cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43965516
It is worth noting that both the hardware and software of Fairphone is heavily dependent on a Chinese company T2Mobile.
For those looking to avoid both US and Chinese companies, then the Jolla phone is the way to go.
They have a “fair labor” agreement with China so that it is as ethically sourced as possible. People can’t just get anything somewhere else. They are at least trying.
They also set up an initiative around the fair extraction of cobalt.
For the specs alone it is an expensive phone, but well worth it to me.
I do somewhat miss the HD haptics from my previous Samsung.
Slab phone is solved tech already and this is the time where we can vote for more ethical solutions without really losing anything. The newest fairphone is basically just a standard android flagship.
Let’s hope the growth means the software improves. I’ve never owned such a buggy phone. I would never be able to recommend anyone I know actually buy one and it’s pretty difficult to keep using it myself. I’m really hoping the upcoming Android 16 release fixes a lot of bugs but if past Fairphones are anything to go by I’m not expecting much.
I’ve been using a FP6 for over a month and I have no idea what you could be referring to
Sometimes after using the camera, the taken photos will just disappear.
Often my screen will freeze up and the ohone becomes entirely unresponsive until I turn the screen off and on again.
Sometimes the screen won’t even turn on at all and will then suddenly unlock and register every single swipe and tap I made on the off screen registers at once.
Then sometimes when idle the phone will just randomly crash and reboot.
A genuinely awful experience I have to say.
I think you should send it in for warranty, if you still have it.
I don’t think it’s worth it. A lot of these issues are well known on the Fairphone forums so they’re clearly not specific to my phone. The second I find a suitable replacement I think I’m done. I like the idea of a Fairphone but they’re on their sixth device now and still can’t manage stable software.
tbh this seems to be a hardware issue. the software is supposed to be the same for each phone of the model, and there are a lot of them where it just works.
Weird. Which model and OS is this happening on?
Fairphone 6, stock Android 15.
Could be a hardware issue. I am running the same and haven’t seen any of that stuff. Sucks that you have though
I think you should send it in for warranty, if you still have it.
Fairphone 5 for ~ 1 1/2 years. Not a single bug encountered…
I keep reading comments like this though. Are people just expecting too much?
I don’t think it’s expecting a phone to not crash constantly and actually save the photos I’m taking.
I agree with you on that. But I’m either reading that the phone is shit or it’s perfect. Makes it very hard to decide if I should be spending 600 quid on one.
You can install iode on a Fairphone. I was using iode for years without issues. I would be surprised if it had many bugs specific to Fairphone.
That’s awesome to hear! I’m currently running iode on a OnePlus11 and the built-in firewall and metwork monitoring is awesome! I don’t even use the paid version. Maybe I’ll give fairphone a try next.
I might have to give it a try. I used CalyxOS on my old Pixel 7 and loved it so I’m hoping that will be an option once they’re back up and running.
the Jolla phone is the way to go
Are there any downsides to this? There has to be, right.
Edit: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26
I mean the downsides are it’s Linux. That’s not without it’s upsides but the downsides are huge.
Would a phone have that many downsides? I would think that a computer would have much more. Maybe the phone companies don’t play nice? I 100% don’t know what the downsides would be.
From my research, the phone part of the “phone” doesn’t work very well. Which is a pretty big caveat.
I have one. It has no issues with calling, video, ect…
It works in the states as well. And all apps too. I guess my only complaint is parts are getting hard to come by for fairphone 4. Which is why i bought the phone, to be repairable.
We were discussing Jolla, not fairphone
Oh wait sorry for some reason the interface didnt load the first comment. I dodnt see the context. Woops!
That’s the main thing you’re buying it for…
It also isn’t as performant for the price, or so I’ve heard. They’re working on it, but it isn’t up to par with big name companies.
What does that mean to you? I hear people say this all the time about various devices but I haven’t come across anything my phone couldn’t run in over a decade. I haven’t had a flagship or top tier phone in that whole time either. Are you talking about actual functionality issues or just theoretical stuff and benchmarks?
Like Android you mean?
What about it?
Android is technically doing just fine.
I don’t understand what that’s supposed to mean.
That it doesn’t have huge downsides.
Of course it does. Google is increasingly locking down the platform. In 6 months you won’t even be able to sideload software anymore without Google’s permission.
Are there any downsides to this? There has to be, right.
SailfishOS userland is proprietary software. AOSP is more open than SailfishOS. The Android compatibility layer of SailfishOS is based on AOSP, so the stack to get the most important 3rd party apps working relies as much on AOSP as any Android ROM.
Upside of SailfishOS: There is a decent chance that the upcoming Linux ARM version of Steam + Proton will run directly on that device.
I think I bought one, but I’m not sure. I might have been very drunk back then.
On the first one there were limitations on the android emulation stack. Not sure how they managed afterwards on later OS releases or how it will go with newer ones.
There will always be limitations unless massive changes occur such as Google open sourcing their Play Services as part of AOSP. MicroG has limited resources to implement compatibility.
I’ve been using a CMF Nothing with /e/OS installed by Murena for a year now and I can say it’s been a breeze.
I have had this for 4 months and love it. Previously had Samsung 25 Ultra. Hated it.
Anyone know if the coming Android restrictions will impact support?
Ok, I like that attitude, but could you go into more detail? AFAIK hardware wise the samsung will likely be better in every way I think?
It wasn’t a hardware preference, it was a privacy and control preference. Samsung is a data miner. I absolutely hate being locked out of my own shit. It doesn’t belong to you, but you’re renting their device and paying with data. I can see the calls home on my monitoring software, and now they have that MS linking SW that you can’t remove. I hate Samsung. Also, my S25 Ultra broke twice and I only got about 2 weeks use out of it total. Once, fell out of my pocket on carpet. Last, off coffee table and into floor. Those things are expensive and extremely fragile now.
Fairphone is honestly not a bad switch. It’s smaller than a flagship Samsung screen, but as ethically sourced as possible, modular so repairs are easy, open source software, privacy focused, has an ecosystem curated with care, and you can sideload all you want. I think I pay like $25 or $45 a month for unlimited everything with hotspot through the provider that supports it in the US. Also, there is no bloatware. It’s the absolute minimum needed for them to be a marketable solution in my opinion. My battery has never died in 4 months. Sometimes it uses less than 10% a day. Samsung was a nightmare constantly draining. I could go on and on.
Edit: Had S22 Ultra for 3 years before trying the dog shit S25. It took a beating, didn’t have MS link SW, but that is the device I used while developing better habits like deleting Facebook and beginning degoogling efforts. I never saw Samsung show fragility before 2025. Had several Samsungs before then too.
Well, i doubt there is much difference between the s22 and the s25 in terms of Samsung privacy
Also, you changed 3 phones in 4 years, not good on the environment.
The S22 busted, I got it fixed and still use it ocassionally for transactions. The S25 just stopped working after falling out of my pocket on the carpet, and it took hundreds of dollars to get the screen fixed. Even with a case and glass protector, it fell off a coffee table 3 days later and broke. Broke twice in about a week or two. I only bought it 6 months earlier because of tariffs in preparation for the S22 screen going out.
At this point I can fix the S25 and sell it, but have not done so yet. Now I have tools to fix phones and can try to make money from it when the economy gets worse, meaning that I’ll help repair so that people can decrease how often they buy. It’s a net good depending on what happens.
What is the claim behind “runs Google?” The Fairphone also runs Android doesn’t it? How is it any less Google than a Samsung?
it’s only the open source part? normally, google injects proprietary code into phones, usually through “google play services”? idk I’m just kinda a hobbyist
Sure, google play is a standard part of android, but you don’t need to have it, though you do need SOME kind of app installer. Samsung ofc has its own. Kindle Fires used their own and didn’t have Google Play iirc, but you could install it yourself.
I want a folding fairphone
I would just love a smaller one in general. Hate big phones. Give me a pixel 3 sized one at most.
Main reasons I stopped buying Fairphones:
- too big
- focus on fair-trade (fair enough) but not on free operating systems
- sustainability: by the time my FP2 partially broke (USB charger port), they were no longer selling spare parts
Other than that - it’s a great company and a team of good people.
I miss my pixel 4a dearly. Found it in the old phone box the other day and couldn’t believe how little it was.
interesting, they swapped their S24 with the fairphone .
If it has a MicroSD slot, 3.5mm jack, a removable battery and costs no more than £300, I’m interested! <3
I’d rather it were made in Europe too, but I understand we can’t have everything, supply chains being what they are.
P.S Bonus points if it has an IR blaster, I use the one on my current phone quite a lot, surprisingly enough!
They can’t build them that cheaply. They don’t have the same scaling effects as the big brands, and they make an effort for sustainability which is a huge problem with cheap-ass phones.
