t care/don’t want to give up creature comforts to prevent it.
This is thing with not understanding how statistics work. The point is that your personal experience is biased.
These people are not passionate about phone thickness. They won’t start or even have conversations about it. Specially since, for the most part, the companies are already catering to their tastes. But, if placed in front of a survey and asked to rank phone features by their importance for their purchase decisions, the overwhelming majority will rank other phones features way above a headphone jack. Most people on the planet are not audiophiles, and the majority of people perceive wires as an annoyance and an inconvenience.
That is the point of surveying and market research. To check with the actual potential buyers what is worth making. Of course it isn’t a guarantee, looking here at the recent flop of the Samsung Edge. But otherwise, a single person’s perception of the market will never be complete or accurate.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
on 26 Jun 23:51
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Audio jack isn’t an audiophile thing, it’s a “I don’t want to pay 100$ for headphones thing”
As for thickness, it doesn’t increase thickness. It is simply false, someone even retrofitted a whole audio jack into an iphone.
Nobody makes q difference between a 4mm and a 4.5mm phone, even if tgey were feature and price parity.
The reason you are giving here is made up marketing by the phone industry so they can sell earbuds.
I mean, yes. It is about marketing. I just think there are more people who think wires are annoying than people losing their earbuds. For every person who loses BT earbuds every 3 months, there’s a person with the same pair for 3+ years who is perfectly happy with wireless quality. Companies don’t care about that. They care about decisions that will reduce costs and increase their profits, and Fairphone desperately need profits. Making phones is idiotically expensive.
Are we forgetting that companies also have their own bias to make the decisions that increase overall profits? They lost buyers (me included) by this change, but they made up the difference by selling higher margin accessories. Companies will only cater to users if it aligns with turning a bigger profit. If adding an anti-feature is better for the bottom line, then that’s how it goes. Enshittification doesn’t happen accidentally, but by pushing the boundaries of what the users tolerate.
No, we aren’t forgetting. Precisely because they are a corporation driven by profits like any other, they will do what sells units. It actually goes against the argument for headphone jacks. It is an admission that the people who vocally want phones with headphone jacks don’t buy phones (even if they have headphone jacks) and are an statistically insignificant amount of people. My original point. You are vocal, but disingenuous (perhaps not on purpose).
Fairphone catered to the mass market with the Fairphone 4 (and removed the headphone jack) and broke their own sales records. Sorry, that’s just the truth. What you want is against the grain of the rest of the market. Yes, even the market who want repairable modular phones.
Because when push comes to shove, you might want the headphone jack but it doesn’t drive your purchase decision. And that’s the important part. As an example, another person on this very thread asked what phone with a headphone jack is good, someone else gave a suggestion and immediately got the reply.
I considered that phone, but it didn’t have an OLED screen, so I didn’t buy it.
Admitting that — despite being very vocal about wanting the headphone jack — that feature is actually low in their own list of decision making priorities. At the very least it is below screen quality. Raising the question, where should a profit driven company choose to invest money in when presented with that customer?
In marketing, people are usually very vocal about things that actually don’t influence their own purchase decisions. That’s just a fact, people are very bad at knowing what they want. That’s why you should always observe their behavior, not just ask their opinion. Because a lot of people express opinions they don’t uphold with actions.
They lose no customers by including it. They lose some by omitting it.
So it boils down to being too expensive to include? Hardly!
You evaluate prior decisions with posterior data. But you fail to take into account the counterfactuals. How do you know how much the FP4 would have sold with a jack?
Claiming that an increase in sales validates the goodness of the decision is not causal.
It is the same logic that would tell you that playing russian roulette is worthwile in case you win and get some reward. That’s backwards rationalization, fitting a narrative.
If market research universally showed that people don’t care about a jack then why do some phones still have it? Are these manufacturers going against the grain? Surely they wouldn’t leave money on the table if it worked like that.
The justification of “they do what sells units” is backwards. It would imply that no product would ever flop. But products regularly do. There is no telling in advance how it will perform, and saying otherwise is falling prey to the problem of induction, whether past observarions justify predictions.
The FP4 could have broke sales records for a multitude of reasons. How can you say which factor caused it when there is only one scenario that played out? We don’t have alternative universes to compare, where they released one with a jack, or another with some other altered specs.
I’m back to statistical significant data, and why it is important to have good data scientists in the loop. The idea is precisely to ask the questions you are asking. Would have been different if…? Then try to control for other variables in order to avoid the induction error. How do you know they didn’t do this with their data?
That’s why I mention other phone models. There are Sony phones with and without jacks. There are Asus phones with and without jacks. How did they perform compared to each other? How far away is that difference from what could be expected from randomness? How does that difference compare when the other factors are compensated for? How do they compare with other phones?
I assume they did their homework, and also want to sell more earbuds. They wouldn’t push for earbuds and wireless if headphone jacks were market drivers. It would be cheaper to install a headphone jack rather than updating the BT board? Maybe, I don’t know. But if other factors have a significant impact on sales while the jack doesn’t. Then they have their decision made for them. Market research is not about being right all the time, it is not magic, it is about reducing uncertainty and risk in making decisions. Precisely because there are other phone makers with a headphone jack that do worse than the Fairphone is base enough to understand why they feel safe keeping that feature out. It doesn’t add sales and its absence doesn’t reduce them significantly either. So they know they are free to keep going even if some vocal critics will be pissed, the actual buyers couldn’t care any less.
Money is a powerful motivator to do really crappy things, and Apple has done exactly that for decades now. Others are following suit in the lucrative accessory market.
But this is the smoking gun, pointed at the consumer.
Dongles are an admission that the phones they come with don’t work in the way the company knows its consumers need them to.
Almost as insidious as how the inkjet printer manufacturers vendor lock and upcharge for ink. Profitable? Indeed. Despicable and anti-consumer? Very much so.
I have no idea, I’m hoping for my F3 to still last a couple of years.
I’m honestly pretty tired of Android, and that’s another can of worms.
Maybe I’ll try with a linux phone, but I’m still undecided.
Severalkittens@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 17:20
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I have a Sony Xperia that has both a jack and a SD slot. I shelled out for the top of the line one, but since it has good specs I plan on keeping it for many years.
Same, but it’s insanely expensive for a good phone with a horrible camera.
squaresinger@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 22:11
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Have a look at their impact report. They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff.
You are only paying more for that phone because they are a tiny boutique manufacturer who has to outsource everything. The fair/eco stuff is just fair- and greenwashing.
If you buy a phone because you want to look fair/eco, buy a Fairphone. If you actually really care for fair/eco, get an used phone and donate some money to the correct NGOs or charities.
Have a look at their impact report. They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff.
I’ve looked through their report and I can’t find this info. The only thing I’ve found is a ~€2 bonus per phone to their factory workers, which is only a small fraction of a phones supply chain. Can you provide a more detailed reference supporting your claim?
Read through the whole report, sum up all the money they mention. It comes out to $16 000. Double that for the stuff where they don’t mention money (because they surely would mention anything that costs more than the things they do mention). Double it again, for a safety margin. Double it again, because we are really generous. Now we are at €128 000. Divide that by the number of devices sold in 2024 and you get $1.24. Now add the $1.20 (Page 29) they pay as a living wage bonus and you arrive at $2.44 per device.
And now let’s be super generous and double that guess again, and you end up with the <€5 per device that I quoted above.
The picture becomes clearer when you look at what they say about their fair material usage.
Take for example the FP5 (page 42 & 67). Their top claim here is “Fair materials: 76%”, which they then put a disclaimer next to it, that they only mean that 76% of 14 specific focus materials is actually fair. On the detail page (page 67) they specify that actually only 44% of the total weight of the phone is fairly mined, because they just excluded a ton of material from the list of “focus materials” to push up the number.
The largest part of these materials are actually recycled materials (37% of the 44% “fair” materials). The materials they are recycling are plastics, metals and rare earth elements. That’s all materials that are cheaper to recycle than to mine. You’ll likely find almost identical amounts of recycled materials in any other phone, because it makes economical sense. It’s just cheaper. Since these materials cost nothing extra to Fairphone, we can exclude them from the list, which leaves 1% of actually fair mined material (specifically gold), and 6% of materials that they bought fairwashing credits for.
Also, the raw materials of phones are dirt cheap compared to the end price. The costly part is not mining the materials, but manufacturing all the components.
With only 1% of the materials being fairly mined and only 6% being compensated with credits, you can start to see why in total they spend next to nothing on fair mining/fair credits.
Yeah, I see, thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the report and write this.
It’s fucking sad but honestly thanks for pointing it out, I hadn’t even read the report.
Yeah, it is sad. Turns out, Fairphone is just yet another fairwashing company. People spend lots of money and suffer through using this phone with its trash quality software because they think that they are saving the planet by doing so, and in the end they actually just indirectly donated maybe a few Euros to some random fair credit mill.
Keep your eyes peeled and read what’s beind the marketing, because even companies that look good rarely are.
Especially for stuff like fair/eco/green, where it’s really hard to objectively measure how good something is and where legal standards are ridiculously low.
Thanks for the detailed reply. You saying that “They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff” is a complete lie. It’s not a number they’re claiming, it’s a number you’ve estimated. And lets be clear: what you’ve done is take $3k in gold credits plus $13k cobalt credits and multiplied that by an arbitrary 8x.
I think you’ve gone into your analysis with a foregone conclusion. There simply isn’t enough information to say anything about the cost overheat of being “fair”.
You’ll likely find almost identical amounts of recycled materials in any other phone, because it makes economical sense. It’s just cheaper.
And yet the FP4 was significantly less recycled. Plastic is certainly not cheaper to recycle; that’s a lie the plastic industry’s been pushing for a while.
I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone that on the general population.
Fairphone literally does have that statistic. They spent effort to gather that info in order to inform their business decisions. And they report:
We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack
You can get good Bluetooth earbuds for under $50 and a USB-C to AUX dongle for under $15.
The average person is fine with Bluetooth earbuds or an adapter, and audiophiles would not find the inbuilt DAC/amp on a phone to be adequate.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 00:02
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how do you charge the phone with a DAC plugged in?
papertowels@mander.xyz
on 26 Jun 02:27
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If we revisit the “loud” vs “statistically significant” paradigm, while it is a shame you will not be able to charge the phone with a dac in without buying a specific cable, how often does the average person do so?
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 15:06
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so you need a dongle for the DAC, and an additional dongle for charging that is also, if I recall it correctly, violates the USB-C standard. did I understand it correctly?
I use wireless charging every single day and majority of my non techie friends do as well. Its so convenient to have a wireless charger on the desk and put your phone there. They are dirt cheap as well.
papertowels@mander.xyz
on 27 Jun 03:45
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If I’ve asked a question twice and you’ve danced around it both times, that tells everyone what your answer is.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Jun 03:34
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someone who is often listening to music with their phone and wired headphones, or even just when arriving at home from work, is going to use both the charger and the jack at the same time frequently.
another scenario is if the person uses their phone as the microphone for their PC.
you can argue that both must be rare because you have never seen them done, that’s my exact opinion about wireless charging
Does that not solve your proposed problem? You can use a usb-c to audio dongle, which often comes with better sound quality than a phones DAC, and wirelessly charge, even via many powerbanks. These are features found fairly commonly in today’s phones, so problem solved?
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Jun 19:54
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it does not, as my phone, and afaik most phones don’t support it.
Sounds like a you problem, I have it on good authority that it’s pretty common:
how many times does the average person use wireless charging? Seriously, I haven’t seen anyone do that yet, or know of someone who uses that.
and yet that’s still a major feature in lots of phones
You’ve shown everyone that you can, in fact, listen to wired headphones and charge at the same time with “major features found in lots of phones”, which solves your original complaint, which itself depends on some very specific scenarios.
“It’s not in front of my face, so it doesn’t exists!”
That’s literally the thinking abilities of a toddler. Wireless chargers sell like hotcakes. MagSafe charger is Apple’s most popular accessory in their entire history.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Jun 03:38
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that’s the same thinking that those apply who say people don’t need jack connectors, mind you
Or you switch to your bluetooth buds during a wired charge.
I’m all for audio jacks, but have been using a phone without one for 4 years now, and there are so many options to not be incovenienced.
Also I don’t use my audiophile headphones with the phone at all - DAC on it just isn’t good enough to get most out of then, prefer to use them with my desktop PC amp only.
It’s kinda tough sell without wireless for such price, for me. Though I guess it’s maybe a tough fit with their modular design ambitions, and corners have to be cut somewhere to keep their higher costs down.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 15:11
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good luck charging my phone wirelessly! wireless charging is also very wasteful, and it does not support idle charging (powering the phone without wearing the battery), even if the phone otherwise does. doesn’t it also take up a significant amount of that precious space inside the phone?
ManOMorphos@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 15:35
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Maybe I chose the wrong $10 adapter but I notice a big drop in sound quality using that vs Bluetooth, to the point that it’s not worth using unless there isn’t another option. I’m not really an audiophile, though I can notice the general quality of sound.
My wired earbuds cost more than ten times that and will probably last me until I retire. The vast majority of those USB-c to 3.5mm adapters are cheap crap that have a worthless DAC and/or fall apart after a short time. I have purchased my wife three such adapters since she decided it was worth it to get a phone without a headphone jack and none of them have been good.
I ended up having to buy her a separate portable music player to use. So thanks for that Google, Apple, and the rest of the greedy shithead OEMs.
I’ve used three: one was generic (it was at the time the only way to get one that could charge and have a headphone out in the same dongle), one was from Fiio (surprisingly bad sounding, maybe worse than the generic in some ways, but better build), and one was the official Google dongle (sounded clean, but was super weak. Couldn’t power even my lightest headphones that weren’t IEMs). The only one I still have is the Google dongle because the others broke, but I don’t use it because it still kinda sucks. I ended up being forced to buy a phone without a headphone jack fairly recently because Google more or less killed my Pixel 4a and there were no replacement phones with headphones jacks that I could put GrapheneOS on. I ended up buying myself a portable music player to list to music on. My phone is now only for listening to music in the car and it sucks :(
From what I understand there are better dongles now than that they can perform better than the Apple dongle, but the one everyone raves about that was $20 - $30 or so is now hard to come brand is going for closer to $80 (I think it is the Jcally JM20 Max). I don’t see a reason to bother spending more money chasing this crap now that I’ve had to buy both my wife and I standalone music players. What I do know is that the first company that releases a decent phone that has a headphone jack that fits my other needs is getting my Money. If Fairphone has brought it back, it would have been them since they have decent ROM alternatives (though not GrapheneOS).
What statistics? People buying thin phones over thicker phones doesn’t mean much when that’s almost all that’s being sold nowadays and every phone is trying to be as thin as possible. It seemed to me that 90% of what we’re told people want is actually just what companies want to push on us because it’s cheaper and more profitable.
All the people I know who are average users couldn’t care less about how thin the phone is, two mm more or less doesn’t make any difference. They care about screen size and being able to use it without too much hassle. If they get a phone without an audio jack half of them will just assume that they can’t plug earphones at all. And they are not the ones who will complain. But then, Fairphone isn’t marketed towards average users, so maybe their users have different priorities? Idk
If you ask people what they want, they will tell you they want a phone that has 15 inch screen that looks perfect under the sunlight. But also fits into their pocket. And it has to have a battery that lasts a week, but it must not weight anything at all. But also has to play all the highly graphical games, and also have a professional level camera. It must do so and also last forever and be indestructible.
That phone obviously can’t exist, and a lot of what people want are things that oppose each other from the engineering pov. That’s the point of surveys and market analysis. You don’t just look at what people say, you look at what they do, what they actually buy.
It is true that the other side of marketing is convincing people that what the company is offering is what they would also want to buy. But it is never a guarantee. I mean, look at the Samsung Edge flop. Marketing is not magic, you can’t brainwash 100 million people to buy something they don’t want. Marketing is marrying what the company wants to do in terms of cost cutting and profit maxing, with what the market is actually willing to buy. If people keep buying slop, they will keep selling slop, and they will keep marketing slop to people to convince them they want the slop. To break the circle someone has to stop, and it won’t be the corporations.
You know why there aren’t more users complaining about this? Because they flat out did not buy the device for that reason (e.g. me). Removing the jack is also extremely hyprocritical coming from a “sustainable” company.
And if it did have it you wouldn’t have bought it either because the company is hypocritical. So why do you care? Why should they care?
The point is, the people who did buy it didn’t care, and the people who care don’t buy. It’s a conundrum. Pair it with performance data of other phones that do have a headphone jack, plus the engineering compromises over other very important features. Then the decision makes sense. You lot aren’t buying phones with headphone jacks either, so it isn’t economically worth it. It’s not like the motor g or the Asus rog phone are breaking sales records just on the headphone jack.
It’s the same story as with small phones. People who aren’t buying phones like to complain about phone size. But then when a small phone is made, no one buys it. Then the people who didn’t buy the phone complain again, because the phone wasn’t perfect for them.
It happens all the time, people are usually very vocal about things that actually don’t drive their decision making.
Exactly, they want the most amount of customers. But they won’t sacrifice AxB customers to satisfy B customers. They’d be effectively losing customers or breaking even at a higher cost to them.
We know this numbers must have a population of around 180 thousand customers. The known number of fairphones sold across all models so far. Now let’s make assumptions. Let’s suppose that there are 100 people who want headphone jacks and would absolutely buy a fairphone if they came with it, for each user that has advocated for headphone jacks in this thread. You wouldn’t even break 1% of the total number of fairphone sales, just this year (130k).
Again, there’s a difference between wanting something a lot. And actually making decisions based on what we say we want. Fairphone removed the headphone jack on a model that broke sales records for them. Fairphone 5 was heavily criticized for not having a headphone jack. And it is selling comfortably well within their expectations. So obviously the people who stopped buying Fairphones because of the headphone jack weren’t that many actually.
But they won’t sacrifice AxB customers to satisfy B customers.
That’s the kicker. Adding a headphone jack doesn’t mean they have to sacrifice something. They can just do it without having to remove/reduce anything. If adding a jack was really that difficult, something like what you can see in this video wouldn’t be possible.
You have to preeeety gullible to believe their reasons for not adding it. The only reason was that they wanted to sell their bluetooth earbuds, that’s it.
Phone thickness is far from the only consideration. But Ok, you are right. There was space on the iPhone 7. That was also the first water resistant phone. Does this guy phone’s is still IP67 compliant after all the surgery he made. And that was in 2016, when IP67 headphone jacks didn’t exist. Now the phone standard is IP68. There were no IP68 compliant headphone jacks until recently, I think the ASUS Zenfone 12 is the first one.
I think companies won’t bring the headphone jack (a shame, really). But the writing is in the wall, it went away, and phones still sold like hotcakes. While those with headphone jacks aren’t being bought anywhere near the same volume. So the signal is very clear, the effort to add a headphone jack — however little it may be — is not financially worth it. It is a feature that doesn’t drive sales. Period.
Okay, I’m going to ask… why don’t you use wireless?
Edit: some results are in, and the only reasonable answer is better audio quality, although that’s probably no longer true. The rest are fairly weak reasons.
Lol’d at the 10m extension cord though, thanks for that one.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jun 22:03
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wireless headphones run out of battery, and most seem to have atrocious build quality and battery life.
Battery degradation. Wired earphones/headphones can be BIFL if treated properly. A typical wireless device will see battery degradation within a handful of years, and I have yet to see a decent TWS solution with replaceable batteries.
The Fairbuds does have a replaceable battery if that’s what you are searching for. Sure, the sound won’t be as good as a Sony, Bose, or the like, but it would be good enough if your focus is durability instead of perfect sound quality.
1.Wired headphones deliver better audio quality
2.Wired headphones are harder to lose
3.Wired headphones don’t need batteries, so:
a)less e-waste
b)no need to check if they are charged
4.Wired headphones are more secure, connection cannot be intercepted and phishing attacks with BT are not possible
5.While wired headphones are plugged, no one can take your phone without you noticing
Wired headphones can be intercepted, as the wires unfortunately also act as an antenna (I’m a computer security technician, we semi-routinely do such interception).
As for sound quality, it will always be limited by the DAC quality, and there is little way to add a good quality DAC without adding significant weight to the phone. Did you ever wonder why audiophiles audio players looks like bricks? That why.
But I agree with point 2, 3 and 5, they are valid, but I don’t agree with some aspects:
You can make some TW headphones bips to find them, which you cannot with wired ones for obvious reasons.
The cable is unfortunately often their weakpoints, and I had to throw away multiple of my headphones (which were fairly good quality ones) because of that. That’s actually the main reason I went wireless. I was tired of the cable breaking, and it getting in my way.
Now all my audio equipments are wireless, and I change their batteries every 5 years or so. Unfortunately I bought mines before Fairphone launched theirs, so it wasn’t an option, but once any of my headphones eat the dust for good, I’ll probably buy an easily repairable one if audio quality and codecs are acceptable (I’m an Audiophile, so that’s important to me).
Yep. There was a type of attack that utilized wireless headphone merging as an attack vector. With wired headphones, you can simply turn Bluetooth off.
I know of DACs (been through audiophile phase myself), and sure, a typical integrated mobile one doesn’t deliver THAT big of a quality. Still, wired headphones are not bottlenecking much just by the means of connection. And they are generally cheaper for the same audio quality, because you don’t need to put batteries etc.
Agree with your counterpoints. On the cable - I much prefer detachable options, so you can replace the cable easily. but the connector has to be strong enough - I’m a bit tired to see my Moondrop Chu disconnecting and shaking somewhere in my pocket.
They are expensive. You can get wired earphones for 2 euros that actually work and are reasonably durable. It’s not a great loss if they fall in a puddle or if I step on them.
They are a lot more failure prone. Half of those I tried didn’t work or only half worked, and those that did work didn’t last very long.
They have shitty range. I can use a 10 meters extension cord with wired earphones if I want to.
They require charging. And it’s a law of physics that everything that requires charging always run out at the most inconvenient time.
Also THEY ALWAYS GET LOST. Wireless earphones, mouse, controllers… it doesn’t matter, if it’s not attached with a cable they’ll just disappear.
LOL, 10m extension cord. I mean you’ve already established that you don’t give a crap about sound quality with your first point but that’s just ridiculous. Not to mention the 10m cord that your dragging around the house.
I don’t really care about sound quality when using earphones at home because I only use them when there’s a lot of ambient noise so the sound will be bad either way. When doing vacuum cleaning, or the dishes, stuff like that. When I still had a smartphone I used a 1,5m extension cord so it wouldn’t pull on the jack each time I move, but since it died I’m using a much longer one plugged to my PC (not actually 10m, that was hyperbole, more like 5m). It’s not very convenient I’ll admit, but it does the job.
Kannushi_Link@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 04:46
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Latency issue, in some use cases it’s not acceptable to have 0.1~0.3 sec lag, like racing games or rhythm games.
(Yeah, I know there are some wireless protocols to make latency shorter, but it might cost a lot to buy a supported headphone, and it’s still useless if the phone doesn’t have proper protocol supports.)
Severalkittens@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 17:22
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It’s about options. You can still use Bluetooth even with a phone that has a 3.5mm jack. I also run live sound and have used the ability to plug my phone directly into the board for background music multiple times.
Let me give you simple example. When I take a flight, I like to watch my own media. Those flights sometimes are upwards of 10 hours. If I use wireless earbuds, both the earbuds and my phone will run out of battery and I have to charge them separately. However, since I have a phone with a headphone jack, my earbuds never run out of battery, I can charge my phone while I’m using them and I don’t need to use a single adapter.
That’s not simple. That’s very specific, and you really listen for 10 solid hours? Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money… I feel like there’s a wireless solution in your price range
You clearly didn’t get the point. The cost isn’t the only issue. There are downsides to wireless earbuds and I honestly do not prefer them most of the time. In my example, I’m using them the entire time because I don’t want to hear airplane noises and yeah, I am playing something on them most of the time if I’m flying alone.
Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money…
Sorry but this is a very very dumb take. “if you spent a lot of money, you could spend MORE money”. Really dude? The solution is just having a damn headphone jack, not spending money because corporations want you to.
Well, technically no phones are made in the US. I think you’re talking about selling phones there. Regardless, you might have poor short term memory because they only pulled out of the US phone market (which is pretty crappy) a little over a year ago I believe.
If they are all about swappable parts, and being able to upgrade your phone how you want … Shouldn’t this just be a module upgrade… Of the main part? Maybe I don’t understand it … At the very least the old parts should work with the new system right? Unless something major has changed.
Not putting in a 3.5mm jack says enough. They sell Bluetooth earbuds I wouldn’t call that “fair”. It leads to more landfill. Phones with 3.5mm jacks also have BT, and don’t start about USBC singles, that’s more to buy and more landfill when they inevitable break.
I hear you! Though I don’t mind the lack of a 3.5 mm jack¹, it is still an anti-feature, and I fully agree that the TWS style of in-ears are antithetical to the repairability ethos. It’s especially bad when they sell one themselves.
Until Linux phones reliably support 5G communications with major carriers (this is a kernel driver issue for modems), I’m going to run with my current phone until it crumbles… Or at least until someone comes out with an actual modular phone where the mainboard can just be swapped as with desktops and Framework laptops.
¹I use a very high quality “dongle” DAC (Moonriver 2) and it gives me a cleaner, lower impedance, higher power output than any phone’s on-board audio can. If I’m going to be using wired headphones, might as well go all the way.
I hope my phone lasts until we get a framework phone.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 05:59
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Might be more challenging.
Laptop, its simple, if wifi and bluetooth works, its gonna work around the entire world (it’s all standardized).
Phones? I mean the main functions of a phone is phone calls and data use. Every country has different bands, and some carriers/countries have IMEI whitelisting.
Yeah but the entire philosophy of Framework would be one phone construction standard and then you swap out the radio chip. Granted, there’s never been a hard phone standard, and the parts have never been designed for swapping. They would be the ones designing and commissioning these standards. Anyway, so I’m gonna be waiting very patiently.
Occhioverde@feddit.it
on 25 Jun 19:51
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I really respect Fairphone and I’m a happy owner of the Fairphone 5, but I find a bit puzzling for a company that suggests its customer should keep their phone for more than the 2.5 years average to release a new model just 2 years after the previous one.
Just my two cents, but they shoul’ve focused on developing either a tablet or a smartwatch to fill a gap in other markets before announcing yet another smartphone.
willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jun 20:10
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New people enter the market all the time.
That update is for those that don’t already have a Fairphone, presumably.
That said, I agree with your overall point. They should offer tablets and watches if they can.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 20:12
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You don’t have to buy a new fair phone just because you bought the last one.
It’s doubtful that someone buying a new phone now would want to buy the fair phone from 2+ years ago.
wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
on 25 Jun 20:17
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If they didn’t buy a previous fairphone, you’re going to miss all the people who wanted to try it but didn’t want a 5 year old phone tech. I imagine most people replace around 3-5 years due to battery degradation, people dropping their phones, or lack of updates
PetteriSkaffari@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 22:20
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When you drop your Fairphone, you can easily repair it.
Still on my FP4, no need to change, really. Only updated the battery once.
I keep reading this complaint every time FairPhone releases a new model, and it’s nonsense. The millions of people who didn’t buy a FairPhone 5 in the last 2 years are not going to buy a 2 year old model when they need a new phone in 2 months.
You bought a FairPhone 5 or 4 in the last 4 years? Keep it and don’t buy a FairPhone 6, you don’t need it.
You didn’t buy a FairPhone and your current phone is dying? Then you have a modern FairPhone and don’t need to decide between a FairPhone with old specs or an up-to-date phone that is not repairable.
squirrelwithnut@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 21:43
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I would totally buy one of these if they were sold in the US. Sadly, last time I checked the newest phone wasn’t sold here. So I doubt this one will be.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 25 Jun 22:00
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you can get them in the US.
Manalith@midwest.social
on 25 Jun 22:19
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It’s 6.3" because of the lack of top/bottom bezels. The phone itself is not much bigger than a Galaxy S7.
Manalith@midwest.social
on 26 Jun 04:20
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I could go for like <5 in to be honest.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 12:54
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You are genuinely the first person I’ve seen online who understands screen size != Phone size, because bezels exist and are different sized from phone to phone.
My current 6.3" screen phone is virtually identical in size to the 4.2" one I had in 2012.
Yes but the phone physically cannot be smaller than the screen.
So if the screen itself is too large to be comfortable, it is physically impossible to make it comfortable to use without making the screen smaller.
I measured the radius my thumb can reach, I know exactly the limits of my reach, and thus exactly the largest screen I can use without causing discomfort in my wrist.
The point I am trying to make is that the ideal phone size is personal to the individual. There is no one size fits all. Screen to body ratio cannot change that.
This is why, despite the screen to body ratio improving, a subset of people still ask for smaller phones.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
on 30 Jun 23:02
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Ok so you think that the old 4" screen phones should actually have been sub 2". That seems excessively small to me.
You can get them in the U.S. with /e/OS through Murena, but they are $900 :(
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 05:23
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You can thank the President for that. ahem tariff* ahem*
MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 26 Jun 14:38
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I would not recommend Murena for U.S. customers. I attempted buying a FP4 from them, and they put $6000 in charges to my credit card. Their message-only customer service was terrible and tried to blame me. Had to get my bank involved.
I was very, sad to miss out on the entire Fairphone 5 generation, but I gave up and bought a Pixel 8 when they announced the 5 wont be coming any time soon.
Finally I can get a phone that’s worth buying (and earbuds as I see they carry the fairbuds now)
Please take note of MystValkyrie’s response to my post. I have no experience with Murena and I cannot vouch for them. In light of what MystValkyrie shared, it might be wise to proceed with caution and maybe look into it more before ordering.
I love the idea but the price is too high for the chip given that this is designed to be a longevity phone. A chip like the 7s Gen 3 would make the phone sluggish after a couple of years with how unoptimised todays apps are.
The Gorilla Glass 7i and IP55 water resistance are also concerning given that budget Samsung, Xiaomi, etc phones beat this.
However having components of the phone being easily replacable is a great thing.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jun 04:58
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meow
KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net
on 26 Jun 08:40
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I think it’s important to remember that the price is higher because they pay their factory workers a living wage and use a combination of recycled and fair materials.
It looks expensive because other phones are cheap, and other phones are cheap because they are exploiting people to make them.
It’s shameful that most phones run one of two operating systems. There’s not enough competition. I’m still pissed about WebOS and Windows Phone being abandoned. I am hopeful though that web-based apps might make it possible for another OS to enter the market successfully at some point.
Yea, this is completely okay, but there is a small difference - for stock /e/os ones, the Bootloader is locked. I am not sure about details but this would be a needed security feature for some applications
I just want them to make a true flagship phone. I personally wouldn’t mind paying extra for a more ethical phone, if it had all the bells and whistles and wasn’t half obsolete straight out of the box.
What features would that include that the phone doesn’t already have?
I’m currently an iPhone user, but I’m looking to move to a more open source alternative.
better cpu, 2 sim slots, a programmable button cause this dumbass launcher switch is a joke, at least 5000mah battery, at least a sceen mount fingerprint reader or even a working face recognition like in pixel phones.
a 2 year old motorola phone has all of these for some reason, for only 300 bucks. i can pay 40 bucks for a battery change every 4 years, thats still a better deal to be honest.
uniquethrowagay@feddit.org
on 26 Jun 13:45
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The dumbass launcher switch is programmable and the battery is close to 5000mAh?
A big problem they have is that they have to rely on Qualcomm for security updates, and the flagship chips simply don’t get 8+ years of support. Fairphone uses Qualcomms IOT chips, which come with much longer support.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 12:51
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Qualcomm will have to change that, what with the EU now mandating a minimum of 5 years of updates after the phone is no longer sold.
So if Qualcomm expects their SoCs to be on the market for 2-4 years, like they do right now, they will have no choice but to provide updates for 7-9 years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, given this development, Fairphone turn to the more conventional chips other OEMs use, which would likely also be a win for battery life.
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
on 26 Jun 02:38
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FP would be a good choice for Graphene.
KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net
on 26 Jun 08:58
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Unfortunately Graphene have said they will only use pixels (or potentially their own phone in the future) because no other phones have the Titan M2 security chip.
It’s a shame though, because I’d love to have Graphene on it.
Problem is, it is not IP68 rated, which is a dealbreaker for someone with an active lifestyle; especially since I sometimes manage to get water even into my IP68 phones. It would be good if they made a Pro model or just made the regular model more expensive since I will gladly pay for privacy and quality on a device that is on me at all times. For now I will stick to my Pixel 9 Pro.
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
on 26 Jun 14:10
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There are those waterproof bag things. I wouldn’t trust the IP rating on a phone.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 09:51
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Yeah no one should trust IP ratings on phones because unless they cover water damage in their warranty - which none do - the company doesn’t even trust their own IP rating.
I always shake my head when I read about people taking their phones in the shower, in the pool, etc. IP ratings degrade over time as well.
But to be honest, most headphone jacks on these slim phones suck and even a cheap USB-c to audio jack dongle is better than the average phone headphone jack.
The devices from Fiio show that it is still possibile to create a good quality Android device with a good headphone jack, but we might need thicker phones.
I just use dongles or audio players
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jun 10:25
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A thicker phone would be great. All these manufacturers forgot at some point we actually need to hold these things with a human hand.
Having said that my fp4 is actually a pretty good thickness. They just screwed that up by rounding the the edge so much seemingly to reduce contact grip.
To me a thicker phone doesn’t help, but if it does for you then okey, that should exist.
Routhinator@startrek.website
on 26 Jun 11:51
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I respect your opinion, but I lived through 90s computing and think dongles died the death they deserve and these phone manufacturers can go to hell for bringing them back or thinking that bluetooth audio is good enough.
Additionally most of the droids I have bought that have a jack are the perfect thickness in my mind. Weighted enough to stay in my hand and take a couple dozen drops without accident. Plus the headphone jack is used as an antenna and provides radio capabilities so I can listen to local news instead of whatever the tech industry wants to feed me. Which is a nice option.
It depends on what dongle and for what it is used, for something like headphones or earbuds I just leave my dongle on the cable, the same for in my car. I used a Redmi Note 13 Pro for a while which has an audio jack, but it was TERRIBLE so bad that I bought extra dongles before I switched back to using an iPhone.
I also already dispise looking for an Android phone, since I have terrible experience with Samsung Phones and Google products and don’t want either of those. Having to look for a GOOD audio jack on one is not worth the hassle for me, if it is for you then more kudo’s to you.
Ill just use an old school iPod or a USB-c cable
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 09:41
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Bluetooth audio is good enough when you’re comparing it to phone headphone jacks. Phones aren’t audiophile devices. No one is going to notice the difference in sound.
A 3.5mm jack adapter is as unintrusive as can be - it just stays on your headphone cable.
don’t misunderstand me, those are great repairable bluetooth devices, but if i were to not have a headphone jack and just a “long lasting repairable phone” , i’m sticking to my Google pixel.
nihilomaster@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 08:59
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They want to sell their buds and headset.
Not sure if it still is that way, but when i bought my FP4 years ago, free buds were included.
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 27 Jun 09:29
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I doubt it’s some conspiracy, but it does still suck. I’m on my 3rd USB port on my fp4 because I use wired earphones. Replaceable USB port was my initial reason for buying a fair phone otherwise I’d likely be buying a new phone every year.
USB C is not up to that kind of use, and BT ear buds suck…
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 09:29
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Just get a cheap usb c -> 3.5mm adapter. Problem solved.
First of all no, i dont want to carry a dongle as i may plug in multiple headsets.
Second of all, i want to charge my phone while listening to music, and i want even less to carry a doubling d’ongle
Third of all, i fail to see the “eco responsible” part of needing to buy more things than nécessary, then wearing down needlessly the usb-c over time.
So, with all due respect, piss off
PS : you’re the same kind of person who said “don’t want a phone without headphone jack? Only buy one that has one instead of complaining” when apple started the trend, and guess what mfers, i’m never stopping complaining
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
on 27 Jun 15:34
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You’re going to plug in multiple headsets to your phone in regularly? You can’t just have a cheap dongle on those headsets’ cables?
Funny how almost everyone in here saying they need the 3.5mm jack also just happens to have a dozen pairs of headphones they use every day lol.
It is an android, which is moving towards an ai for everything trajectory which might be a privacy nightmare, I wonder if the next step of the fairphone journey is to break from android
They cooperate with Murena, so /e/OS is officially supported and you can buy new devices with /e/OS installed. I am running /e/OS on my Fairphone 5 and it works great.
They also seem to have given developer devices to the PostmarketOS folks, so that they hit the ground running with a working FP6 port already. I'm not sure exactly what is going on behind the scenes between Fairphone and PostmarketOS here - maybe @z3ntu can fill us in.
Worth noting buying a second hand phone is still better in every aspect and sadly 2nd hand Samsung from 3 years ago is still better and cheaper. Though Fairphone is getting closer with each release!
I would never go with Samsung as a conscious choice for custom ROMs, mostly because all well-supported devices are pretty old, which means lower chance of getting something in a decent state for a reasonable price used, that wouldn’t require immediately swapping the battery already. Not to mention the Knox eFuse which means losing functionality when flashing a custom ROM. I’d argue a used Pixel is a better option, the 7 Pro can be had for relatively little money and is still a good phone.
Because my experience was that most ROMs were based on AOSP/ LineageOS , which supports very few Samsung phones, and no flagships since the 2018 S10.
And even of those, many didn’t support IMS/VoLTE/VoWiFi which made them useless in any geos that didn’t have 3G fallback for voice. You can’t make or receive phone calls.
Oh I just meant rooting not custom ROMs as I’ve never tried any. Rooted android will get you very far on its own so custom ROMs often feel like an overkill tbh
You will need to add on the price for a new battery replacement on a 3 year old Sammy lol
MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 26 Jun 14:41
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Fairphone has been a really disappointing experiment in so-called sustainable tech over the years. They keep making new phones instead of continuing to support the old ones, which might be greenwashing. (Whereas if you got a legacy Framework 13, it’s still user-repairable and upgradable.) If they wanted to make a non-upgradable device, maybe it would have been wise to make it high-end to futureproof to work until 4G gets phased out. Fairphone still is not making their products available in the U.S., and Murena is a borderline scam company and I am genuinely shocked Fairphone works with them.
And I’ve heard their logic with the headphone jack, but I do think AUX is the lesser of two evils as removing it will just lead to more e-waste with broken bluetooth headphones that rarely last as long as good wired ones. Fairphone’s own bluetooth accessories have gotten negative reviews for their lower build quality, so Fairbuds are likely not the solution to the headphone jack problem.
For the simple fact that non-Europeans can buy them directly off the website, I would sooner recommend feature phones from Sunbeam as it also has user-replaceable batteries and you can send it in for repairs. Or just any phone used.
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jun 15:39
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I’ve had to swap a lot more cabled headphones out due to cable damage than bluetooth headphones, but i also only use overear headphones, which have enough battery storage for days. Also, there are also overear headsets that are dual-useable with headphone jack or bluetooth (no noise cancelling with jack tho). Also, the issue with the replacement of headphones lies with the producers of headphones w/o changeable power source, not with the phone.
And regarding availability in the US: i have the suspicion that the average european will be much more inclined to pay the 2-300$ upmark in price just for greener tech than the average american. i’m sure that they would love to sell more phones, but it’s not ecological or economical to ship them onto a continent where 80-90% of people would either compare specs only and cannot afford to go for a more sustainable phone or - a predominantly USA thing - who revel in the fact that their choice is not ecological.
What about headphones with a replaceable cable? Higher quality cables usually last longer aswell
MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 26 Jun 16:10
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This is what I do and have had vastly better experiences than with Bluetooth.
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 27 Jun 05:44
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Yeah, my current bluetooth headset has that option, and i keep a cable in reserve. the ones i had to replace were mostly in my teens/tweens, and were still cabled in-ear style - easier to hide under clothes and hair, but also no cable replacing if you don’t know much about how to solder. TBH, if i had to decide i would not go back to cabled headphones at all - it’s simply too limiting and irritating to deal with, especially with multiple audio sources. When listening to music the latency is not important (and has improved a lot in comparison to the humble start), and it’s been a while since i had phones which had sound quality issues because of bluetooth.
650€ is way too expensive for an unknown phone brand with an unknown OS installed on it smh. i’d love to buy one but considering you can get a samsung for less than 500€
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
on 26 Jun 14:57
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What are you talking about this phone is established, this is their 6th one… and the bootloader is unlocked.
Slightly better camera (future tests will tell how much better)
120 Hz display
More RAM and storage (although I feel that the previous 6GB/128GB option was also sufficient for most users)
WiFi 6E Tri-Band (however you will likely never need this speed)
Bluetooth 5.4
Slightly larger battery
Con:
Backpanel now requires a screwdriver
Display has less resolution/PPI
Performance of processor will likely be nearly identical to predecessor (however it’s more efficient and modern)
Downgrade to USB 2
600€
My conclusion:
Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice.
Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong.
600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.
Regarding resolution, I’ve been using my S21 Ultra at FHD quality (2400x1080) since I got it and it has a significantly large screen. I don’t see a point in higher resolutions but I definitely appreciate higher refresh rates. Makes it feel smoother and more responsive.
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jun 21:06
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If the 10hz reading implementation is good I may consider upgrading my fp4. A better camera would be nice too but if they get the power saving if that screen right then I’m interested…
Otherwise my fp4 has everything thing I need a phone to be
The extra RAM and storage probably increased the price much more than the screen upgrade.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world
on 26 Jun 23:38
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USB 2? What a stupid choice that appears to be. Did they have any reasoning behind that?
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 27 Jun 09:22
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The transfer speed over USB on mine probably doesn’t even pass USB 2 speeds anyway and I’ve had flagship phones in the past that were even slower over a cable. I guess if that’s still the case then there’s probably a good engineering argument to reduce complexity.
I just checked my phone and the up/down speed for files is roughly 40MB/s despite having a USB 3 connection.
USB 2 has a max. transfer rate (under optimal conditions) of 60MB/s, so I think when the phone storage improves a bit or the cable is a bit longer it will likely become a bottleneck.
Also note that there are other applications than transfering files which might need more bandwidth.
To be fair it really doesn’t make much of a difference but USB 3 is now the standard for a century and has been around since 2008 so I somewhere expect a 600€ phone to also have it.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 13:50
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Or there wasn’t good enough engineering to begin with to achieve usb 3 speeds. Seems like they should have got it right before using it as a reason to cripple the thing further.
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 28 Jun 11:13
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Eh I don’t really see a necessary use case to get angry over it… Transfers over WiFi have been faster than USB on pretty much all phones for a while now, and way more convenient.
I just drop files into my phone with kde connect. It means I can even start a transfer and wonder off with the phone and the mesh network keeps it going
In order to make the device more affordable, we explored how we could best balance our spec choices with the least possible impact on user experience. Going from USB-3 to USB-2 was one of them.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 14:50
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Lol nooooo, I’ve been trying to get rid of all mine! Of course since I’m an IT guy that really just means they go to the box of bygone cabling standards, but still. I want them out of my active cable stash lol
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 27 Jun 00:54
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I also found out a few other things that have changed:
They now use Torx T5 screws
The backcover and battery are now fixed with these screws
The battery uses a dedicated connector
Parts of the backcover now require a pick
SIM/SD now sit at the bottom in a dedicated slot and don’t require the removal of the backcover.
The volume buttons got replaced by the “moments” button and are now on the left
IMHO this is kind of a downgrade in repairability as you now need custom tools (not everyone has a T5 screwdriver at home).
Moving the volume buttons to the other side is also kind of weird and unexpected as most (non Apple) phones have them on the right…
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club
on 26 Jun 17:02
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bvoigtlaender@feddit.org
on 26 Jun 21:09
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Was really hoping to see a Fairphone 6a. Similar to the Google Pixel Series.
Just a cheap version of it.
I really don’t need 120Hz, OLED or “No Bezels” all i want is big battery and a headphone jack that is all.
potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish
on 26 Jun 23:54
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I bought an oled phone for 200€ a few years back. What I’d really want is that every smartphone sold in the EU is open, with open drivers and OS with root access if you want to. And some investments by the EU to support open smartphone OS.
What a shithole civilization.
potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish
on 26 Jun 23:58
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a few things i like:
moments is an interesting concept
it says you can toggle off gemini ai. this is good
display goes from 10-120hz for battery
ultrawide selfie camera
microsd card slot!
power button fingerprint scanner, way better than underscreen
Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 00:03
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Can we get it for 100 bucks max?
They are aware that people can’t afford to waste money on luxuries, no?
Obviously not, the poor spec choices led to the price. Perhaps the company claiming to focus on ethics could focus on ethics instead of bezel-less design and 120 Hz screens, thus bringing it in at a lower price point. Feel free to critique me now
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Jun 01:41
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OTG compatible is a rare feature, I have an endoscope camera that uses OTG, but not a compatible phone.
Also, no mention of a headphone jack.
Ambersand@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 01:48
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One plus did the same thing. Now they’re no different then all the expensive brands out there.
bonus_crab@lemmy.world
on 27 Jun 02:25
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love fairphone but i cant go bacl from graphene os. its so nice not having google attacjed to everything.
If you want something not Google, I used to have Ubuntu Touch on a Fairphone before Australia’s 3G network was switched off. It would have to be an older Fairphone however.
localhost443@discuss.tchncs.de
on 27 Jun 09:00
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I wish I could ditch stock android but my business bank app refuses to run on e/os and I assume I’d have the same problem with graphene.
e/os was otherwise soo much better, and the increase in performance and battery life was huge.
threaded - newest
Can anyone recommend this? Is the camera any good?
Good question. I was just reading the article about it on The Verge, which mentions:
No mention of camera quality, though, as it’s basically a press release post and not a hands-on or review. I wish this would be available in the US for a fair price.
4000x3000 (12MP) is completely fine for a secondary camera imo. 32MP for the front cam is more than enough too. Upwards of 12MP, the denoising and optics are much more important than the resolution.
32 MP is absurdly much, resized down to 10 MP you are not going to see a difference.
Basically nobody has this in hand yet. Its lighter (193g) and shorter (156mm) than the previous ones which is nice. Harder glass surface (Corning 7i) so less scratches. Its still thick tho at 9.6mm but i dont mind that. If gsmarena is correct, then they didnt include video output over USBC for some fucking dumb reason this time. Ridiculous.
I was thinking: Online-people have been asking for thicker iPhones and MacBooks in favour of battery for a while now. So I suppose this is that + repairability. I think we as a community could highlight that a bit tbh
Haven’t had an FP6 in my hands yet, but I’ve been using FP since the Fairphone 2, am currently using the FP4 and besides the ethics in sourcing their materials and manufacturing (which they genuinely attempt to provide, and while there is no ethical consumption in capitalism, there are still degrees of fucked-upness.), I do enjoy the repairability, longevity and long-term support. They are also decently supported by de-googled-android and even pure Linux phone operating systems, if you want to experiment there, and come without a lot of bloat that nowadays is ubiquitous with most smartphones.
Do you have a bit of info on these Linux mobile OSs? The FP5 didn't convince me as a main phone when I needed a new one last year, but if it can take a real Linux distro it could be a cool toy.
Sure - check out this list from the community forums:
forum.fairphone.com/t/…/11425#heading--fp5
Thank you!
You can also look at the MKBHD 2024 smartphone camera comparison test with the FP5. I would suggest taking the test yourself if that is still possible.
I would guess that the camera will be comparable. (Everything below if FP5 assuming about the same performance with the FP6)
For me, daylight pics were after all of the pixels but before anything else. I like the more neutral not supremely over-saturated over-sharpened/smoothed pictures that many phones take nowadays.
For me, it was middle of the pack for dimly lit photos.
For the overall ELO with everyone, FP5 was on the mid-lower end (of a comparison of all flagships + pixel A series), but perfectly usable for people who aren’t doing social media as a job.
It’s too bad they dont ship to Canada. I’m in the market for a new phone and would seriously consider this.
The state of mobile phone market in Canada is so frustrating. Not only is our market dominated by 3 players who refuse to actually compete with each other, but we miss out on half the cool phones that the rest of the world gets too.
Clove Technology resells to outside the EU
But also consider potential carrier compatibility issues with importing
Thanks for the tip!
I had a look at the bands and it is indeed compatible in Canada! 🎉
Source: GSMArena + Fido support
Same US. EU gets the best stuff.
No earphone jack again. That’s a bit sad. Even though I mainly use BLT earbuds, I still sometimes wish I could use my wired headphones. It’s just a small inconvenience
I had a phone without before, that one came with a simple cheap passive adapter for USB-C to 3.5mm headset. You lose out on using headphones while charging, but other than that I was never really inconvenienced…
You also have to remember to have that adapter with you
An issue shared with the headphones themselves
I just leave the adapter plugged into the headphones. Then there’s nothing extra to manage.
I have like a dozen pairs of headphones
The adapters are dirt cheap, buy doezen of them
No thank you.
how many do you use per week?
If you need to plug the headphones into the adapter, you can just leave them plugged in after disconnecting from the phone
This way, the headphones almost become ones with USB-C connectors than auxiliary barrels.
You can find adapters that can charge while still having a 3.5mm back
I use one of those daily and god they're all terrible. They're huge and they all break really easily. My phone is fucking huge, just give me a built in headphone jack!
fast charging / USB-PD may not work, and 3.5mm media controls may not pass through properly
After having a phone without a 3.5mm port or a microSD card slot, the top 2 features I want on a phone are a 3.5mm port and a microSD card slot.
Shame Sony discontinued their Xperia 5 series, even if they were also excessively priced.
aw man, this is the first i’m hearing about discontinuation. apparently it’s because people want larger phones?!
i have a 5 IV and it is by far the largest phone i’ve ever owned… i wish it was like an inch smaller. but it was the only model i could find that doesn’t have a non-rectangular screen. these bloody camera cutouts are everywhere and i never even use the front camera.
Yep... everyone wants phablets. Apparently.
I don't mind the cutouts (if done right), they just sit in the notification bar, so they never obscure anything anyway. That's a place Sony could have shaved off the extra height imo, the top and bottom bezels are pretty unnecessary.
We are slowly moving to under-screen cameras now though.
Nothing better than a selfie from a low angle, right?
i think they mean “under” as in “behind”.
lol, that’s very possible
Yes that's exactly it. A camera under/behind the display. Not at the bottom of the screen aha (the bottom changes I guess too, depending on your phone rotation).
i mean the bezels together are less than 1cm. and the notch takes space from notifications, with two sim cards and a vpn active that shit overflows instantly anyway.
Fair, I suppose it depends on how the software handles it too. Personally I never let notifications stack up and the VPN for me is on the other side. I'd personally rather have the shorter phone and a cutout.
vpn is on the right, yeah. but this is with just one sim:
<img alt="" src="https://feddit.nu/pictrs/image/16c79d25-2d85-4a93-9b18-e1fc33af0f96.png">
with two i get another signal strength and wifi calling symbol. it’s already collapsing them when not on the quick setting screen, which is very frustrating.
FYI, you can disable the icons you don’t want/need using (github.com/zacharee/Tweaker). Although that doesn’t solve the actual problem…
Thanks, I didn't know about this. Though it should just be default settings you can change... size, position, enabled/disabled. All pretty simple settings that should be provided.
i do want the icons, yeah.
The Sony form factor is the best on the market IMO. You can hold it in you hand and get more screen in the height.
agree, i just wish they kept a model like the Z* Compact around.
They’re really no different to a regular iPhone or iPhone pro in terms of size.
www.phonearena.com/phones/size/…/12239,12193
What’s the use case for microSD slots on phones these days anyway?
If it’s (just) to avoid paying Google or Apple storage fees, you can work around that by buying one or several HDDs to keep at home and sync stuff over the local network, possibly even build a server and access your stuff remotely.
I really don’t understand the need for that much space on the go, though. Are you watching entire series on your phone?
"just", I think not giving money to Apple or Google anything is a perfectly good reason alone to want expandable storage.
Phone manufacturers charge a massive premium for more storage on a phone, storage which is then lost if the phone dies. A microSD card can be moved around and they cost little.
Not everyone has a home server, in fact a very very small percentage do and being able to store their photos and what-not on a microSD card is very valuable. The freedom to add more storage is a good thing to have. Most people can understand an SD card, but not how to setup an entire home server with syncing etc, let alone exposing that to the web to access it anywhere. It also costs money to run, a microSD card doesn't.
The only reason we don't have expandable storage or a 3.5mm port anymore is: money. They want to sell you that cloud service, upcharge you for more internal storage and make you buy their bluetooth earbuds.
I understand all of that and I agree with you. Not wanting to pay monthly storage fees is perfectly reasonable too. I know I did everything to avoid giving Google any money for storage.
But microSD slots on phones aren’t coming back, and manufacturers are giving you 512GB of internal storage at most, so we need to move on with the times.
I don’t have a home server (yet) either, but I do have 2 TB disks I use to store all the important stuff I want to save forever. Nothing lives on my phone so I’m fine with 128GB.
Local syncing can be done just by installing Syncthing or Omnisend, and everything gets transferred through your home Wi-Fi. No need for complicated setups. I mentioned home servers as an example but you certainly don’t need one.
MicroSD cards also die so I don’t know why you used that as a slight against internal phone storage. You should always have backups.
Storage is dirt cheap these days, it makes no sense to hinder yourself buying niche phones, often at inflated prices, just for a feature that is easily worked around. In my opinion.
I hope you’re not suggesting that people store all of their photos and movies and stuff on their phones SD card and SD card only……
SD cards are absurdly volatile and prone to corruption.
Of course not... people should still do regular backups.
It’s really a small inconvenience, but using an adapter would mean I’d be prone to misplace it when I use my headphones on anything else, so it hardly makes anything better
The reason for not using a headphone jack is making it simpler for the manufacturer, one less connector to handle which also limits how slim a phone can be.
I’m not saying this is good for the consumer, but there are reasons for integrating the functionality into the USB-C port.
For $700 I’m not interested in compromising my own convenience for theirs.
Fair, though the fact doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
If you want easily replaceable parts and a system that can unlock the bootloader for example, your argument can be made for 99% of phones on the market. The more requirements you add, the smaller the scope gets until there are no devices left to choose from.
We were doing perfectly fine 10 years ago and manufacturing has only gotten more advanced, the only real reason the 3.5mm port was removed is because Apple wanted to sell people their AirPods. That's literally it. The rest of the manufacturers soon followed suit when they realised how many people were buying AirPods.
Then you’re going to have to go and start your own phone company. Good luck to you, let us know when your phone comes out.
It’s not hard to manufacture a headphone jack. We’ve been doing it since the 80s. Probably costs them a penny BOM.
I don’t think his point was the jack itself but the device around the jack. Physically and electronically.
That’s what I’m also talking about.
These points were all disproved long ago. The jack is a the same thickness as the display.
The reason is because BT headphones have a much higher margin, and need to be replaced every few years because of the battery (if not already replaced because they were lost or damaged).
It’s just a dumb cash grab.
This would make sense if the only Bluetooth headphones that worked with the phone were made by the same company, but alas, that’s not how it works.
The reason they don’t have a headphone jack anymore is because it’s easier to make without it, saves money, has a built in replacement in BT, and people overwhelmingly love BT headphones due to being wireless.
The headphone jack is 3.5mm. iPhones are ~7.5mm thick, more than double. The smallest phone available on the market is 4.2mm.
I disagree about this being a good solution. USB-C is not meant to take the strain of being used as an audio port when being used in the go so there is risk of damaging the port while a headphone jack is more stable and allows the plug to rotate. Plus I don’t want to have a dingle I can forget when in a rush.
They should make cases with the adapter built in, the way they used to (still do?) for external battery packs.
Or just put the port in the phone.
Just have the dongle permanently attached to your earbuds like it’s a part of the cable.
Awesome solution. Remove the port that everything used to have and make consumers buy adapters. I have like 5 headphones. Should I go buy an adapter for each one? Not to mention that I can easily fix a headphone cable but if a 3.5 to usb-c adapter breaks, it basically becomes junk.
you use all five every week?
I use them and that’s more than reason enough to want a reliable, small, cheap, jack that literally has no downsides and lets me use my devices how I want to use them.
Unless you want to use them with a device that doesn’t have a headphone jack.
Interesting, I would think that they would consider being eternally connected to a power bank when designing USB-C.
I have a tablet that came with a C to 3.5 adapter and it worked well enough for a bit but soon enough it was only intermittently allowing the headphone connection to work, with a message about the port being dirty or something. Yet I could go right from unplugging that and putting the charger in and it worked fine.
There’s just no substitute for a dedicated port, especially when it barely takes up any room
That means the audio still goes through another DAC, lowering the sound quality, compared to an analog 3.5 jack. Also, who wants to further risk wearing out\vreaking their charge port, jack inputs almost seem like they can’t break.
Technically it only goes through 1 dac, not “another one”. But still, yeah, your phone’s dac is most likely a lot better than the one on a $10 adapter. However, the usb-c spec does allow an analog audio signal passthrough. Whether that’s available or not depends on the phone I guess.
Too bad LG got out of the phone biz. They had the best dacs and some good phones.
Damn right. LG G5 for example was a pretty interesting concept that could’ve evolved into something cool.
You have these usb-c to mini jack adapters. They are like 5 to 10eu. They are small enough to keep them attached to your jack headphone. It works perfectly for me.
I think it is better to view the usb-c plug as ‘one protocol to rule them all’. If you do so, it makes quite some sense.
I’ve never had one of those actually work…
The sound quality on them blows no matter which you get.
Every adapter I had was broken after a year or less. I imagine if you keep them attached to your phone, they’ll break even faster. Do these adapters exist with a 90° angle which might help preventing broken cables?
Not really in the spirit of reducing waste.
For the amount of space a earphone jack takes it really doesn't make sense for them to include it, when you can just use a cheap adaptor cable
“For the amount of space it takes to include a second speaker or second camera it doesn’t really make sense when you can just plug in an external one”
You sound like an idiot.
I can buy a phone from HMD that’s more repairable, more modular, and has sustainable features.
Fairphone has been a busted flush since they ditched the headphone jack. It’s just the most obvious sign amongst many they started making landfill phones.
Resorting to insults really?
3.5mm Aux takes up a shit load of space to connect 4 analog wires. If a phone has Aux it should at the very least be 2.5mm.
It makes no sense to me why you can't just use an adapter.
More battery > Redundant analog cable most people don't use anyway.
I might be a idiot as you say, but the people at Fairphone don't seem to be because they ditched AUX as they should have
Having yet another thing to keep charged
a usb port is far easier to break
I hate earbuds, I want my same old over the ear $15 sony headphones that last for years
BT is just another thing to fuss with for no apparent benefit, I have an assortment of BT crap that won’t connect consistently.
Whatever convenience BT might offer is negated by the time wasted learning the intricacies of the ever changing APPs [software]
Still an idiot.
just make the phone larger and fill the empty space with battery
I was just hoping a phone like fairphone would give me the option to buy a small module or something to let me do it.
Yes, yes there’s adapters … yes, yes, you don’t need to use it … I understand. I just want it.
You'd ultimately be sacrificing battery size for that Aux jack you hardly use. For most that's not worth it
I mean … you don’t have to tell me that my opinion isn’t popular, it’s demonstrable. My opinion is statistically insignificant.
There’s a plethora of other things I’d give up like have a slighter bigger phone or a worse camera or wireless charging… I’d also trade those for an SD card slot but no one agrees with me and it’s just something I need to live with.
Not really, no. There are even people that have been able to ADD a headphone jack to iphones that don’t have one.
“Modularity” but still no headphone jack, couldn’t I just have a backplate with a big bump on it to accommodate a 3.5mm jack?
Big? The headphone jack is not large enough to protrude from a cell phone chassis. Any company telling you they can’t fit it is just lying to sell you BT headphones.
What about the internal connectors of the headphone jack?
What about em?
I’m assuming they are removing the headphone jack cause the internal components take up too much space. I can’t imagine these companies removing the jacks cause they cost too much money.
You’re vastly overestimating the space required for a 3.5mm jack, and the reasons for its removal.
The jack takes up some internal space, but not much at all. The components required internally like the DAC chip are insignificant. It is a potential source of water ingress, but that can be mitigated and has been done many times before.
The reason for removal is two fold, first you simply don’t have to deal with any of the above, so from an engineering perspective it’s always easier to not do something. The second, and most important, **is to sell wireless headphones. **
You’ll notice that Fairphone came out with their own earbuds at the same time they removed the headphone jack. You could of course use Bluetooth headphones with the Fairphone 1, 2, and 3, but you weren’t forced to think about it and could just use your existing headphones. Removing the jack ads inconvenience and breaks user habit, causing people to re-evaluate their headphones and consider a new purchase, which the manufacturer just happens to have and likely in a bundle deal.
Apple, Google, and Samsung have seen huge uplift in earbud sales with the removal of the jack. So the anger of some power users is of no consequence to them. Seeing Fairphone follow in this behaviour what’s disappointing.
I made the mistake of believing that Fairphone is an enthusiast company, like the Framework of phones maybe. There is some overlap, sure, with the repair-ability aspect and available parts and schematics, but that’s about it.
Other than that, FP wants to be a mainstream brand, the eco-friendly Samsung or Apple; the power users can get shafted with their audio jacks for all they care. While Framework has actual hardware modularity and release updated HW modules so you don’t buy the whole device again for an upgrade.
Looking at FP’s financial statements, I get the impression they aren’t doing too hot lately, so I get it if they need bigger margins to continue operating. Just don’t be a fucking hypocrite and lie about the reason of the jack removal ffs.
Not having a headphone jack is just a slap in the face from a company whose whole image is supposed to be longevity and eco-friendly.
No one has been using aux cable mobile headphones for the past 10 years. Headphone jack is e-waste at this point. bluetooth audio is great and if you really want to be a boomer you can use the usb C headphones.
What the absolute fuck are you talking about? What am I supposed to do with the dozen wired headphones I already have? Some of them decades old? Throw them in the garbage? Sounds real eco-friendly.
It is. We had it on phones since before the original iPhone. No one wants to take that away.
Problem is BT headphones last 2 years then they go in the garbage because the batteries are dead. How eco-friendly is that!?
Yes if they’ve lasted decades thats their job done. Now people are buying usb C headphones and there is no need to continue to support decades old standards. The ewaste from a pair of headphones is tiny so its not worth fretting over.
Also BT headphones last longer than 2 years. Mine are 1st gen samsung buds and going on 5 years at this point and still hold enough charge to listen to music during my work day. If im going to be using them all day I have 1 in and 1 charging in the case and then I can easily have music for 10+ hours on a 5 year old device. If I threw them away today I would consider them to have not been ewaste.
No it means they’ll essentially last indefinitely, unlike BT buds.
No, what’s happened is that we went from a single open standard for audio jacks to competing standards (actually 3 of them before the EU stepped in and forced Apple to quit their bullshit). And gained nothing in the process.
It’s not a pair of headphones, it’s millions of audio devices.
You can use your dozen wired headphones you already have with a $10 usb-c -> 3.5mm adapter.
Tried that. Gets lost real fast. But thanks “freedom advocate”.
Tried taking better care of your things? I’ve still got mine that came with my pixel 3 and my iPhone 11 Pro.
Okay so now this is my fault. Do you know how many adapters I lost before I needed one?
Yes, losing your things is your fault lol
Is it my fault when having the things in the first place is just a hacky workaround driven by corporate greed?
Yes, it is your fault for losing or breaking your own property. Take some responsibility. When I moved to a phone without a headphone jack while driving a car that I plug my phone in via headphone jack, I simply kept the adapter plugged in to the cable in the car. It never broke. It never got lost. It stayed there until I got a Bluetooth head unit.
I’ve still got it in a drawer ready for if I ever needed it again, but since I’m not an audiophile with a $10k+ sound system listening to FLACs from my phone I don’t need it.
Bullshit
You can’t even admit that losing something of yours is your own fault lol. We’re not going to get anything of value from you on this.
My 7 years old bluetooth headphone would disagree.
And no one except a vocal minority want to keep it. There are a lot on data on that, and manufacturer make their decision on that data.
But lets ignore that, and let’s take my viewpoint as a customer. I don’t want a port I have no use for. I don’t want a DAC I have no use for. I don’t want the extra weight that comes with them.
My needs conflict with yours, so what’s the only way to make both of us somewhat happy? That’s by making the 3.5mm jack an addon, which is what any manufacturer that does not focus on music listening would do.
I would love to see the data that says everyone wants wired devices only. I don’t believe you.
Why would you even care!?
😆 Buddy if you don’t want extra weight you need to talk to these OEMs about making their phones out of giant slabs of glass. A 1g connector isn’t going to make a difference. You’re being completely ridiculous.
No they don’t. They can meet both of our needs by including a jack. Simple as.
I’m voluntarily exagerating my point here for irony sake.
My needs isn’t more important than anyone else, but I wanted to point out the selfishness of the oposite point of view by making mine as selfish. Those in favor of keeping a jack port voluntarily choose to ignore any alternative, while trying to force their need on other people.
But it is true I do not want that port back. It is redundant, has no advantages over a dongle, and it inconveniences could easily be overcome by simply adding a second usb-c port. No need for internal DAC, you’d be able to do far more than you’ll ever be able to do with a 3.5mm jack, and you’ll be able to charge it while listening to your music with a wired headphone. All that with a smaller and more flexible port.
And it would take you 5min searching the web to get good review about usbc DAC with actually good sound, even better than any internal DAC.
But to save you a click, you have the Apple one, which has good review while being able to drive almost all headphones but the most energy intensive of them. It cost a whopping… $10.
As for the precise number, you can find them on market studies. Unfortunately they are quite pricy, and as I’m not in that field, I do not have access to them. But Fairphone does, and if they don’t bother adding that port back, they are most probably basing their decision on them.
There’s nothing selfish here. Keeping the jack benefits everyone except Apple and other BT headphone OEMs. It doesn’t hurt anyone else.
The advantage is that you don’t need a dongle…
Still requires carrying a dongle or buying a pair of headphones that only works with phones and computers, and not the vast array of other devices that still use headphone jacks, new and old. So that solves absolutely nothing. As I said elsewhere, we’ve created a competing standard, for no reason.
What? Do you think we’re suggesting removing the USB port? What are you talking about?
I don’t want to search the web. I don’t want a DAC. I just want to plug in my headphones. This is absurd.
$10 to buy something that previously cost me $0. Only it’s inevitably going to get lost so you’d better buy a half dozen of them and replace them every few years, so you’re looking at dozens of $ per year for something that was previously completely unnecessary.
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Where? If you know they have it, then you must have it as well?
No, they’re basing that decision on the same thing everyone else is: money. Greed. Much like Apple they also released their own bluetooth headphones at the same time as they removed their headphone jack. But I suppose that’s just coincidence, right?
Could also have been the other way around.
Fairphone removes the headphone jack > realize they would need an alternative > realize most TW headphones are e-waste to be > make their own with
blackjack and hookersa removable battery, making it a solution to TW headphones with non-removable batteries.Don’t call fool without any proof, or you’ll have a very sad life supposing the worst from anyone you’ll meet. Coincidence is no proof of causation.
Brother, you’re the one making claims without any proof.
Oh so you’re actually naive enough to believe this is coincidence? I was joking earlier but you really believe it LOL.
how else are you supposed to connect it to cars that weren’t made yesterday?
Cars have had bluetooth and usb on their radios for almost 20 years. Even older than that you can replace the stereo for like $30. My car is 2004 and i did a stereo replacement and i’ve got bluetooth, usb C and aux.
I never use wired headphones even though I have a jack in my phone. But I have never bought a phone without a jack and probably never will.
Ipersonally think it’s user hostile to remove the jack and also goes directly agains the green profile Fairphone wants to have.
Honestly, I don't really get the people who complain about the lack of 3.5mm jack on a smartphone. If you're looking for quality you're more likely to get better quality out quality USB-C headphones than quality 3.5mm headphones due to the USB-C headphones picking up less noise and having its own DAC (which is probably better than the phone DAC that 3.5mm would use).
EDIT: I would've been surprised if this take wasn't controversial. But I guess it's a good example how the fediverse is not a leftist echo chamber. You have a loud minority complaining about not being able to use a century old technology that the vast majority in the mobile space has moved away from and any compromise on what you want is unacceptable. That's about as conservative as you can get.
What about the simplicity?
I don't follow? If you mean simplicity in terms of ease of use you might as well use BT headphones as you don't have to worry about any wire management. Ease of use is the main reason BT headphones are the go to for most people. No carefully packing the wires so it won't break, no accidental wiring mess or anything wire related. You just turn them on (which for most in-ear ones just means taking them out of the case), stick them to your ear and you're good to go.
If you meant anything else by simplicity you need to expand that idea.
I never have to charge my wired headphones.
Nor do I have to buy new batteries or new headphones when they die.
Fair enough, feel free to buy USB-C headphones then.
Edit: Time for the real reply.
But you still have to charge your phone. When I charge my phone I also charge my headphones. Most wireless headphones notify you in advance when they're running low, in my experience enough in advance to not run out before charging again. And finally, charging even once a day is still less overhead than having to manage wires every single time you use the headphones.
Yeah, you only buy new headphones when the wire gets damaged because that one time you didn't take good enough care of the wire. I personally had to buy a new set of headphones every year because I'm bad with wires. I'd either store them poorly because I was in a hurry or they'd get stuck on something and get yanked. My first BT headphones lasted me 5 years before starting to have noticeable battery issues and then I still used them for another 3 years before the battery was so dead it wouldn't live my daily commute.
overall my response boils down to "just use wired then" because the arguments are silly personal preference arguments and the wider consumer market has already decided that wireless is better. But if you want wired nothing is stopping you from getting USB-C wired headphones.
No consumer decided it would be better without it, there's literally no reason to defend it's removal. It doesn't exist because the phone companies wanted to sell their wireless earbuds, that's it. Anything else they tell you is bullshit.
Why are you trying to justify not having it? You can still use your wireless buds if you want if the port exists, you can still use your USB-C earphones or adapter if you'd like. It can exist in harmony along with other features, like it did for decades before capitalism called for more profits.
Why aren't you complaining about the removal of a keyboard? Or the removal of SD card slots? Or the removal or the IR light? Or the notification light? or something else that used to be there but isn't now. Why is the 3.5mm port so special it deserves constant complaining about almost A DECADE LATER? Why must you be these grumpy old men who can't fucking move on with the times.
I don't really care if the port is there or not, I'm just fed up with the constant whining about it. It's gone, the ship has sailed. The majority are more than happy to use wireless headphones, 3.5mm is a niche in the mobile space. There are alternatives if you really like wired headphones. What makes 3.5mm such fucking hill to die on? Nothing. It's just petty conservatism of people unwilling to move on with the times.
the 3.5mm jack still exists on low to mid-range phones, the high end ones were the only ones that removed it and then mid-range phones copied it.
.
In addition to @timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works: I don’t need pairing, I don’t have to deal with bad reception, it’s harder to loose wired ones and even if I loose them, new ones cost a fraction of bt ones. Also I still have some wired ones. The simplicity of simply plugging them in and it just works is something really abstract to alternatives.
Okay? Literally nothing you said applies to USB-C headphones. Except for this part:
What about the price is simultaneous charging?
How often do you charge your phone and listen to music at the same time? And is that really something you cannot compromise on?
One example - I charge it when using it for navigation in the car while at the same time listening to music.
You have headphones on in your car, listening to music, while you're driving? I hope you've checked your local laws because that is illegal in quite a few countries. It's also a very niche example as most people would use the car stereo instead of headphones.
C’mon, this is getting childish. No, I don’t have headphones while driving, I have an audio input to the car’s stereo.
Then maybe don't make examples of something I never talked about? I think I've been very clear that I'm talking about replacing 3.5mm headphones with a USB-C headphones. I wasn't talking about replacing a 3.5mm in/out cable with some kind of a USB-C in, 3.5mm out cable. Such a cable would have to contain a DAC and if it's going to contain a DAC you might as well buy a USB hub with a 3.5mm out port so you can continue using your 3.5mm in/out cable while you also charge your phone. See how that's a completely different scenario with a completely different solution?
You are completely and utterly wrong. I’m pretty sure that a $700 phone’s dac is better than what you can find on a $5 dongle from god knows where. Also, by design there should be no “noise” or “interference” causing issues with the internal dac. If there is, you bought an extremely shitty device.
You know you've got not argument when you have to compare a $700 dollar phone to a $5 dongle for your argument to even make sense.
First of all, I seriously doubt any $700 phone without a 3.5mm port is going to have a decent DAC, because there's no reason for it. In those phones the DAC is used primarily for phone calls. If those phones had a a 3.5mm port and they were flagship phones then maybe they would have higher quality DACs in them, but then they'd also cost more. And secondly, I wasn't talking about some cheap $5 dongle, I specifically said quality headphones.
Oh, so I should buy $100 dongles then? lol Everyone’s argument about the dongles is that they’re super cheap, that’s why I made the comparison.
Oh really? And how exactly do you think that the phone is generating the audio that comes through its speaker when you’re doing anything else? Like listening to music, videos, etc? Does your phone really not make a single sound apart from the audio in phone calls?
headphone =/= dongle
The dongle is what you connect TO the headphone. Regardless, be more specific then. What’s the one you recommend? Should I buy $50 dongles then and keep them attached to my headphones? Since I use 4/5 of them does that mean that it’s ok in your opinion that I now need to spend $250 in dongles instead of just having a tiny, cheap, reliable jack on my $700 phone?
How much more specific do I need to be when I explicitly say "USB-C headphones"? What do you think USB-C stands for?
You could've done a single web search yo find that you can buy wired headphones that go straight into the USB-C port.No dongle required. But you're too busy foaming from the mouth like a rabid dog to even understand what I said.
Well, you do need to be specific because like 99% of headphones terminate in a 3.5mm jack or a quarter inch jack. You were referring to a vert very limited subset of headphones.
It’s honestly kinda dumb to buy a headphone, which only needs an analogue voltage signal to work, that terminates in usb-c. Specially considering that there are still loads of devices that don’t have that port. Even if a computer has it, it’s likely that it only has 1 or 2 of them which might already be in use. For example, my work laptop has 2 usb-c and I’m using one of them to charge it and the other to connect a monitor.
Probably not a popular thing to say on here, but I think you’ve lost the battle for the earphone jack. It probably just requires way too much real estate to be practical on a modern day cell phone.
Exactly this, that's a lot of space taken up to connect what 4 analog wires?
That's insanity when a AUX to Usb-C converter does the job
USB-C requires a lot of space for charging, data transfer etc.
Let’s remove it too and make phones rely on wireless charging instead.
It absolutely does not require too much space. And you can still buy phones with headphone jacks, just not any of the (ironically) higher end models because OEMs know they can push their first party bluetooth headphones to these customers.
It absolutely does not. That’s just the stupid propaganda companies distribute to make people buy wireless earbuds.
Honestly feels criminal with how bloated companies have made these phones yet they cheap out on a headphone jack.
Snapdragon 7s Gen3 is a pretty decent chipset. Decent display too. 8GB RAM is a bit on the low side. Camera is all about how good processing is. It’s not that crazy expensive if all works well and considering what their goal is.
I’m on an S10e with only 6GB of RAM and it’s still running smoothly. If it was still getting security updates I would keep it for way longer, but alas it’s not so I’m going to upgrade to the new fairphone (not thrilled about losing the headphone jack and getting a larger phone, but I support their overall goals so it seems like the best choice for me)
If I didn’t miss it, no wireless charging again… Some one told me they refuse to do it because it wastes electricity. To which I’d say, even just turning on a car probably uses magnitudes more energy than charging my phone wirelessly. I don’t want to mess up the USB C port if I don’t have to, thanks.
It's a Fairphone...
If you manage to destroy the port somehow, you can just replace it in 2 minutes with a screwdriver.
Yeah, the wireless charging is a no-go for me as well. I understand that it costs licensing and wastes energy. But the environmental impact of all the useless/lost cables is also a point,especially when you get your energy fully renewable/self produced. And in a lot of areas (airline lounges,etc.) it has become widely adopted/the norm.
They could easily have offered a “swap” battery that has a little less capacity but includes wireless charging - give people a fucking choice.
It’s also less waste if one of your charging methods breaks, as you can just swap over to the other method and might even find ordering replacement parts unnecessary.
Though ideally I’d also like to see more than one USB-C port for even more redundancy.
I agree wireless charging would be nice. But for a small company I don’t think they can do it “easily”. It’s 150 people team and how many phones do they even sell? I imagine it’s not enough yet to support all that.
My 3 greatest wishes are:
Replaceable battery
Replaceable usb charging port
120 watt cahrging
40€
20€
33W
Why do you need 120 watts charging for a phone? Most laptops don’t even support 100w.
Ultra fast charging is so good though. I’ve got a oneplus 12 and it charges from 0-100 in like 30 minutes.
Surely, that impacts the battery longevity, right? Personally, I disable all fast-charging features and charge my phone overnight.
P.S. Sorry for calling you Shirley.
It’s all about the heat. It’s not dumping 120w non stop even over 90% for example. OnePlus also use supervooc not standard usb pd. My phone legit does 150w max and while I mostly use my 80w charger because my tablet uses that I can’t say my battery seems affected much 2,5 years in.
A little more info on it androidauthority.com/supervooc-fast-charging-6860…
2.5 years isn’t that long to evaluate battery degradation IMO, and as you said, you mostly don’t even push your battery that hard. And the article even seems to imply that faster charging does impact battery life, it’s just that manufacturers consider 100w a sweet-spot between charging speed and battery degradation.
See wish list item 1
I saw list item 1 more as “I want my phone to last for 5+ years, so I will want to replace my battery eventually”, rather than “I wanna wreck my battery fast, so it better be replaceable”. Being wasteful with your battery like that goes against the spirit of Fairphone, IMO.
If it’s removable you can much more easily recycle it though. Sustainably that is much much better than average phones.
However, while more sustainable than current it is not the most sustainable if you charge it like that
Hence item number 1 on his list.
I’ve been through two smart phones, and both of them were down to eventual battery issues and randomly powering off at (allegedly) 30% remaining battery when you fire up the camera or something.
To some extent, yes. But it’s not a feature you have to use. You can still limit the charge to 80% and use a slow charger if you really want to.
It’s a neat feature if you need to boost your battery quickly in a short amount of time, like if you need to go somewhere urgently and unexpectedly.
.
Is it me or did they get slightly more vague on their marketing materials, wrt the environmental impact ( at least compared to fp5 ) ?
Also the battery seems a bit harder to replace, as you now need a screwdriver. It does appear to be more flush, so it may be due to size constraints.
Edit: and there’s “more” replaceable parts because the back is split in two. That split might prove better for durability tho, because pulling the back on their older phones felt like it would break every time.
Screwdrivers are pretty entry-level tools though.
I know I know, but it was really convenient to keep a spare battery and do a quick swap on the fp4.
That’s a pretty fair point, though I assume a spare powerbank would solve the problem nearly as well (albeit slower and with a cable).
Then again it seems battery life is a lot better this time around, so this should ideally be less necessary.
True, that never crossed my mind. Yeah that is not possible then. Gotta stick with 5 then?
Not sure. This phone seems better in some regards and worse in others, so I’d say wait for reviews.
As for me I probably won’t get it. Already have a fp4 I got in a sale to experiment with and see if I can completely degoogle and couldn’t ( not completely anyway ). Now it’s more or less a paperweight that I might revisit in the future, when my daily phone kicks the bucket. The dealbreaker is Android15 because that’s when they shoved gemini in, so any phone with Android14 and security updates will do fine. God I hope that linux phones finally get off the ground already
I don’t mind having a few screws to remove every few years when I need to replace my battery.
Although there is another thing, I’m not sure but I wonder if it has any impact. My FP3 has made a few very bad falls and nothing ever broke. I wonder if its “bad” integrity makes it very good at dissipating the fall’s energy.
I’m sad that the battery swap requires a screwdriver, but it’s really fine. As long as it’s not glued in I don’t care honestly.
The modular back is cool, specs look nice, lighter and smaller than my FP5 is a great thing, cuz this thing is heavy and the battery is mid.
It looks cool! Good direction I think. Of course I want a headphone jack, but I am learning to live without
Looks like they hit the nail strong and sharp on this one. I am still using my 2019 Nokia which does not look like it’s going bust anytime soon. Too bad, I would have loved to use the FF6
Think I’m getting it, my Redmi Note 8 is aging and I’m pretty sure the current batch of custom ROMs is basically the last apart from the fact that the kernel is no longer supported, and Xiaomi is closing the doors on custom ROMs more and more it seems. Yeah, the new FP isn’t perfect but it seems good enough to pull the trigger, and while the Pixels seemed like a good alternative in some aspects, Google recently made it very clear where they see Android’s future, and it’s not more open.
no jack, no deal
Who is jack?
Jack will never come back, too much space to apeace a fraction of the total users.
i’ll do my own phone with (black) jack and hookers then
Can I turn it off? Can I? I just want my photos, the real ones, however bad they are. I don’t want them to be half generated.
Just to be clear, unless you’re shooting RAW you never have your “real” photos. Every phone/camera performs massive amounts of post processing, including using ml models.
AI is only a buzzword for something that has been the norm for a while.
I want my photos to be grainy, with natural lens distortion, instead of current trend of pictures being shouty to look good on social media
You can shoot RAW on your phone today.
Only with primary lens
I think you need a camera, not a phone
I don’t need one, thanks
Maybe phones shouldn’t have multiple cameras if they aren’t actually usable
Maybe you shouldn’t buy a phone if you want a “usable” camera.
And you shouldn’t buy a camera either as you don’t seem to understand those either.
a camera should save the raw data from the sensor to a file along with potentially metadata, there is no reason for it to “enhance” the photo or video, compression only makes sense for posting online or video
Tell that you every single digital camera. Very few output RAW by default, many don’t even offer that option. This isn’t a “phone cameras” issue.
The fact that you think post process is compression says a lot, or that there’s no reason to apply post process when 99.9% of the population don’t even know what RAW is and won’t benefit from it.
Again, you want a proper camera, buy a proper camera. But learn a bit before
Is there any chance this is the same HDR technology that has been around for at least 10 years, but using latest marketing buzzwords?
Also, working a bit on developing my photos from RAW over last years taught me how we actually expect a lot of magic from a regular camera. The brain does a lot of work and low/high light compensation, color balance, etc… are required to some extend. Of course sometimes it becomes a bit absurd : most smartphone pictures seems oversaturated, with clear blue skies and I one took a photo of a blue-ish mountain because (I think) some classifier thought it was part of the sky.
Yeah, it’s most likely just doing some “AI” (ML) denoising. Nothing to do with GenAI
happy cake day!!
Thank you!
Fairphone has really gone off the deep end. 6 phone models in what? less than 12 years? That’s what they call dedication to sustainability? Really? They used to say the most sustainable phone is your old phone, assuming you can continue to use it. Yet - my Fairphone 1, still in good working order hardware-wise, I had to “scrap” because no more SW updates. When my FP2 hardware (charging port) eventually failed, they no longer sold the relevant spare parts.
What good are exchangeable parts, if they are removed from the shop around the time that a well-treated phone might need them?
I’d love one and have checked back each year after their first model, but they still don’t sell to Australia - and I’m not going to buy something I can’t get direct parts and services for, and would need to go through third parties for.
If their model is a successful business I honestly thought they would have expanded beyond shipping/supporting only Europe by now, its been a decade since their first model. Maybe they’re still not a very big player / modest success?
There’s at least two limitations that they’ve mentioned before with shipping outside of Europe.
First is they need extra certifications (e.g. FCC ones for selling to the USA), which are expensive and basically redundant. Probably not worth the business cost to do it and maintain it.
Second is they do carbon neutral shipping, which is hard to do when you have to cross an ocean. I know in Canada our national postal service can do carbon neutral for packages, but figuring that out for every country and the international legs of the shipping is a lot of work.
Part of the cost of being ethical is being at a disadvantage with capitalism, so while they’re doing pretty alright they aren’t going to grow like big tech did.
There’s a deGoogled version too!!
I would prefer GrapheneOS (If I can live with the irony of getting a Pixel phone just to deGoogle it…). Sandboxing there is way better. But you lose the Repairability… Gotta check and compare the new EU metrics too.
They are just two different devices.
Degoogled version is €50 more, for whatever reason
the reason: support for developers. You can install it yourself to save that amount.
People don’t want to pay for privacy. That’s the real problem with end users. Imagine if more people did so. What a world we could have. Nah. Let’s be cheap AF!
Locking privacy behind a paywall? Sounds like a nightmare.
The real problem with end users is that they buy according to whatever needs corpos inject via advertising.
Like Kagi for web searching.
Because the built in software is usually there because the manufacturer is receiving money from the software company. That’s why consumer devices are always bloated with garbage.
I not only want a degoogled version but also a secure one. Sadly developing a secure android is rather hard. The Graphene team does it pretty well. Others try it too, but sadly they are not close.
I bet PostmarketOS will release for it
GraphineOS is more secure
We know GrapheneOS only makes their OS on Pixel phones or whatever their own device will be so it’s moot
Thats because pixels fit the rigid standards, if Fairphone met them they would make a version for them
That would be great but that’s just not the way it is unfortunately
Why do you think so? We still don’t have proper support for the Fairphone 4 on pmOS, why’d the 6 be any better?
Because as you said it is available in some capacity already. Plus people complain about the slow speed of the 4 so maybe people will want to develop quicker for the 6. I could be totally wrong but I’m hopeful
Is it really de-googled if it still runs Android?
the degoogled roms like eos calyx lineage graphene are not just aosp zero work roms with no gapps inclueded. the devs do work on changing as much google related code as they can even within aosp. nothing is perfect obviously, but im pretty sure there are compatible mobile linux distros even.
is the bootloader locked with eos?
Just an update, I learnt that GrapheneOS developers are ‘aggressive’ towards other FLOSS projects (following comments on other thread, but you can searx grepheneos+controversy and see for yourselves).
So now, I might just prefer an FP6.
3.5mm Jack or - sadly - GTFO
They have adapters. But yeah, would be nice to have a slot directly integrated.
Or two USB C ports, I don’t really mind using a USB to audio jack converter but it would be nice to be able to easily charge and listen to wired headphones at the same time
Did some digging, but it doesn’t appear the band compatibility with US carriers is improved at all. Am I wrong here?
m.gsmarena.com/fairphone_6-13955.php
There is some band overlap, but I am no expert.
From their own site it would seem they don’t. There is a “US” version but you can’t buy a Fairphone from the website directly.
Rofl if they dump them on ebay as new from a third party US shipper.
Would that be a problem when travelling to the… oh, right, we’re not doing that anymore… would this be a problem for Europeans travelling to Canada?
why you gotta be so rude about it? like we’re forced to live here, your bragging doesn’t help anyone
This looks pretty good. The main issue with Fairphone for me is the price. FP 5 is still about 2x as expensive as Pixel 8. I got my Pixel 8a on promotion for ~250 euros. FP 5 still costs over 500. I never paid more than 300 euros for a phone and I’m not planning to.
Fair wages and sustainable practices cost more than sweatshop labor
Pixel is build by Foxxcon. Foxxcon has 3.5 stars on Glassdoor. From what I found Fairphone is build by TCL which has 3.2 stars on Glassdoor.
It’s all still made in Asia. It’s really hard to monitor conditions there and it’s pretty much impossible to monitor conditions at every step of the supply chain. I understand paying extra for a more sustainable phone (repairable, longer support) but paying double for a vague promise of being more “fair”? Thanks by no thanks. Pixel has 8 years of support now so the difference in sustainability is minimal.
The final assembly is only part of the story though. As far as I understand, fairphone does actually try to check their supply chain to ensure the raw materials are (more) ethically sourced. As opposed to those optimizing for profit, who will intentionally look the other way.
“Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we collaborate with suppliers to develop improvement plans that are informed by detailed assessments and worker surveys.” p. 28
From their recently published annual(I think?) impact report. There’s a bit more detail under section 4.3, not crazy specific but definitely better than a vague promise imo.
The single best thing for sustainability is long lifetime of the phone. Now that EU mandates it and Apple, Pixel and Samsung all offer 7 years of updates Fairphone’s advantage here is slim. The rest are just vague promises. Apple also promises to support people and communities involved in its supply chain: www.apple.com/supply-chain/ All the companies try to avoid sweatshops because it’s terrible for PR but unless you are actually going to assemble the phone in EU you don’t really know who made it. For me the difference between two phones made in China is not big enough to pay double.
Sure, I just showed you the report, you may draw your own conclusions upon reading it. But in my opinion they’ve long proven to be transparent and actionable when it comes to improving the industry, e.g. by co-founding the Fair Cobalt Alliance. And maybe they even had something to do with those changes in legislation, the EU itself seems to recognise as much…
“Fairphone has made a tangible impact by improving working conditions for miners and factory workers, increasing the use of fair-trade and recycled materials, and extending product lifespans to combat e-waste. Its advocacy has influenced industry giants and policymakers to adopt fairer, more sustainable practices.”
Probably. I’m not saying that Frairphone is bad and that what they are doing doesn’t have any value. What I’m saying is that their phones were always too expensive for me and now that there are other phones with 7-8 year lifespan on the market it’s even harder to justify the expense. I’m glad that enough people had the money to support Fairphone and I’m grateful for their contribution in changing the legislation. Maybe in 5-6 years, when I have to change my phone, I will get a Fairphone.
foxxcon? you mean the same company that had a mass suicide from workers jumping off the buildings?
edit: sorry wasn’t a mass suicide just dozens and dozens of people killing themselves because of the working conditions at foxxcon.
it’s hard to find details about the mass protest with the threat of suicide because there’s so many other single suicides at foxxcon.
If you’re using a pixel or apple phone I wonder if you’re using a phone that one of those workers put together 🤔
Yes, that foxxcon. The one that has better reviews on Glassdoor then the company that assembles Fairphone. What’s your point?
Idk man. you think the folks who killed themselves can put a review on a corporate shill website that’s been known to remove reviews for the right price?
Why TCL didn’t pay them to also remove bad reviews?
TCL doesn’t give a shit because they don’t have such a shit working environment that people literally commit suicide to get out of it.
I posted this elsewhere but the tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following:
I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output? That’s sad. Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs:
But maybe it was not used enough?
Yeah that is a shame honestly…
When I read that, it decided me on the phone. I was almost completely certain my FP4 replacement would be the FP6, but the USB downgrade makes it a no-go for me.
Too bad, because I love the easy repairability.
600 euros? That’s like 700 USD
Remind me again, wasn’t like 80% of the American population on the verge of poverty and homelessness if a 500 USD emergency happened?
Who’s benefiting from this?
Ethically sourced, fair wages to workers, etc. Makes you wonder what a factory worker in china makes to allow for cheaper phones.
But these are made in china…
Yes, sorry I fumbled the wording, I meant to say it makes me wonder what the other chinese factory workers make and under which conditions they work compared to the chinese workers that make fairphones. Maybe it’s all propaganda and fairphone uses slave labour, but that would surprise me. Another thing I thought about is that tech is just more expensive in europe in general. It’s common that we pay 20% more for the same phone or laptop in europe compared to the US.
They are hardly even in the US market. Only via Murena with their e/OS/.
Who in the US is buying midrange or flagship phones without a loan?
I did.
did it because I was tired of having every conversation I had popup as an ad. the “fair” part was simply a bonus.
I also refuse to use a pixel because I don’t trust any firmware written by Google to not have some kind of backdoor in.
You can literally buy an excellent phone that will last you for 3-4 years for less that 400 USD, hell I’d say it’s even better for the environment to buy used or refurbished phones and save even more money
Ooo they sell these in the US?
No
you can get them from resellers.
Interesting that they seem to be using a consumer grade Snapdragon chip this time, typically they used weird chips ment for industry applications if I’m not mistaken. Wonder what sparked the change, did Qualcomm start supporting their chips for longer?
Probably yes.
And probably due to EU mandating new phones to be supported for longer.
…ec.europa.eu/…/smartphones-and-tablets_en
Looks like it.
[Source] (qualcomm.com/…/qualcomm-extends-support-for-updat…)
They only used a weird chip for one generation (the last generation; 5)
They only did that once for the FP5. It was a terrible choice, leading to high battery usage and compatibility issues. They only did that because when it came out, 5 years of software support wasn’t something crazy any more. Samsung already provided the same on their mainstream flagship phones. So to top that they chose that embedded chip with 10 years of support from Qualcomm. But 10 years is practically speaking really hard overkill, especially considering the very impractical downsides of that chip.
By now, most major phone brands have support times rivalling what Fairphone is bringing to the table, and for that to work, Qualcomm has to support their mainstream phone chips for longer.
Fuck these guys… Seriously. I bought a phone off of them hyped at the idea of the ethics. It didn’t work on arrival. Over 3 months later and not one single reply to my helpdesk request (other than the Automated acknowledgement of receipt).
Unbelievably bad user experience, I went from hyped at the concept of reducing my production of electronic waste to beyond disappointed at a brutally bad user experience.
Then to make matters worse, it is difficult to source spare parts for the fairphone 4 (according to a friend of mine who owns one that he bought a while ago)… Like is that not the entire point of the phone, reduced consumption of new phones by supporting repairs. If you’re going to stop producing the spares at least release the patents then… if you really believe in the promoted ideals that you spout… Which they clearly do not.
It turns out that it’s just another money hungry company hell bent on burning the planet down to see a line go up, as far as I’m concerned. All gaff to sell shite phones at higher prices.
Do not buy.
All I needed to know was when they released their BT earbuds just when the jack port got removed to figure out where their priorities are.
Yep same here. Also they’re not capable of installing grapheneos which is kind of a deal breaker for me.
Isn’t that up to the GrapheneOS devs?
The GrapheneOS team makes their hardware security requirments very clear.
Its up to the hardware manufactures to include a few additional components used for securely storing keys, so far Google Pixles are the only consistent line of products that do so.
So… they chose to make a very Pixel-specific OS and you’re mad at Fairphone?
It’s not about being pixel specific. They built high security OS that uses HW components to deliver that high security. It can’t be delivered without them. These components are not google patented nor does GrapheneOS demands they use the exact pixel ones. GrapheneOS just refuses to lower security to support phones that lack these components, because manufacturers wanted to save maybe a $1 per phone by not including them at the expense of user security.
I think I had this all wrong. Fairphone isn’t / doesn’t want to be an enthusiast DIY brand at all (like framework for laptops) but a mainstream brand that’s eco-friendlier* and non-exploitative.
So of course they will not care much about niche features like other ROMs or audio jacks. The privacy focused, tech-savvy or feature focused buyers are not their target.
*IC and PCB related footprint is still roughly 80% of the FP4 and FP has little to no control on those processes, according to an independent study.
Of course they’re gonna offer BT earbuds if there’s no audio jack? Or did you want them included or something? A lot of people here are way angrier than justified.
Of course they are going to offer dongles too! The profit margins are way better on those. Fuck what the users want, we want money!
Louis Rossman on the topic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdL0StldJM
Louis Rossman is a perfect example of someone who’s angry all the time.
And an attack on his character is of zero relevance to the topic of Fairphone and jack ports.
I would say having a headphone jack is better than not having one, but stop short of crying conspiracy. You would feel better if they didn’t sell BT earbuds?
I’m saying it is very hypocritical and goes against their brand. If they simply came out and said: Look guys making phones sustainably cost too much, we need to sell higher margin items like dongles, BT earbuds and cases to have enough cashflow to continue manufacturing and R&D.
Ok, fair enough. I would say.
But trying to justify and greenwashing the whole ordeal is insulting. The tactic is straight out of Apple’s “Think different” book. Paying more for reduced functionality. Only for them to sell you more accessories for even more money.
Is he wrong though?
No.
Two identical replies from two different accounts at the same time makes me think I’m responding to a bot, tho.
Just unfortunate timing I would think lol
Great minds think alike I guess.
Is he wrong though?
This is the vibe I’m getting from Lemmy lately just angry people shouting at clouds.
If it makes you feel better, I do that off of Lemmy, too.
They are easily repairable and you don’t have to throw them away if the battery goes bad (just replace it).
How is that a bad thing? About 90% of other brands you can throw them away if the battery goes bad or they break.
I have to buy them? Every replaceable and repairable stuff is manufactured and has an impact.
I don’t have any of those, for related reasons. The best one can do is to consume less and less often.
Buying a USB-C-2-Jack dongle or BT headset is anything but eco-friendly. It goes straight against the whole brand if you need to buy new stuff in addition to make it work.
What about people who already have a BT headset, or people who are looking to buy their first headset and don’t own one yet? You just straight up assume everyone still had a headset with wires lying around and that they somehow never break.
Having to buy something makes it bad isn’t really an argument. The very post you are making right now is made from a devide that has been manufactured at some point in time. If you start reasoning like that its better to start living in the woods with no possessions at all.
Before BT headsets even existed, all of them were wired and none of them required lithium batteries or chips inside.
It costs resources to produce. It is one of the main missions of FP to reduce this by having to not by a new device if your current one breaks. If buying a new one wasn’t a problem, why are they trying to make it repairable?
You get it.
Taking my argument to the extreme naturally makes it absurd. But living in the woods isn’t my point.
If you look at FP’s yearly financial statements, you can see how they are struggling. In 2021 and 2022 they were roughly at a breakeven point, turning basically no profit, in 2023 their operating loss was 37% of their net turnover.
See previous comment:
What do you mean with stopped producing spare parts for FP4? They are still widely available
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
What’s this then?
Hmmm that looks like parts listings for the Fairphone 4 to me, why do you ask ?
couse the other guy said that the parts are not manufactured anymore
Parts being available doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being manufactured. It just means there is unsold stock.
So they should overproduce just in case? All I care about as a consumer is that I can buy replacement parts.
they are beeing manufactored. The battery is avaible again at the end of june. That means that it got produced in the last months.
philthi said this, LMAO!
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
Your comment made me laugh! There’s no need to criticize the company if you’re having a bad day or don’t like it. It only takes a minute to check their website for spare parts. Most likely, it’s your local shop that’s out of stock, not Fairphone itself.
shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?ca…
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
Then don’t spread information online that you don’t know to be true, Jesus Christ man.
It’s true, my language suggests I had researched that and found it to be true. When the truth is I just trusted my friends recount. I’ll edit my post.
I can’t ask anymore than someone to admit when they maybe didn’t take the right approach and I find that commendable. Thanks.
.
What are you talking about? I exchanged multiple mails per day when I had a problem.
Also as others have mentioned, the parts are still available on their website.
In terms of fp4 replacement parts, I am only quoting a friend of mine, I haven’t personally looked into that; though I was ready to believe it after my experience.
In terms of your good customer service experience… I mean, good? I’m glad your experience was better than mine? Mine has been the worst customer experience I’ve ever had with a company and I genuinely went in to this with a high opinion of them.
I don’t know what more to add here, we had different experiences, I’m sharing mine… You’re sharing yours? Different things are different to each other…
Your experience being different to mine doesn’t prove my experience never happened.
.
This is nice for Europe I guess, and I want to like the fairphone, but unfortunately it’s not viable for me.
Besides basic phone features and the ability to run Android apps I have 3 requirements, 2 of which the fairphone fails at. I need it to be usable in the US on my phone carrier. I need to be able to use Google Pay or another mobile payment alternative (that’s accepted in most stores). Finally it needs to have at least a 48 hour battery life.
Fairphone unfortunately doesn’t work in the US with most carriers, and the one that kills not only it but all the de-googled phones, it doesn’t support mobile payment of any kind. I’ve done a ton of research trying to find some kind of fix for that second point because I’d gladly use something like GrapheneOS if I could, but every time the answer I come to is it’s just not possible.
That too has to to with the fact that all of that is an impenetrable black box. Google gets access, but if your oso isn’t Google, amor is rooted, they won’t allow you access “for security”
Never mind that the banking web version works fine in any OS including Linux, no safety issues there (nor should there be any) but the app? Yeah, Google only and it’s all because of security. Uh huh…
That’s certainly part of it, but I’d use any mobile payment app, not just Googles one, but there’s basically zero competition there. Some banks apparently had their own mobile payment support briefly, but it seems like just about every single one of them has removed that feature and replaced it with a wrapper around Google Pay.
For whatever it’s worth I have been using a Fairphone 5 in the US for over a year on T-Mobile.
I’ve been using the fairphone 4 in the us for almost three years.
Don’t worry, it fails in Europe too. I ended up giving away my FP4, because it fails to do even basic stuff like make a call after 3G was switched off in my country.
Worst phone I ever had, with quite a margin. And the only one I ever kept for under 2 years and the only one I replaced while it was still physically ok.
.
I know people complain about big phones, but as a 6’5" guy i LOVE my big screens, and i think i’d struggle with a 6.3" screen. I have a 22U i plan to use for another year or two, and would go larger if i could.
“We heard the criticism but decided that no, you would still need an adapter to use headphones, plus a USB-C hub to be able to charge the damn thing while listening to music or watching videos”
Funny how that’s the same excuses that we get for modern laptops terrible design. “We HAVE to make it thinner so there’s no space! You wouldn’t want a laptop that’s not complete shit if it meant it’d also be less thin and breakable, now would you?”
Very strange how mine can somehow fit a 7000mAh battery, dual SIM + SD card slot and a regular jack. Hmm…
Is it repairable only with a screwdriver and parts you can buy from the manufacturer?
That’s a definite advantage of the Fairphone.
I guess, I will find out how mine fares when the need arises. Hasn’t happened in 4.5 years yet.
Are you a Republican? Because that really sounds like “mine works, so fuck everyone else”
Are you a murican? Cuz you really sound like USA is your whole world.
Let me expand, as I usually deal with surveys and population feedback. There’s loud feedback, and there’s statistically significant feedback.
People who want a headphone jack are very loud. They will interject this issue into every feedback opportunity given. They will mention it on the comment sections, forums, q&a sessions, answer their surveys accordingly, etc. That’s all fine and their prerogative.
However, when you look at the statistics. They are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population. They are not statistically significant for decision making. They don’t have the volume to move sales significantly. This sucks, of course, and I personally wouldn’t mind the return of headphone jacks, smaller phones and bigger batteries as a fair trade for thicker phones.
But unfortunately, the vast majority of the market is pre-occupied with other things. The phone screen is too small, the phone weights too much, the phone is too thick, I want to bring my phone to the pool without fear of it breaking, etc. They are not as passionate about it, not like the headphone people are, but they far outnumber them in several orders of magnitude. In the end, if the product doesn’t sell, it won’t matter how much it was worth to a single passionate person. It will sink the company if it doesn’t have mass appeal. Making phones is already an extremely expensive endeavor.
People interested in paying more for fair trade materials and repairable phones are also a very tiny minority of the entire population.
Of course I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone that on the general population.
In my particular case, I’m still using my Fairphone 3, and I’m not buying a Fairphone again unless it has a Jack.
Like I’ve said before- their market is small enough they should be trying to get everyone they can to buy it.
That’s what they’re doing. That’s why they remove the headphone jack in favour for a slimmer, lighter phone. Their market research showed that’s more important to a bigger portion of their customers.
I’ve never met someone that cared about a thinner phone, they’ve been too thin since 2015…
People that want their ducking hradphine jacks? They are everywhere.
Do you interact with people outside of audiophile circles? I’m not in any, and I haven’t heard anyone in person complain about a missing headphone jack in many years, not after a few years of airpods being available. Hell, I don’t know anyone who uses wired headphones anymore. I have heard people mention that my phone is too heavy, and I’m using a pixel 9 pro. Before this phone I was using a pixel 5, and I had people telling me my phone was too small/plastic-y. I don’t think you have an understanding of “normal people” They aren’t tech enthusiasts, they aren’t audiophiles, and they are genuinely shocked when I tell them about how egregiously most tech companies are violating their privacy, but are quick to say that they don’t care/don’t want to give up creature comforts to prevent it.
This is thing with not understanding how statistics work. The point is that your personal experience is biased.
These people are not passionate about phone thickness. They won’t start or even have conversations about it. Specially since, for the most part, the companies are already catering to their tastes. But, if placed in front of a survey and asked to rank phone features by their importance for their purchase decisions, the overwhelming majority will rank other phones features way above a headphone jack. Most people on the planet are not audiophiles, and the majority of people perceive wires as an annoyance and an inconvenience.
That is the point of surveying and market research. To check with the actual potential buyers what is worth making. Of course it isn’t a guarantee, looking here at the recent flop of the Samsung Edge. But otherwise, a single person’s perception of the market will never be complete or accurate.
Audio jack isn’t an audiophile thing, it’s a “I don’t want to pay 100$ for headphones thing”
As for thickness, it doesn’t increase thickness. It is simply false, someone even retrofitted a whole audio jack into an iphone.
Nobody makes q difference between a 4mm and a 4.5mm phone, even if tgey were feature and price parity.
The reason you are giving here is made up marketing by the phone industry so they can sell earbuds.
I mean, yes. It is about marketing. I just think there are more people who think wires are annoying than people losing their earbuds. For every person who loses BT earbuds every 3 months, there’s a person with the same pair for 3+ years who is perfectly happy with wireless quality. Companies don’t care about that. They care about decisions that will reduce costs and increase their profits, and Fairphone desperately need profits. Making phones is idiotically expensive.
Are we forgetting that companies also have their own bias to make the decisions that increase overall profits? They lost buyers (me included) by this change, but they made up the difference by selling higher margin accessories. Companies will only cater to users if it aligns with turning a bigger profit. If adding an anti-feature is better for the bottom line, then that’s how it goes. Enshittification doesn’t happen accidentally, but by pushing the boundaries of what the users tolerate.
No, we aren’t forgetting. Precisely because they are a corporation driven by profits like any other, they will do what sells units. It actually goes against the argument for headphone jacks. It is an admission that the people who vocally want phones with headphone jacks don’t buy phones (even if they have headphone jacks) and are an statistically insignificant amount of people. My original point. You are vocal, but disingenuous (perhaps not on purpose).
Fairphone catered to the mass market with the Fairphone 4 (and removed the headphone jack) and broke their own sales records. Sorry, that’s just the truth. What you want is against the grain of the rest of the market. Yes, even the market who want repairable modular phones.
Because when push comes to shove, you might want the headphone jack but it doesn’t drive your purchase decision. And that’s the important part. As an example, another person on this very thread asked what phone with a headphone jack is good, someone else gave a suggestion and immediately got the reply.
Admitting that — despite being very vocal about wanting the headphone jack — that feature is actually low in their own list of decision making priorities. At the very least it is below screen quality. Raising the question, where should a profit driven company choose to invest money in when presented with that customer?
In marketing, people are usually very vocal about things that actually don’t influence their own purchase decisions. That’s just a fact, people are very bad at knowing what they want. That’s why you should always observe their behavior, not just ask their opinion. Because a lot of people express opinions they don’t uphold with actions.
They lose no customers by including it. They lose some by omitting it.
So it boils down to being too expensive to include? Hardly!
You evaluate prior decisions with posterior data. But you fail to take into account the counterfactuals. How do you know how much the FP4 would have sold with a jack?
Claiming that an increase in sales validates the goodness of the decision is not causal.
It is the same logic that would tell you that playing russian roulette is worthwile in case you win and get some reward. That’s backwards rationalization, fitting a narrative.
If market research universally showed that people don’t care about a jack then why do some phones still have it? Are these manufacturers going against the grain? Surely they wouldn’t leave money on the table if it worked like that.
The justification of “they do what sells units” is backwards. It would imply that no product would ever flop. But products regularly do. There is no telling in advance how it will perform, and saying otherwise is falling prey to the problem of induction, whether past observarions justify predictions.
The FP4 could have broke sales records for a multitude of reasons. How can you say which factor caused it when there is only one scenario that played out? We don’t have alternative universes to compare, where they released one with a jack, or another with some other altered specs.
I’m back to statistical significant data, and why it is important to have good data scientists in the loop. The idea is precisely to ask the questions you are asking. Would have been different if…? Then try to control for other variables in order to avoid the induction error. How do you know they didn’t do this with their data?
That’s why I mention other phone models. There are Sony phones with and without jacks. There are Asus phones with and without jacks. How did they perform compared to each other? How far away is that difference from what could be expected from randomness? How does that difference compare when the other factors are compensated for? How do they compare with other phones?
I assume they did their homework, and also want to sell more earbuds. They wouldn’t push for earbuds and wireless if headphone jacks were market drivers. It would be cheaper to install a headphone jack rather than updating the BT board? Maybe, I don’t know. But if other factors have a significant impact on sales while the jack doesn’t. Then they have their decision made for them. Market research is not about being right all the time, it is not magic, it is about reducing uncertainty and risk in making decisions. Precisely because there are other phone makers with a headphone jack that do worse than the Fairphone is base enough to understand why they feel safe keeping that feature out. It doesn’t add sales and its absence doesn’t reduce them significantly either. So they know they are free to keep going even if some vocal critics will be pissed, the actual buyers couldn’t care any less.
Money is a powerful motivator to do really crappy things, and Apple has done exactly that for decades now. Others are following suit in the lucrative accessory market.
But this is the smoking gun, pointed at the consumer.
Dongles are an admission that the phones they come with don’t work in the way the company knows its consumers need them to.
Almost as insidious as how the inkjet printer manufacturers vendor lock and upcharge for ink. Profitable? Indeed. Despicable and anti-consumer? Very much so.
Just out of interest, because I too love the jack, then what are you buying in the future?
Motorola or whatever, depends what’s available within budget at the time I need the phone.
I have no idea, I’m hoping for my F3 to still last a couple of years.
I’m honestly pretty tired of Android, and that’s another can of worms. Maybe I’ll try with a linux phone, but I’m still undecided.
I have a Sony Xperia that has both a jack and a SD slot. I shelled out for the top of the line one, but since it has good specs I plan on keeping it for many years.
Same, but it’s insanely expensive for a good phone with a horrible camera.
Have a look at their impact report. They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff.
You are only paying more for that phone because they are a tiny boutique manufacturer who has to outsource everything. The fair/eco stuff is just fair- and greenwashing.
If you buy a phone because you want to look fair/eco, buy a Fairphone. If you actually really care for fair/eco, get an used phone and donate some money to the correct NGOs or charities.
I’ve looked through their report and I can’t find this info. The only thing I’ve found is a ~€2 bonus per phone to their factory workers, which is only a small fraction of a phones supply chain. Can you provide a more detailed reference supporting your claim?
Read through the whole report, sum up all the money they mention. It comes out to $16 000. Double that for the stuff where they don’t mention money (because they surely would mention anything that costs more than the things they do mention). Double it again, for a safety margin. Double it again, because we are really generous. Now we are at €128 000. Divide that by the number of devices sold in 2024 and you get $1.24. Now add the $1.20 (Page 29) they pay as a living wage bonus and you arrive at $2.44 per device.
And now let’s be super generous and double that guess again, and you end up with the <€5 per device that I quoted above.
The picture becomes clearer when you look at what they say about their fair material usage.
Take for example the FP5 (page 42 & 67). Their top claim here is “Fair materials: 76%”, which they then put a disclaimer next to it, that they only mean that 76% of 14 specific focus materials is actually fair. On the detail page (page 67) they specify that actually only 44% of the total weight of the phone is fairly mined, because they just excluded a ton of material from the list of “focus materials” to push up the number.
The largest part of these materials are actually recycled materials (37% of the 44% “fair” materials). The materials they are recycling are plastics, metals and rare earth elements. That’s all materials that are cheaper to recycle than to mine. You’ll likely find almost identical amounts of recycled materials in any other phone, because it makes economical sense. It’s just cheaper. Since these materials cost nothing extra to Fairphone, we can exclude them from the list, which leaves 1% of actually fair mined material (specifically gold), and 6% of materials that they bought fairwashing credits for.
Also, the raw materials of phones are dirt cheap compared to the end price. The costly part is not mining the materials, but manufacturing all the components.
With only 1% of the materials being fairly mined and only 6% being compensated with credits, you can start to see why in total they spend next to nothing on fair mining/fair credits.
Yeah, I see, thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the report and write this.
It’s fucking sad but honestly thanks for pointing it out, I hadn’t even read the report.
Yeah, it is sad. Turns out, Fairphone is just yet another fairwashing company. People spend lots of money and suffer through using this phone with its trash quality software because they think that they are saving the planet by doing so, and in the end they actually just indirectly donated maybe a few Euros to some random fair credit mill.
Keep your eyes peeled and read what’s beind the marketing, because even companies that look good rarely are.
Especially for stuff like fair/eco/green, where it’s really hard to objectively measure how good something is and where legal standards are ridiculously low.
Thanks for the detailed reply. You saying that “They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff” is a complete lie. It’s not a number they’re claiming, it’s a number you’ve estimated. And lets be clear: what you’ve done is take $3k in gold credits plus $13k cobalt credits and multiplied that by an arbitrary 8x.
I think you’ve gone into your analysis with a foregone conclusion. There simply isn’t enough information to say anything about the cost overheat of being “fair”.
And yet the FP4 was significantly less recycled. Plastic is certainly not cheaper to recycle; that’s a lie the plastic industry’s been pushing for a while.
Fairphone literally does have that statistic. They spent effort to gather that info in order to inform their business decisions. And they report:
You can get good Bluetooth earbuds for under $50 and a USB-C to AUX dongle for under $15.
The average person is fine with Bluetooth earbuds or an adapter, and audiophiles would not find the inbuilt DAC/amp on a phone to be adequate.
how do you charge the phone with a DAC plugged in?
If we revisit the “loud” vs “statistically significant” paradigm, while it is a shame you will not be able to charge the phone with a dac in without buying a specific cable, how often does the average person do so?
so you need a dongle for the DAC, and an additional dongle for charging that is also, if I recall it correctly, violates the USB-C standard. did I understand it correctly?
Sure, for simplicities sake let’s just say it’s impossible.
How many times has the average person needed to do so in a year?
how many times does the average person use wireless charging? Seriously, I haven’t seen anyone do that yet, or know of someone who uses that.
and yet that’s still a major feature in lots of phones
I use wireless charging every single day and majority of my non techie friends do as well. Its so convenient to have a wireless charger on the desk and put your phone there. They are dirt cheap as well.
If I’ve asked a question twice and you’ve danced around it both times, that tells everyone what your answer is.
someone who is often listening to music with their phone and wired headphones, or even just when arriving at home from work, is going to use both the charger and the jack at the same time frequently.
another scenario is if the person uses their phone as the microphone for their PC.
you can argue that both must be rare because you have never seen them done, that’s my exact opinion about wireless charging
Funny you bring up wireless charging.
Does that not solve your proposed problem? You can use a usb-c to audio dongle, which often comes with better sound quality than a phones DAC, and wirelessly charge, even via many powerbanks. These are features found fairly commonly in today’s phones, so problem solved?
it does not, as my phone, and afaik most phones don’t support it.
Sounds like a you problem, I have it on good authority that it’s pretty common:
You’ve shown everyone that you can, in fact, listen to wired headphones and charge at the same time with “major features found in lots of phones”, which solves your original complaint, which itself depends on some very specific scenarios.
That’s literally the thinking abilities of a toddler. Wireless chargers sell like hotcakes. MagSafe charger is Apple’s most popular accessory in their entire history.
that’s the same thinking that those apply who say people don’t need jack connectors, mind you
Wirelessly.
Or you switch to your bluetooth buds during a wired charge.
I’m all for audio jacks, but have been using a phone without one for 4 years now, and there are so many options to not be incovenienced.
Also I don’t use my audiophile headphones with the phone at all - DAC on it just isn’t good enough to get most out of then, prefer to use them with my desktop PC amp only.
FairPhone doesn’t do wireless charging.
Didn’t know that, thanks.
It’s kinda tough sell without wireless for such price, for me. Though I guess it’s maybe a tough fit with their modular design ambitions, and corners have to be cut somewhere to keep their higher costs down.
good luck charging my phone wirelessly! wireless charging is also very wasteful, and it does not support idle charging (powering the phone without wearing the battery), even if the phone otherwise does. doesn’t it also take up a significant amount of that precious space inside the phone?
You can get a USB-C splitter adapter.
isn’t that against the USB-C standard?
sure, a USB-C Hub With Two USB-C Ports then
Maybe I chose the wrong $10 adapter but I notice a big drop in sound quality using that vs Bluetooth, to the point that it’s not worth using unless there isn’t another option. I’m not really an audiophile, though I can notice the general quality of sound.
That’s why you don’t just buy the cheapest one you see on Amazon. Google/DDG around to know which ones are good.
My wired earbuds cost more than ten times that and will probably last me until I retire. The vast majority of those USB-c to 3.5mm adapters are cheap crap that have a worthless DAC and/or fall apart after a short time. I have purchased my wife three such adapters since she decided it was worth it to get a phone without a headphone jack and none of them have been good.
I ended up having to buy her a separate portable music player to use. So thanks for that Google, Apple, and the rest of the greedy shithead OEMs.
Which brand of adpater did you get? If you got a generic one then a bad DAC and durability aren’t surprises.
I’ve used three: one was generic (it was at the time the only way to get one that could charge and have a headphone out in the same dongle), one was from Fiio (surprisingly bad sounding, maybe worse than the generic in some ways, but better build), and one was the official Google dongle (sounded clean, but was super weak. Couldn’t power even my lightest headphones that weren’t IEMs). The only one I still have is the Google dongle because the others broke, but I don’t use it because it still kinda sucks. I ended up being forced to buy a phone without a headphone jack fairly recently because Google more or less killed my Pixel 4a and there were no replacement phones with headphones jacks that I could put GrapheneOS on. I ended up buying myself a portable music player to list to music on. My phone is now only for listening to music in the car and it sucks :(
Maybe try the Apple one when Android 16 comes out (in GrapheneOS form) which fixes the volume issues.
From what I understand there are better dongles now than that they can perform better than the Apple dongle, but the one everyone raves about that was $20 - $30 or so is now hard to come brand is going for closer to $80 (I think it is the Jcally JM20 Max). I don’t see a reason to bother spending more money chasing this crap now that I’ve had to buy both my wife and I standalone music players. What I do know is that the first company that releases a decent phone that has a headphone jack that fits my other needs is getting my Money. If Fairphone has brought it back, it would have been them since they have decent ROM alternatives (though not GrapheneOS).
What statistics? People buying thin phones over thicker phones doesn’t mean much when that’s almost all that’s being sold nowadays and every phone is trying to be as thin as possible. It seemed to me that 90% of what we’re told people want is actually just what companies want to push on us because it’s cheaper and more profitable.
All the people I know who are average users couldn’t care less about how thin the phone is, two mm more or less doesn’t make any difference. They care about screen size and being able to use it without too much hassle. If they get a phone without an audio jack half of them will just assume that they can’t plug earphones at all. And they are not the ones who will complain. But then, Fairphone isn’t marketed towards average users, so maybe their users have different priorities? Idk
If you ask people what they want, they will tell you they want a phone that has 15 inch screen that looks perfect under the sunlight. But also fits into their pocket. And it has to have a battery that lasts a week, but it must not weight anything at all. But also has to play all the highly graphical games, and also have a professional level camera. It must do so and also last forever and be indestructible.
That phone obviously can’t exist, and a lot of what people want are things that oppose each other from the engineering pov. That’s the point of surveys and market analysis. You don’t just look at what people say, you look at what they do, what they actually buy.
It is true that the other side of marketing is convincing people that what the company is offering is what they would also want to buy. But it is never a guarantee. I mean, look at the Samsung Edge flop. Marketing is not magic, you can’t brainwash 100 million people to buy something they don’t want. Marketing is marrying what the company wants to do in terms of cost cutting and profit maxing, with what the market is actually willing to buy. If people keep buying slop, they will keep selling slop, and they will keep marketing slop to people to convince them they want the slop. To break the circle someone has to stop, and it won’t be the corporations.
You know why there aren’t more users complaining about this? Because they flat out did not buy the device for that reason (e.g. me). Removing the jack is also extremely hyprocritical coming from a “sustainable” company.
And if it did have it you wouldn’t have bought it either because the company is hypocritical. So why do you care? Why should they care?
The point is, the people who did buy it didn’t care, and the people who care don’t buy. It’s a conundrum. Pair it with performance data of other phones that do have a headphone jack, plus the engineering compromises over other very important features. Then the decision makes sense. You lot aren’t buying phones with headphone jacks either, so it isn’t economically worth it. It’s not like the motor g or the Asus rog phone are breaking sales records just on the headphone jack.
It’s the same story as with small phones. People who aren’t buying phones like to complain about phone size. But then when a small phone is made, no one buys it. Then the people who didn’t buy the phone complain again, because the phone wasn’t perfect for them.
It happens all the time, people are usually very vocal about things that actually don’t drive their decision making.
Because they should want to capture more customers? Is that really your question?
Yeah and how many were those?
Exactly, they want the most amount of customers. But they won’t sacrifice AxB customers to satisfy B customers. They’d be effectively losing customers or breaking even at a higher cost to them.
We know this numbers must have a population of around 180 thousand customers. The known number of fairphones sold across all models so far. Now let’s make assumptions. Let’s suppose that there are 100 people who want headphone jacks and would absolutely buy a fairphone if they came with it, for each user that has advocated for headphone jacks in this thread. You wouldn’t even break 1% of the total number of fairphone sales, just this year (130k).
Again, there’s a difference between wanting something a lot. And actually making decisions based on what we say we want. Fairphone removed the headphone jack on a model that broke sales records for them. Fairphone 5 was heavily criticized for not having a headphone jack. And it is selling comfortably well within their expectations. So obviously the people who stopped buying Fairphones because of the headphone jack weren’t that many actually.
That’s the kicker. Adding a headphone jack doesn’t mean they have to sacrifice something. They can just do it without having to remove/reduce anything. If adding a jack was really that difficult, something like what you can see in this video wouldn’t be possible.
You have to preeeety gullible to believe their reasons for not adding it. The only reason was that they wanted to sell their bluetooth earbuds, that’s it.
Phone thickness is far from the only consideration. But Ok, you are right. There was space on the iPhone 7. That was also the first water resistant phone. Does this guy phone’s is still IP67 compliant after all the surgery he made. And that was in 2016, when IP67 headphone jacks didn’t exist. Now the phone standard is IP68. There were no IP68 compliant headphone jacks until recently, I think the ASUS Zenfone 12 is the first one.
I think companies won’t bring the headphone jack (a shame, really). But the writing is in the wall, it went away, and phones still sold like hotcakes. While those with headphone jacks aren’t being bought anywhere near the same volume. So the signal is very clear, the effort to add a headphone jack — however little it may be — is not financially worth it. It is a feature that doesn’t drive sales. Period.
The phone I’m literally holding right now (Xperia 5V) is IP68 compliant and has a jack…
Well yeah, you basically need smartphones, it’s not very optional. What’s your point?
There are very little options with headphone jacks so yeah, your math is on point. Lol. How can a product that doesn’t exist sale in high volumes?
Correlation is not causation.
Okay, I’m going to ask… why don’t you use wireless?
Edit: some results are in, and the only reasonable answer is better audio quality, although that’s probably no longer true. The rest are fairly weak reasons.
Lol’d at the 10m extension cord though, thanks for that one.
wireless headphones run out of battery, and most seem to have atrocious build quality and battery life.
The battery? Mine last at least 8 hours and charge in two.
Battery degradation. Wired earphones/headphones can be BIFL if treated properly. A typical wireless device will see battery degradation within a handful of years, and I have yet to see a decent TWS solution with replaceable batteries.
The Fairbuds does have a replaceable battery if that’s what you are searching for. Sure, the sound won’t be as good as a Sony, Bose, or the like, but it would be good enough if your focus is durability instead of perfect sound quality.
1.Wired headphones deliver better audio quality 2.Wired headphones are harder to lose 3.Wired headphones don’t need batteries, so: a)less e-waste b)no need to check if they are charged 4.Wired headphones are more secure, connection cannot be intercepted and phishing attacks with BT are not possible 5.While wired headphones are plugged, no one can take your phone without you noticing
Phishing attacks? On a headphone? 🤣
Wired headphones can be intercepted, as the wires unfortunately also act as an antenna (I’m a computer security technician, we semi-routinely do such interception).
As for sound quality, it will always be limited by the DAC quality, and there is little way to add a good quality DAC without adding significant weight to the phone. Did you ever wonder why audiophiles audio players looks like bricks? That why.
But I agree with point 2, 3 and 5, they are valid, but I don’t agree with some aspects:
Now all my audio equipments are wireless, and I change their batteries every 5 years or so. Unfortunately I bought mines before Fairphone launched theirs, so it wasn’t an option, but once any of my headphones eat the dust for good, I’ll probably buy an easily repairable one if audio quality and codecs are acceptable (I’m an Audiophile, so that’s important to me).
Yep. There was a type of attack that utilized wireless headphone merging as an attack vector. With wired headphones, you can simply turn Bluetooth off.
I know of DACs (been through audiophile phase myself), and sure, a typical integrated mobile one doesn’t deliver THAT big of a quality. Still, wired headphones are not bottlenecking much just by the means of connection. And they are generally cheaper for the same audio quality, because you don’t need to put batteries etc.
Agree with your counterpoints. On the cable - I much prefer detachable options, so you can replace the cable easily. but the connector has to be strong enough - I’m a bit tired to see my Moondrop Chu disconnecting and shaking somewhere in my pocket.
Wait… have you actually lost your mouse? Hilarious if true 😂
Well not actually lost… I just haven’t found under which furniture it rolled yet 😅
LOL, 10m extension cord. I mean you’ve already established that you don’t give a crap about sound quality with your first point but that’s just ridiculous. Not to mention the 10m cord that your dragging around the house.
I don’t really care about sound quality when using earphones at home because I only use them when there’s a lot of ambient noise so the sound will be bad either way. When doing vacuum cleaning, or the dishes, stuff like that. When I still had a smartphone I used a 1,5m extension cord so it wouldn’t pull on the jack each time I move, but since it died I’m using a much longer one plugged to my PC (not actually 10m, that was hyperbole, more like 5m). It’s not very convenient I’ll admit, but it does the job.
Latency issue, in some use cases it’s not acceptable to have 0.1~0.3 sec lag, like racing games or rhythm games.
(Yeah, I know there are some wireless protocols to make latency shorter, but it might cost a lot to buy a supported headphone, and it’s still useless if the phone doesn’t have proper protocol supports.)
It’s about options. You can still use Bluetooth even with a phone that has a 3.5mm jack. I also run live sound and have used the ability to plug my phone directly into the board for background music multiple times.
Let me give you simple example. When I take a flight, I like to watch my own media. Those flights sometimes are upwards of 10 hours. If I use wireless earbuds, both the earbuds and my phone will run out of battery and I have to charge them separately. However, since I have a phone with a headphone jack, my earbuds never run out of battery, I can charge my phone while I’m using them and I don’t need to use a single adapter.
Oh yeah, and the audio quality is also better.
That’s not simple. That’s very specific, and you really listen for 10 solid hours? Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money… I feel like there’s a wireless solution in your price range
You clearly didn’t get the point. The cost isn’t the only issue. There are downsides to wireless earbuds and I honestly do not prefer them most of the time. In my example, I’m using them the entire time because I don’t want to hear airplane noises and yeah, I am playing something on them most of the time if I’m flying alone.
Sorry but this is a very very dumb take. “if you spent a lot of money, you could spend MORE money”. Really dude? The solution is just having a damn headphone jack, not spending money because corporations want you to.
Alright what phone are you using with a jack?
Sony Xperia 5V
I didn’t know sony made phones
They’ve always made phones…
Not in the US apparently
Well, technically no phones are made in the US. I think you’re talking about selling phones there. Regardless, you might have poor short term memory because they only pulled out of the US phone market (which is pretty crappy) a little over a year ago I believe.
I can’t help but detect some passive hostility in your response.
Give me a break.
Waiting for swappable OS. No need for android
there is a e/os version avaiable
e/os is still android, i think he means Linux, and other OSes ! ❤️
postmarketos has builds for the 4/5, and Fairphone has already submitted devicetree files for the 6 to the mainline Linux kernel: lore.kernel.org/…/20250625-sm7635-fp6-initial-v1-…
Okay that’s actually really cool
Yup!
dang, I just bought FP5.
thanks for your sacrifice
Think of it as a generous donation 😉
It’s not a single bit worse than before the announcement.
They don’t have Auto in Screen Refresh Rare but shouldn’t it be there if they LTPO display?
Good, I only want to pay for the parts that don’t send my data to Google and their partners.
So a “phone” without any ability to connect to mobile networks or to WiFi?
Yeah lol.
Paper exists, just saying
I dont understand Fairphone, flashy hardware with poor software security and awful sustainability (they stop selling parts quickly).
Use Calyx OS and re-lock the bootloader.
The new EU regulations should force them to keep parts available.
If they were serious about security they would partner with the GraphineOS team
No they don’t they still sell parts for the Fairphone 2 that’s 10 years old.
That’s weird. If they stopped making parts how did I get a replacement battery for my fairphone 3?
If they are all about swappable parts, and being able to upgrade your phone how you want … Shouldn’t this just be a module upgrade… Of the main part? Maybe I don’t understand it … At the very least the old parts should work with the new system right? Unless something major has changed.
Exactly. Framework does it correctly; fairphone does not.
Not putting in a 3.5mm jack says enough. They sell Bluetooth earbuds I wouldn’t call that “fair”. It leads to more landfill. Phones with 3.5mm jacks also have BT, and don’t start about USBC singles, that’s more to buy and more landfill when they inevitable break.
I hear you! Though I don’t mind the lack of a 3.5 mm jack¹, it is still an anti-feature, and I fully agree that the TWS style of in-ears are antithetical to the repairability ethos. It’s especially bad when they sell one themselves.
Until Linux phones reliably support 5G communications with major carriers (this is a kernel driver issue for modems), I’m going to run with my current phone until it crumbles… Or at least until someone comes out with an actual modular phone where the mainboard can just be swapped as with desktops and Framework laptops.
¹I use a very high quality “dongle” DAC (Moonriver 2) and it gives me a cleaner, lower impedance, higher power output than any phone’s on-board audio can. If I’m going to be using wired headphones, might as well go all the way.
I hope my phone lasts until we get a framework phone.
Might be more challenging.
Laptop, its simple, if wifi and bluetooth works, its gonna work around the entire world (it’s all standardized).
Phones? I mean the main functions of a phone is phone calls and data use. Every country has different bands, and some carriers/countries have IMEI whitelisting.
Yeah but the entire philosophy of Framework would be one phone construction standard and then you swap out the radio chip. Granted, there’s never been a hard phone standard, and the parts have never been designed for swapping. They would be the ones designing and commissioning these standards. Anyway, so I’m gonna be waiting very patiently.
So with framework you can keep the cpu and camera and swap out the Mobo for a better one?
The cpu and mobo are one part, you cant replace just the cpu while keeping your old mobo. But every other part can be individually replaced.
You can see all replacement parts here: https://frame.work/nl/en/marketplace
I really respect Fairphone and I’m a happy owner of the Fairphone 5, but I find a bit puzzling for a company that suggests its customer should keep their phone for more than the 2.5 years average to release a new model just 2 years after the previous one.
Just my two cents, but they shoul’ve focused on developing either a tablet or a smartwatch to fill a gap in other markets before announcing yet another smartphone.
New people enter the market all the time.
That update is for those that don’t already have a Fairphone, presumably.
That said, I agree with your overall point. They should offer tablets and watches if they can.
You don’t have to buy a new fair phone just because you bought the last one.
It’s doubtful that someone buying a new phone now would want to buy the fair phone from 2+ years ago.
If they didn’t buy a previous fairphone, you’re going to miss all the people who wanted to try it but didn’t want a 5 year old phone tech. I imagine most people replace around 3-5 years due to battery degradation, people dropping their phones, or lack of updates
When you drop your Fairphone, you can easily repair it. Still on my FP4, no need to change, really. Only updated the battery once.
Again, my point is the cadence supports people looking to upgrade, not people who are already on a fairphone. You are not the market
I keep reading this complaint every time FairPhone releases a new model, and it’s nonsense. The millions of people who didn’t buy a FairPhone 5 in the last 2 years are not going to buy a 2 year old model when they need a new phone in 2 months.
You bought a FairPhone 5 or 4 in the last 4 years? Keep it and don’t buy a FairPhone 6, you don’t need it.
You didn’t buy a FairPhone and your current phone is dying? Then you have a modern FairPhone and don’t need to decide between a FairPhone with old specs or an up-to-date phone that is not repairable.
I would totally buy one of these if they were sold in the US. Sadly, last time I checked the newest phone wasn’t sold here. So I doubt this one will be.
you can get them in the US.
I just want them to be smaller.
It’s 6.3" because of the lack of top/bottom bezels. The phone itself is not much bigger than a Galaxy S7.
I could go for like <5 in to be honest.
You are genuinely the first person I’ve seen online who understands screen size != Phone size, because bezels exist and are different sized from phone to phone.
My current 6.3" screen phone is virtually identical in size to the 4.2" one I had in 2012.
Bezels or not phones are still too large to be comfortable to use for many people.
5.8" with no bezel would be a great size. Something comparable to an old 4-4.2" phone.
Like I just said, my current 6.3" display phone is almost identical in size to my old 4.2" one.
Yes but that’s still 2.1" too large to be comfortable to use for many people.
My 6" Pixel is just as uncomfortable to use as my 4" Nexus S was. 99.99% screen to body won’t change that fact.
I don’t think that’s true in the slightest. A phone 2.1" smaller in diagonal length than my current one would be smaller than a Nokia 3310.
Yes but the phone physically cannot be smaller than the screen.
So if the screen itself is too large to be comfortable, it is physically impossible to make it comfortable to use without making the screen smaller.
I measured the radius my thumb can reach, I know exactly the limits of my reach, and thus exactly the largest screen I can use without causing discomfort in my wrist.
The point I am trying to make is that the ideal phone size is personal to the individual. There is no one size fits all. Screen to body ratio cannot change that.
This is why, despite the screen to body ratio improving, a subset of people still ask for smaller phones.
Ok so you think that the old 4" screen phones should actually have been sub 2". That seems excessively small to me.
That is not at all what I am saying.
You can get them in the U.S. with /e/OS through Murena, but they are $900 :(
You can thank the President for that. ahem tariff* ahem*
I would not recommend Murena for U.S. customers. I attempted buying a FP4 from them, and they put $6000 in charges to my credit card. Their message-only customer service was terrible and tried to blame me. Had to get my bank involved.
Thank you, this is huge!
I was very, sad to miss out on the entire Fairphone 5 generation, but I gave up and bought a Pixel 8 when they announced the 5 wont be coming any time soon.
Finally I can get a phone that’s worth buying (and earbuds as I see they carry the fairbuds now)
Please take note of MystValkyrie’s response to my post. I have no experience with Murena and I cannot vouch for them. In light of what MystValkyrie shared, it might be wise to proceed with caution and maybe look into it more before ordering.
Yeesh! Thanks for the heads up.
It may be simpler to just figure out how to import it from FairPhone at that point.
I wish we could get this in Canada
I love the idea but the price is too high for the chip given that this is designed to be a longevity phone. A chip like the 7s Gen 3 would make the phone sluggish after a couple of years with how unoptimised todays apps are.
The Gorilla Glass 7i and IP55 water resistance are also concerning given that budget Samsung, Xiaomi, etc phones beat this.
However having components of the phone being easily replacable is a great thing.
.
meow
I think it’s important to remember that the price is higher because they pay their factory workers a living wage and use a combination of recycled and fair materials.
It looks expensive because other phones are cheap, and other phones are cheap because they are exploiting people to make them.
Yeah wow, the problem with the phone that tries to compete with unethical big business is that unethical big entity is cheaper. Who would have thought
Because a weak CPU, weak water resistance, and weak glass don’t make for a long-lasting, sustainable phone.
I like the fact that the parts are easy to replace, but the big manufacturers beat them in other aspects of longevity.
At the cost of the labourers and environment. That’s why the fair one is better in every aspect
Doesn’t this thing just run android and Google App Store? What a waste of decent hardware.
You can purchase the /e/os version. But it is more expensive
E/os is just android.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)
I do see that Ubuntu touch is an option though.
It’s shameful that most phones run one of two operating systems. There’s not enough competition. I’m still pissed about WebOS and Windows Phone being abandoned. I am hopeful though that web-based apps might make it possible for another OS to enter the market successfully at some point.
Oh, I apologize. I misunderstood your main concern, I though it’s about Google Play instead of Android.
Yes, the only choice for most mobile phones are either Android or iOS. Things like Pinephone and FydeTab Duo exists, but so rare.
I installed it myself on my FP5 (bought with Android in a shop) using the online installer, which was pretty easy and obviously free of charge.
Yea, this is completely okay, but there is a small difference - for stock /e/os ones, the Bootloader is locked. I am not sure about details but this would be a needed security feature for some applications
I just want them to make a true flagship phone. I personally wouldn’t mind paying extra for a more ethical phone, if it had all the bells and whistles and wasn’t half obsolete straight out of the box.
What features would that include that the phone doesn’t already have? I’m currently an iPhone user, but I’m looking to move to a more open source alternative.
Better SOC and cameras. If it has to last 5+ years these have to be very good on release date.
Wireless charging
better cpu, 2 sim slots, a programmable button cause this dumbass launcher switch is a joke, at least 5000mah battery, at least a sceen mount fingerprint reader or even a working face recognition like in pixel phones.
a 2 year old motorola phone has all of these for some reason, for only 300 bucks. i can pay 40 bucks for a battery change every 4 years, thats still a better deal to be honest.
The dumbass launcher switch is programmable and the battery is close to 5000mAh?
A big problem they have is that they have to rely on Qualcomm for security updates, and the flagship chips simply don’t get 8+ years of support. Fairphone uses Qualcomms IOT chips, which come with much longer support.
Qualcomm will have to change that, what with the EU now mandating a minimum of 5 years of updates after the phone is no longer sold.
So if Qualcomm expects their SoCs to be on the market for 2-4 years, like they do right now, they will have no choice but to provide updates for 7-9 years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, given this development, Fairphone turn to the more conventional chips other OEMs use, which would likely also be a win for battery life.
FP would be a good choice for Graphene.
Unfortunately Graphene have said they will only use pixels (or potentially their own phone in the future) because no other phones have the Titan M2 security chip.
It’s a shame though, because I’d love to have Graphene on it.
Yea but with the recent news (see his Mastodon) he’s looking for other vendors.
Problem is, it is not IP68 rated, which is a dealbreaker for someone with an active lifestyle; especially since I sometimes manage to get water even into my IP68 phones. It would be good if they made a Pro model or just made the regular model more expensive since I will gladly pay for privacy and quality on a device that is on me at all times. For now I will stick to my Pixel 9 Pro.
It’s not? Uhhhhhg
There are those waterproof bag things. I wouldn’t trust the IP rating on a phone.
Yeah no one should trust IP ratings on phones because unless they cover water damage in their warranty - which none do - the company doesn’t even trust their own IP rating.
I always shake my head when I read about people taking their phones in the shower, in the pool, etc. IP ratings degrade over time as well.
many rom developers stated before, that fairphones have a pisspoor security
Ok but what about a headphone jack ?
Doesn’t seem to have one.
But to be honest, most headphone jacks on these slim phones suck and even a cheap USB-c to audio jack dongle is better than the average phone headphone jack.
The devices from Fiio show that it is still possibile to create a good quality Android device with a good headphone jack, but we might need thicker phones. I just use dongles or audio players
A thicker phone would be great. All these manufacturers forgot at some point we actually need to hold these things with a human hand.
Having said that my fp4 is actually a pretty good thickness. They just screwed that up by rounding the the edge so much seemingly to reduce contact grip.
To me a thicker phone doesn’t help, but if it does for you then okey, that should exist.
I respect your opinion, but I lived through 90s computing and think dongles died the death they deserve and these phone manufacturers can go to hell for bringing them back or thinking that bluetooth audio is good enough.
Additionally most of the droids I have bought that have a jack are the perfect thickness in my mind. Weighted enough to stay in my hand and take a couple dozen drops without accident. Plus the headphone jack is used as an antenna and provides radio capabilities so I can listen to local news instead of whatever the tech industry wants to feed me. Which is a nice option.
It depends on what dongle and for what it is used, for something like headphones or earbuds I just leave my dongle on the cable, the same for in my car. I used a Redmi Note 13 Pro for a while which has an audio jack, but it was TERRIBLE so bad that I bought extra dongles before I switched back to using an iPhone.
I also already dispise looking for an Android phone, since I have terrible experience with Samsung Phones and Google products and don’t want either of those. Having to look for a GOOD audio jack on one is not worth the hassle for me, if it is for you then more kudo’s to you.
Ill just use an old school iPod or a USB-c cable
Bluetooth audio is good enough when you’re comparing it to phone headphone jacks. Phones aren’t audiophile devices. No one is going to notice the difference in sound.
A 3.5mm jack adapter is as unintrusive as can be - it just stays on your headphone cable.
Yeah I find a fairphone 3 to be powerful enough so I might just keep repairing it
Fairphone is probably going to be my new phone when I upgrade.
I’d jump immediately if it had a stylus.
How well do these connect to Canadian cell phone towers?
It appears to have support for the 4G and 5G bands that Rogers, Bell and Telus use
But the last time I was looking at Fairphone, they didn’t sell to Canada directly.
They don’t. You have to get them from a place that imports like PDA Plaza out of Quebec (I’ve used them before).
To me, that’s a dealbreaker, because you lose the benefit of getting replacement parts easily.
headphone jackn’t :(
This this this.
They want to sell their buds and headset.
don’t misunderstand me, those are great repairable bluetooth devices, but if i were to not have a headphone jack and just a “long lasting repairable phone” , i’m sticking to my Google pixel.
Not sure if it still is that way, but when i bought my FP4 years ago, free buds were included.
I doubt it’s some conspiracy, but it does still suck. I’m on my 3rd USB port on my fp4 because I use wired earphones. Replaceable USB port was my initial reason for buying a fair phone otherwise I’d likely be buying a new phone every year.
USB C is not up to that kind of use, and BT ear buds suck…
Just get a cheap usb c -> 3.5mm adapter. Problem solved.
First of all no, i dont want to carry a dongle as i may plug in multiple headsets.
Second of all, i want to charge my phone while listening to music, and i want even less to carry a doubling d’ongle
Third of all, i fail to see the “eco responsible” part of needing to buy more things than nécessary, then wearing down needlessly the usb-c over time.
So, with all due respect, piss off
PS : you’re the same kind of person who said “don’t want a phone without headphone jack? Only buy one that has one instead of complaining” when apple started the trend, and guess what mfers, i’m never stopping complaining
You’re going to plug in multiple headsets to your phone in regularly? You can’t just have a cheap dongle on those headsets’ cables?
Funny how almost everyone in here saying they need the 3.5mm jack also just happens to have a dozen pairs of headphones they use every day lol.
So much for eco responsibilty to buy dongles that could be avoided and wear usb-c.
It is an android, which is moving towards an ai for everything trajectory which might be a privacy nightmare, I wonder if the next step of the fairphone journey is to break from android
They cooperate with Murena, so /e/OS is officially supported and you can buy new devices with /e/OS installed. I am running /e/OS on my Fairphone 5 and it works great.
They also seem to have given developer devices to the PostmarketOS folks, so that they hit the ground running with a working FP6 port already. I'm not sure exactly what is going on behind the scenes between Fairphone and PostmarketOS here - maybe @z3ntu can fill us in.
Wasn’t even aware of Murena, will def have a look, thanks for sharing all that info!
Worth noting buying a second hand phone is still better in every aspect and sadly 2nd hand Samsung from 3 years ago is still better and cheaper. Though Fairphone is getting closer with each release!
Cheaper? Yes. Better? Hell no, unless you can root it and install a custom ROM.
You can - Samsung phones are really well supported for that.
**Snapdragon 8 gen 2 enters the chat…
I would never go with Samsung as a conscious choice for custom ROMs, mostly because all well-supported devices are pretty old, which means lower chance of getting something in a decent state for a reasonable price used, that wouldn’t require immediately swapping the battery already. Not to mention the Knox eFuse which means losing functionality when flashing a custom ROM. I’d argue a used Pixel is a better option, the 7 Pro can be had for relatively little money and is still a good phone.
Yeah pixels are definitely the best but they’re expensive and not as accessible globally.
Can you show an example of one from 3 years ago?
Because my experience was that most ROMs were based on AOSP/ LineageOS , which supports very few Samsung phones, and no flagships since the 2018 S10.
And even of those, many didn’t support IMS/VoLTE/VoWiFi which made them useless in any geos that didn’t have 3G fallback for voice. You can’t make or receive phone calls.
Oh I just meant rooting not custom ROMs as I’ve never tried any. Rooted android will get you very far on its own so custom ROMs often feel like an overkill tbh
You will need to add on the price for a new battery replacement on a 3 year old Sammy lol
Fairphone has been a really disappointing experiment in so-called sustainable tech over the years. They keep making new phones instead of continuing to support the old ones, which might be greenwashing. (Whereas if you got a legacy Framework 13, it’s still user-repairable and upgradable.) If they wanted to make a non-upgradable device, maybe it would have been wise to make it high-end to futureproof to work until 4G gets phased out. Fairphone still is not making their products available in the U.S., and Murena is a borderline scam company and I am genuinely shocked Fairphone works with them.
And I’ve heard their logic with the headphone jack, but I do think AUX is the lesser of two evils as removing it will just lead to more e-waste with broken bluetooth headphones that rarely last as long as good wired ones. Fairphone’s own bluetooth accessories have gotten negative reviews for their lower build quality, so Fairbuds are likely not the solution to the headphone jack problem.
For the simple fact that non-Europeans can buy them directly off the website, I would sooner recommend feature phones from Sunbeam as it also has user-replaceable batteries and you can send it in for repairs. Or just any phone used.
I’ve had to swap a lot more cabled headphones out due to cable damage than bluetooth headphones, but i also only use overear headphones, which have enough battery storage for days. Also, there are also overear headsets that are dual-useable with headphone jack or bluetooth (no noise cancelling with jack tho). Also, the issue with the replacement of headphones lies with the producers of headphones w/o changeable power source, not with the phone.
And regarding availability in the US: i have the suspicion that the average european will be much more inclined to pay the 2-300$ upmark in price just for greener tech than the average american. i’m sure that they would love to sell more phones, but it’s not ecological or economical to ship them onto a continent where 80-90% of people would either compare specs only and cannot afford to go for a more sustainable phone or - a predominantly USA thing - who revel in the fact that their choice is not ecological.
What about headphones with a replaceable cable? Higher quality cables usually last longer aswell
This is what I do and have had vastly better experiences than with Bluetooth.
Yeah, my current bluetooth headset has that option, and i keep a cable in reserve. the ones i had to replace were mostly in my teens/tweens, and were still cabled in-ear style - easier to hide under clothes and hair, but also no cable replacing if you don’t know much about how to solder. TBH, if i had to decide i would not go back to cabled headphones at all - it’s simply too limiting and irritating to deal with, especially with multiple audio sources. When listening to music the latency is not important (and has improved a lot in comparison to the humble start), and it’s been a while since i had phones which had sound quality issues because of bluetooth.
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650€ is way too expensive for an unknown phone brand with an unknown OS installed on it smh. i’d love to buy one but considering you can get a samsung for less than 500€
What are you talking about this phone is established, this is their 6th one… and the bootloader is unlocked.
You know the price is naturally higher when materials are ethically sourced, right? That’s kinda how it works…
Honestly, this might be the first fairphone which I would classify as good enough for daily use.
Compared to the Fairphone 5 it has some improvements but also a few downsides:
Pro:
Con:
My conclusion: Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice. Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong. 600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.
Regarding resolution, I’ve been using my S21 Ultra at FHD quality (2400x1080) since I got it and it has a significantly large screen. I don’t see a point in higher resolutions but I definitely appreciate higher refresh rates. Makes it feel smoother and more responsive.
If the 10hz reading implementation is good I may consider upgrading my fp4. A better camera would be nice too but if they get the power saving if that screen right then I’m interested…
Otherwise my fp4 has everything thing I need a phone to be
The extra RAM and storage probably increased the price much more than the screen upgrade.
USB 2? What a stupid choice that appears to be. Did they have any reasoning behind that?
The transfer speed over USB on mine probably doesn’t even pass USB 2 speeds anyway and I’ve had flagship phones in the past that were even slower over a cable. I guess if that’s still the case then there’s probably a good engineering argument to reduce complexity.
I just checked my phone and the up/down speed for files is roughly 40MB/s despite having a USB 3 connection.
USB 2 has a max. transfer rate (under optimal conditions) of 60MB/s, so I think when the phone storage improves a bit or the cable is a bit longer it will likely become a bottleneck.
Also note that there are other applications than transfering files which might need more bandwidth.
To be fair it really doesn’t make much of a difference but USB 3 is now the standard for a century and has been around since 2008 so I somewhere expect a 600€ phone to also have it.
Or there wasn’t good enough engineering to begin with to achieve usb 3 speeds. Seems like they should have got it right before using it as a reason to cripple the thing further.
Eh I don’t really see a necessary use case to get angry over it… Transfers over WiFi have been faster than USB on pretty much all phones for a while now, and way more convenient.
I just drop files into my phone with kde connect. It means I can even start a transfer and wonder off with the phone and the mesh network keeps it going
…fairphone.com/…/24463093338898-The-Fairphone-Gen…
Thanks for the link. I can’t necessarily agree that it’s low impact, transferring files at 2.0 speeds is brutal.
Use for all your old usb 2 ables lol
Lol nooooo, I’ve been trying to get rid of all mine! Of course since I’m an IT guy that really just means they go to the box of bygone cabling standards, but still. I want them out of my active cable stash lol
What the fuck?
I also found out a few other things that have changed:
IMHO this is kind of a downgrade in repairability as you now need custom tools (not everyone has a T5 screwdriver at home). Moving the volume buttons to the other side is also kind of weird and unexpected as most (non Apple) phones have them on the right…
<img alt="" src="https://thelemmy.club/pictrs/image/703d75f1-e343-4c94-891f-d1adca5d5e9c.png">
For real, though, what is it?
A time of flight sensor for autofocus
Was really hoping to see a Fairphone 6a. Similar to the Google Pixel Series. Just a cheap version of it. I really don’t need 120Hz, OLED or “No Bezels” all i want is big battery and a headphone jack that is all.
tbh 600$ is a series pricing.
I bought an oled phone for 200€ a few years back. What I’d really want is that every smartphone sold in the EU is open, with open drivers and OS with root access if you want to. And some investments by the EU to support open smartphone OS.
What a shithole civilization.
a few things i like:
Can we get it for 100 bucks max?
They are aware that people can’t afford to waste money on luxuries, no?
Maybe you could start a competitor that produces a similar spec phone for $100?
And with the same ethics standards
how many people care about the source of the materials?
Far too few I’m afraid
Obviously not, the poor spec choices led to the price. Perhaps the company claiming to focus on ethics could focus on ethics instead of bezel-less design and 120 Hz screens, thus bringing it in at a lower price point. Feel free to critique me now
OTG compatible is a rare feature, I have an endoscope camera that uses OTG, but not a compatible phone.
Also, no mention of a headphone jack.
One plus did the same thing. Now they’re no different then all the expensive brands out there.
love fairphone but i cant go bacl from graphene os. its so nice not having google attacjed to everything.
If you want something not Google, I used to have Ubuntu Touch on a Fairphone before Australia’s 3G network was switched off. It would have to be an older Fairphone however.
I wish I could ditch stock android but my business bank app refuses to run on e/os and I assume I’d have the same problem with graphene.
e/os was otherwise soo much better, and the increase in performance and battery life was huge.
There’s a list of bank apps that work in Grapheme. You can check for yours here
privsec.dev/…/banking-applications-compatibility-…
No headphone jack means I won’t even consider it, very sad to see it’s still the case.