my mum bought a fairphone 3 about 5 years ago and is extremely happy with it, so far she’s gone through one usb-c port and one battery. it looks and feels exactly like a normal phone but it pops open with just 4 screws. helping her fix it has taught me that phone manufacturers could make repairable phones easily and they all just choose not to
I recently moved from an iPhone 11 Pro to a Fairphone (Fairphone Gen 6), and it’s been a genuinely great change.
It’s made me realise how little I actually use most of the features you end up paying extra for in flagship phones. Because of that, I’m really looking forward to keeping this device for five years or more.
The only thing I occasionally miss is camera quality especially at concerts or when travelling but it’s a small trade-off rather than a deal-breaker. I’d love to see future Fairphone models improve on this.
Hopefully, Fairphone helps set a trend as more people start looking for products that are ethically sourced, repairable and built to last.
Ya I just want to browse , bank, text and msg and call.
Do they work on US networks?
I want GrapheneOS more than repairability, personally. I hope the Fairphone + GrapheneOS combination is possible some day…
The Graphene devs explicitly only support Pixels. Sticking with Graphene means continuing to give Google the profits from your hardware.
/e/OS is not bad as an alternative. The system wide ad and tracker blocking is nice.
I just bought a refurbished (as new) Pixel 9 to use Grapheneos.
Saved ~50% and didn’t pay Google.
This is a big issue that the fairphone doesn’t have its dtb open yet. It’s not easy to build ROM for it. Despite their core claim of sustainability, without addressing the blobs, it remains just a tad more convenient for green minded people. We need a full Fairphone.
They said “possible someday”, not “possible currently”.
What maskes you want Graphene over e/OS? I’m not so familiar with how they feel.
Graphene modifies AOSP for much more security.
E.g.
- you can disable USB data at a hardware level
- Receives Kernel updates even faster than Google’s phones
- uses a different memory allocator, hardened_malloc
- changes the way zygote launches apps, so ASLR actually works
- doesn’t allow apps to ptrace themselves
- disables JIT per-app
- disable network access per-app
I dont think e/OS is as security oriented, more privacy oriented
Thanks for sharing. For someone who is not so well versed in these technicalities, what does that mean for the user? That you’re more susceptible to fraud and hacking and malware?
A big thing is gOS not using JIT compiling. So, app updates are pretty slow but this kills a lot of malware exploits.
So if I were to choose graphene over eOS it would mainly be to be more protected from malware?
I bought an HMD Pulse Pro which is also made to be repairable. They have a partnership with ifixit.
Either this or a fairphone would be an instant buy from me if they were smaller. Modern phones dont fit into my pockets comfortably anymore
I 100% agree with the fact that there needs to be more phones you can easily fix but every time I see a headline like “I need a phone I can fix” I can’t help but think that y’all are incredibly clumsy and keep breaking your phones far too often 😅
No… You need a phone you can fix if you don’t break your phone’s all the time. That’s how you use the same phone for 6 years, like my pixel 4a. I haven’t upgraded to another pixel because the newer ones all have some deal breaker, no SD card slot, or a non removable battery, or no 3.5 mm headphone port.
But if you keep a phone for 6 years, they need maintenance. A speaker stops working, the battery life drops to nothing, the touch screen digitizer fails, etc. And then you need to be able to open it up.
Really glad to hear that. I’ve been using a Fairphone 5 for about 2 years now and while it’s certainly not on the level of a flagship I can’t say I miss anything. Sure, a better camera or faster processor would be nice to have, but both get the job done and are certainly not necessary for the average user. Samsung and Apple would have us believe that we all need a DLSR camera strapped to a supercomputer in our pocket in order to swipe on Instagram and take the occasional selfie. I’d gladly trade that in to make the world a tiny bit better by not supporting slavery and not wasting resources.
If it supported GrapheneOS I would be using one too.
every post about fairphone, there’s always one comment like this
The choice of only supporting Pixels comes from GrapheneOS’s side, not Fairphone. Fairphone got some great ROMs support, and even have an official partnership with one of them (e/OS).
I love Fairphones, but GrapheneOS developers are very clear on why they son’t support phones other than Pixels. If other phones complied with those requirements, they would support them. I really hoped the OEM they’re working with to support from another brand would be Fairphone, but the most educated guess I’ve seen is Motorola
GrapheneOS developers are quite dickish about what they are willing to implement and how they treat their users. They work under the assumption that GrapheneOS is for people afraid of being hacked (like actively targeted by state level actors) and refuse to add anything that in their view compromises security. So for example they refuse to add pattern unlock because they think it’s less secure than PIN which is silly because I can just use ‘0000’ PIN which is as insecure as any pattern. It’s the same with supporting other phones. Personally I’m not worried about police trying to hack my phone, I just want deGoogled system with tracker protection. GrapheneOS devs don’t care. It’s all or nothing with them. I would recommend iode over Graphene to anyone not as paranoid as the devs.
They can be dickish about several things, but they will implement whatever they want, it’s their project LOL! They actually develop a mobile operating system for people afraid of being hacked, and with the utmost security in mind.
The thing with pattern unlock is that it is inherently less secure than the other options, despite the fact that you can use one of the other options in bad ways (like the ‘0000’ PIN). Expecting them to change this is using the lowest common denominator possible, which is against their philosophy.
You do have other options if you want to deGoogle, like LineageOS, that supports a much wider range of devices (altough the extent of deGoogling can be limited). It’s good we have one ROM (among others) with paranoid devs - we have more options
That’s exactly what I said. GrapheneOS devs target very specific group of users and most privacy focused users will be served better by other ROMs. They can do whatever they want but they clearly don’t care about wider community and I think wider community shouldn’t care about them as much as it does.
Yes but also no, the fairphone doesn’t meet the extensive list of requirements required to maintain the goal of GrapheneOS - List of requirements for devices
Some of those requirements are really hard to get for non-Google devices. EOM don’t get updates as early as Google engineers gets. It takes time to validate everything, especially since their don’t control their own hardware.
Those requirements are more a way to not appear like dicks by telling that they’ll only supports Pixels.
I’m running e/os on my FP6 and it’s a great de googled alternative!
Yeah unfortunate that it doesn’t, I imagine the market overlap for those two things is high
The situation won’t improve until some big company goes full “IBM PC” thing with open AT, ISA, VESA, etc tier standards for phones.
This phone is better just because you can open the case. Spare parts are still provided by a single company. Not a big step ahead.
Better than nothing though…
Better than Nothing though.
With all respect, I still think an iPhone is a better chance at having spare parts many years ahead. I am confident I can find some spare parts of iPhone 4S. Would that hold for FairPhone or a similar phone? If not, the benefit is an illusion. Unless, I think, you can produce that part yourself.
But an iPhone 4S nowadays is completely unusable, it’s impossibile to run a browser that doesn’t use a ten years old engine. For reference, a galaxy Nexus from the same age could run android 6 (custom ROM, otherwise android 4.3) and can still run most modern apps.
If you can find parts for the iphone 4s it’s because some warehouse is still full of them, not because Apple is still manufacturing them if needed
Doesn’t matter how many spare parts you can get if the device simply refuses to function after replacing them.
First party spare parts or third party sketchy spare parts?
Spare part availability comes partly from the popularity of a phone, and iPhones were pretty popular.
Fairphone is just starting to get some steam, so third party spare part may start appearing in the future. same for used parts.Fairphones got a lot better lately. I got both the 4, 5, and now gen 6, and the latest one feels like a good phone, unless the FP4 which is a brick in comparison. Still lacks several Flagship feature (wireless charging, amongs other), but as a mid-range phone it is quite good.
And the repeatability is great. I repaired my FP4 once (usb-c port), and it was easy as heck.
It’s great to hear, thanks for the feedback!
I meant any spare parts, so in your terms they are sketchy spare parts, I guess. Yet, it’s better than nothing though.
My primary concern is the software part though. I have plenty of phones that never broke, but all of them hit the software wall and it was just easier to buy a newer model.
With unofficial parts you can get anything, from very good parts to outright dangerous ones (especially batteries).
The problem with IPhone is their association system (which is illegal in the EU BTW). Understandable with those dangerous part on the market, but far too overcharging. They could just warn you during boot or something like that.
As for the software wall, it is where Fairphones shines. Even when the official support ends, the custom ROMs keeps updating for a while. IPhones are great on that aspect too, Samsungs are OK, but can’t say for other brands.
Honestly, how’s the camera on the 6? I’ve been pixel mostly because I want to take pictures of my son without regretting later.
I’m okay with the camera on the 6, but no it’s not as good as a Pixel, nor does it open and take pictures as quickly.
I’m not that much into photos, so I can’t really judge. In my book, it is OK.
If you want to get good pictures, nothing will ever beat a dedicated camera, even a mid-range one is way better than a smartphone, even an high-end one, due to the size limitations.
That’s not true. You can still get dedicated cameras that are much worse.
Low-range, yes. Mid-range, no. As soon as you get de decent quality camera, given you know how to use it, you’ll always get better result than smartphones.
It all boils down to drivers, if those are not open source (and they usually are not), then phone upgradability depends on them
Yes and no, Fairphone has actually managed to reverse engineer some of the drivers for its old phones to provide android upgrades years after the component manufacturers have dropped support. The Fairphone 2, for instance, received a little over 7 years of support and 4 major version upgrades, skipping one on the way. For the Fairphone 5, they’ve promised 10 years of software support, and judging by their track record, I believe them. They also open source as much as they can and even give instructions on how to build the OS yourself.
Of course, open source drivers would be better, but that doesn’t exist at the moment, unfortunately. At this point, Fairphone is one of the companies that comes closest (with Shiftphone being a close rival).
Fingers crossed
That said, I like FP very much, but it’ll eventually hit the software block.
That’s exactly the issue, and the bigger one. Theoretically, Google Pixel 1 could be upgraded software-wise with the newest Android, while the hardware can work longer. So, I’m not really interested in repairability (except the battery replacement, obviously) as much as in software longevity.
My iPhone 4s is still going strong, even despite numerous falls. The software though, it made it useless. I use one as a digital voice recorder sometimes, but that’s the only idea I had. It can shoot nice pictures too (in a bright daylight), and be a nice smartphone for a kid. (Because it’s very limited, and also small, and also cheap.) But the software made it useless.
Indeed, this is really infuriating. They are forcing use to throw away perfectly working hardware in name of profits.
Well they finally delivered a decent camera. That’s what made me buy one. It’s a step down from a Pixel 8 Pro but not a huge one.
I’ve been using a Fairphone 4 for a couple weeks, and I like it so far. This is the way phones should be made. I eventually found replacements for most of my Google stuff. It’s just sad that my government burned our bridges with trade, so any replacement parts I import will be expensive.
I want a Fairphone quite badly as my old s21 ultra is starting to reach the end of it’s useful life. But it not working on Verizon is an automatic dealbreaker because they are the only carrier that works in the rural areas I am always working in. Tmobile is next to useless, so looks like I am still stuck with stupid network lockin.
So long as it’s affordable. I’m not paying more than £250 for a mobile phone, even that’s on the high end of what I can justify for a phone.
I’m stuck using Chinese brands if I want a good, affordable phone, but they have so many intentional software issues.
Nothing’s perfect, but if I could get a better phone that doesn’t lock down stuff (it’s my phone after all, I’m in charge of my own life), and if it were at an affordable price point - unlike these crazies that think £1000 is a reasonable price for a phone (!!!), I’d jump on it <3
The fairphone is always going to be more expensive than other phones because they ensure fair compensation of workers
yep, the “fair” isn’t exclusive to the customer.
