I don’t like smartphones. I use a dumbphone.
But this is a wonderful initiative.
Great idea, but will never take down here in south America
People know that all these import parts and replacements are not exactly easy to pay for, even less to find. They need a cheap reliable phone that will at least handle day to day for years
I mean come on, the average cellphone user here is still using the equivalent of a Moto G2 or Samsung J2 and thats stretching it.
An S8 is still seen like luxury in here. And I’m not even going into iphones.
2nd hand pixels beats any midrange phone at the same price. Sent some with GOS on them to a friend in Nicaragua. Quite instantly he broke the screen , bought new screen on ebay that shipped directly to bumfuck nowhere on milestone address. But yea with fair phone I understand the issue
the average cellphone user here is still using the equivalent of a Moto G2 or Samsung J2
I guess it depends on where you live in LATAM. Most of my friends and acquaintances own newer iPhones and fancy Androids. I’m the only one stuck with a G8. 😅
Yeah most people in LATAM is poor as fuck
You are right, but people lost their minds for smartphone war race, where most of changes were camera related (still shitty) and sort of fomo.
Still like the idea behind it and wish there was support for GrapheneOS (going even further than /e/o) as well as better camera quality but this is the price we have to pay for flexibility and sustainability I think. Like the concept here but never tried to go with one so far.
Went to buy one but they don’t sell to USA any more. THAT will tell off tRump.
Fairphone 6 approaching? They are great, the project is amazing and I wish every brand would be like them in terms of caring about users and environment
I do own a Fairphone 5 as my new company phone, I used an iPhone 13 mini before. Sadly I have to say that I don’t agree with the “they are great”, while a Fairphone 5 is a totally capable and usable phone it lacks a lot of the lifestyle appeal that a modern smartphone brings. The Fairphone is quite laggy, the camera is not very good and since Google focusses a lot on the pixel line the stock android experience on the Fairphone lacks a lot of comfort features. I would still recommend it for everyone willing to look beyond these downsides and just uses their phone for communication. Sadly that’s not the majority of people
I’ve owned the 4, for a couple of years. Was really excited to get one.
Parts have been unavailable for a long time when I needed them. The battery is pretty dead after 2 years meanwhile my pixel which is about 5 years old still going strong. The os is the buggiest experience I’ve ever had, sluggish, going from portrait the landscape kills UI formatting if it switches to power save it’ll skip a video. Boot loops constantly.
Never again I’m afraid it’s neat I could fix things with it so quickly but they fail hard past that.
Example navigation buttons have just covered the voyager ui
Navigation buttons covering the Voyager UI is an Android/Voyager bug. It has happened on my last two phones.
It works fine on all my test devices.
I just got it to happen by flipping my phone back and forth
Weird! Rotating is working fine for me.
It doesn’t happen all the time. I’m currently on an Android 14 device and it seems to happen sometimes when the screen rotates to vertical. Sometimes toggling the orientation by rotating my phone sideways and back fixes it, sometimes not. It’s very inconsistent.
Just switch ROM?
Def something I need to do
Wow. I got the 4 at launch and honestly never had any problems except calls get fucked up more frequently recently. Didn’t know they stopped selling parts, what’s the point?
They didn’t stop selling parts they were just unavailable which when you need them as you say defeats the point.
That’s a distinction without a difference. If things are consistently out of stock, they’re not actually selling them.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I believe the F6 is likely expected by autumn and was considering this as my next. I often wondered about parts as time goes by, as I suspected the company wouldn’t want a huge inventory of spares and the costs involved. If I do get one, I’ll likely buy a spare screen at the least.
The UI stuff is disappointing, however maybe not a deal breaker as I’m trying to reduce my usage. Perhaps a buggy smartphone could be a decent dumbphone alternative.
Can even get it pre-installed with /e/OS to minimise snooping by Google
Better option is calyx like the others supported, so will be supported or ported later I assume . GOS for me but 2nd is calyx in my book
You can, they partner with a mother company
Fairphone don’t sell replacement mainboards, presumably to stop people building phones from parts but they look very serviceable in other respects.
The hardware is good and I like the idea in principle but Fairphone’s support and software QA is dreadful and you need to hope you never need the former because of problems with the latter. My FP5 was bricked by an update they pushed out and after six weeks of trying to get a solution from their support (four weeks of which they didn’t respond at all) I ended up claiming on insurance and buying a Pixel. According to the forums this problem is far from unique to me.
I’ve been running FP4 for about 2 years now. the software bug fix cycle leaves something to be desired.
for example, the first 16 months of my ownership had every single phone call screaming at me. I mean, the volume was loud enough it was quieter than the speaker phone.
the did eventually fix that bug, but not two months later there’s a bug that breaks my running processes button(square at the bottom). as of right now there’s no fix other than using the OEM shitty launcher. so, 5-10 times a day I have to go to settings > apps > default apps > launcher > bliss launcher > running apps > settings > launchers > my launcher > close what I just had to use > go back to what I was just doing.
I enjoy the phone, don’t get me wrong. I just wish they performed better software testing on their own hardware.
I got the phone for the ethics, reparability, and privacy. I’ll never go back.
Get on LineageOS.
Did this using iodéOS which is a LineageOS distro with more degoogling and os level adblock and filtering build in. Works very well and has been stable for about the 4 heads that its running on my FP4.
wasn’t that the one where the founder kinda lost his shit publicly?
No clue. But its large project. I’ve been using it since of was CyanoGenMod.
Please get through the FCC and open sales in the USA before Fairphone 6 is made.
I really don’t want to buy another unrepairable phone.
I really want this to come to the US as well…
Is this phone also more secure?
The problem we are running into right now is Apple and Google are colluding with the US government over fascism and they are supporting their Nazi regime
They have all the power and they can change all of these services overnight, they can track you and everything and you will have no idea and no way to get rid of it
We really need an open replacement. Phones are now used for everything
Is this phone also more secure?
Probably not.
Apple & Google have spent considerable amounts of time building out hardware security infrastructure for their products that I find it extremely unlikely Fairphone would have been able to match.
For example, the popular alternative Android OS GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixels, because: (Emphasis added by me)
“There are currently no other devices meeting even the most basic security requirements while running an alternate OS. GrapheneOS is very interested in supporting a non-Pixel brand, but the vast majority of Android OEMs do not take security seriously. Samsung takes security almost as seriously as Google, but they deliberately cripple their devices when unlock them to install another OS and don’t allow an alternate OS to use important security features. If Samsung permitted GrapheneOS to support their devices properly, many of their phones would be the closest to meeting our requirements. They’re currently missing the very important hardware memory tagging feature, but only because it’s such a new feature”
If even Samsung, the only other phone brand on the market they consider close to meeting their standards, doesn’t support every modern hardware security feature, and deliberately cripples their security for alternate OS’s, as a multi billion dollar company, I doubt Fairphone has custom-built hardware security mechanisms for their phones to the degree that Google has.
Well yeah, because why would phone companies care? Consumers buy devices based on camera and display quality, not for security, privacy, etc. I just had a chat w/ a coworker about a Chinese device with an incredible camera and big battery, and I highly doubt it does anything but the bare minimum for security. It’s a cool piece of hardware, but a no-go for anyone that cares even a little about security updates.
I have a Pixel device because it has a long SW support cycle (Google promises at least 7 years), and I use GrapheneOS because it removes Google’s spyware crap. I’m not married to GrapheneOS or Pixel devices, I just need something where the software support will last at least longer than my desire to keep the device (about 4-5 years for me). I’ve ditched each of my last phones largely because they ran out of security update support, and that sucks.
I’d prefer a Linux phone w/ decent security features, but they don’t meet my minimum standards for things working (just need phone features to work properly, don’t need apps). The moment a Linux phone comes out than actually works properly and has reasonable security, I’ll switch. The FairPhone could be that, but it’s not, so I don’t have one.
how is pixel with graphene os ? does it completely remove all google spyware shit? or do they have some sort of hardware backdoor?
the reason I ask is because i have a motorola right now and it pisses me off immensely … there is this notification they keep pushing, “Activate Live Lock screen” which i don’t even know what it is, some background pictures crap. I uninstalled this app, but the notification remains. Like it’s not there always but keeps coming back every few days. this has been going on for months and i got so pissed i decided to contact support and complain there. they said, something along the lines of, we can connect remotely and do it for you. ( like disable, but they can’t disable because i went through every option on the phone, it cannot be disabled, it’s just bloatware) but their “we can do it for you remotely” got me thinking, backdoors, backdoors everywhere.
now i want a new phone lol and one that can support a custom firmware but installing custom firmwares on pretty much all phones is a nightmare.
but i also hate buying anything google, hence my question.
Understand your worries. I can say that GOS is the gold standard of privacy phones , nothing beats it. Calyx comes in 2nd. A new install of graphene has a browser, pdf viewer sms app and that’s about it. Use as you wish , with secured bootloader and zero google stuff. And I think it’s the easiest install of any , anyone can do it. And 2nd hand phones are available
thanks, this sounds great. i’ve installed a few custom firmwares but like a decade ago and i wanted to install one on my motorola recently and was just perplexed at the complexity of it all, i might be getting old. i mean i can follow instructions, but just so many things can go wrong, don’t do this, softbrick, don’t do that, hardbrick … honestly, the instructions were well written but unorganized a bit, just put me off.
i think i might like GOS tho, sounds great and 2nd hand pixel 8 or so are cheap enough so i’ll probably give it a go.
Yea a lot have changed in 10 years in the cat and mouse game. GOS is a completely different thing. Want to unlock or unlock bootloader on a Motorola = 2 pages instructions in different xda threads. On a pixel? fastboot oem unlock done. And that’s just because I’m old school , GOS have a webinstaller were I think you don’t even need to touch the terminal.
how is pixel with graphene os ?
Good?
By default, there’s no Google Play Services or any Google apps whatsoever. What you do have is a handful of utilities and a minimal app store that gives you the option to install Google Play Services and a few other apps. Or you can use the browser (Vanadium, a Chromium fork w/ some security options enabled) to download an alternative app store (F-Droid, Aurora, etc). They recently added Accrescent to the built-in app store as well, and I see 12 apps in that app store. I think by default there are 6 apps installed? (Messaging, PDF Viewer, Vanadium, Info, Auditor, and the App Store). I can’t remember which I had to install manually since I set it up a few months ago.
So yes, I think they thoroughly remove Google’s stuff from the default install.
Most Android apps seem to work (i.e. installed through Aurora), though a few have issues without Google Play Services running or one of the security features. I use a separate profile for the apps I need that don’t work w/o Google Play services, and I switch profiles as needed. That way I don’t have Google Play Services running at all unless I actually need it.
alright thanks for the extensive answer, this sounds great. i like the two profiles setup. and i didn’t even know about aurora store ( i am out of the loop i know :) ) looks like this could be my next phone, and previous gen looks great enough, i don’t need the latest bells and whistles, pixel 8 would be great.
Cool!
I’m happy to answer any other questions.
BTW, Aurora is just an alternative frontend to the Play Store, it has the same apps, but you can use an anonymous profile instead of logging in with a Google account.
Agree. Calyx is also an option when GOS support ends , then lineage etc. Wish we had good working Linux phones but I have high hopes my pixel 7 will be my last android
I used a Fairphone 4 with /e/ and it was good. Not great, but useable. I expect the hardware bugs I ran into (using the camera only worked like 20 times before the phone needed a restart, Bluetooth randomly not working) to be ironed out by now. Currently on an old Samsung and it is more solid, but I also liked the environmentalism with the fairphone. Anyone with a Fairphone 5 and something like a glucose sensor thats in constant use?
I wish they could implement the parts of the Pixel phones that allow GrapheneOS to be used.
What parts are these? I’ve always wondered what this was about, why the pixel was the only phone that could support GrapheneOS
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
So, graphene could be put on those phones if the devs wanted to do it, but it would be less secure since the bootloader would remain unlocked.
Also, supporting a small line a phones is probably infinitely easier than a range, of devices, but it would be nice to have another option. Especially now that the Fairphone pice is reasonable.
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
That is not the case. SHIFTmq, Motorola and Fairphone allow the bootloader to be relocked with a custom rom. There are many requirements the Fairphone lacks for GrapheneOS, but relocking the bootloader is not one of them.
Thanks! I guess what I read before was either old or just wrong.
The Fairphone can be locked after flashing a custom rom. /e/-OS is officially supported. You can even buy it from them with /e/ preinstalled. iode-OS also works. I don’t know about Graphene OS, but tbh, I don’t see the benefit of Graphene OS for the average user. /e/ has built in privacy features, is google-free and runs MicroG as alternative to Google Play Services. Most apps run fine. You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
I’ve been using Fairphone 5 with /e/-OS for over a year and love it.
/e/ has built in privacy features
/e/ uses a for profit 3rd party for unencrypted backups. That alone should be a big red flag.
is google-free and runs MicroG
So it runs google. MicroG just limits what data is sent to google.
You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
not if the app attempts to verify its license through the play store. you need microg for that, or patch it
It a perfectly usable Android for the average user. Everything works out of the boy. If it is not for you, fine. Buy a Pixel.
for the average user.
So we are talking about an average user, who
- fully understands the appeal of a degoogled Phone
- Willingly spends extra money for a fairphone
- is able to migrate away from google services to /e/'s services
- Is willing and able to troubleshoot any problems that MicroG has
- is willing to fix not working banking apps
- but somehow can’t use a simple web installer from Calyx
Tell me, is this average user in the room with us right now?
Everything works out of the boy.
So does (and does not) with Calix or Graphene
Buy a Pixel.
I think you don’t get what I’m talking about.
-It takes a base level of understanding why you would buy a Fairphone (or any degoogled phone)
- it takes a base level of understanding phones to be able to use a degoogled one
- If you already have that knowledge, you might as well just take an extra 5 minutes and use the web installer for calyx since it is literally the same AND has less vendor lockin than /e/
Edit: You want an average user friendly ROM? Just use Lineage for gods sake.
Exactly. Even if I wanted /e/, I would re-flash when I got it, because the reason I want /e/ is because I don’t trust the OEM.
It’s the same way with desktops, I see zero value in buying a laptop w/ Linux pre-installed because I’m just going to reinstall when I get it anyway.
In 4 years I have never (and will never) used any service from /e/. There is no vendor lock whatsoever. That’s fully optional.
Points 3, 4 and 5 in your list are moot IMHO.
Also
It takes a base level of understanding why you would buy a Fairphone
It doesn’t really. “Phone is repairable and X can help me”, “they pay the makers fair wages” are not really complex value propositions that require some (technical) understanding.
The point of /e/ and similar distributions is that you can buy a phone with it (average user will never reflash) and just have a phone that doesn’t use Google (it does, for the amount that doesn’t require you to do extra technical stuff and have a sane user experience at the same time).
That said, calyx seems a great alternative and so are iode. I think the advantages of one over the other (for my brief search) are quite small.
I support all people around me when it comes to tech. I help them with their laptops and phones. If I get the chance to install Linux or de-googled Android, I do it, knowing that everything will work as they expect.
There is no baseknowlege required. People will buy what is readily available to them. A brand new Fairphone with e-OS preinstalled is readily available to them. And if the user experience is basically the same, they don’t even need care that their phone is more private.
/e/-OS is based on Lineage, with some stuff pre-installed to make it easier for users. I don’t get your problem. It is basically a distro. You are saying “why use Ubuntu when they can use Arch”. Doesn’t make sense at all.
lemmy is toxic as fuck. Same shit like every other site.
Well even graphene os still runs a version of Android. So there is still some goggle code in that. But ripping oit google play, amd various goggle services means goggle doesn’t track you with those. Yeah if you still ise gmail and log into toutube every day they will.
there is still some goggle code in that.
But that code is open source, and it has been verified that it dosent track you.
e-OS is said to have the worst security of pretty much all Android distributions. Dunno if this is a fact, but apparently the upgrade schedules are not great.
They are usually a month behind
https://www.kuketz-blog.de/weshalb-grapheneos-aktuell-nur-google-pixel-geraete-unterstuetzt/
(From an Interview - The relevant parts are in English)
Security seems not easy.
I mean, you could use CalyxOS
It dosent have such things as 2 factor pin auth for fingerprint, but its the closest to Graphene
Not quite the same. The big thing with GrapheneOS is it can run the actual Google services, but sandboxed. Organic Maps is better than Google Maps in everyway, but it’s routes are so much worse because it has no traffic into to go on. It’s an anticompetitive network effect, but it’s hard to fight without law makers.
Edit: Ok, it is good, but the main thing I like about is the maps can be setup to be as good as ones you’d manually navigate by. A bit like UK’s Ordnance Survey maps.
Organic Maps is better than Google Maps in everyway
It’s really not, here are a few more:
- no reviews for businesses - that’s a huge reason people use Maps
- you have to manually download maps you want to see, and repeat w/ every update
- lots of missing info, especially where I live, and especially businesses
- no satellite images or street view - OSM has it though
That said, I use Organic Maps almost exclusively, and I put in the time to add missing info where I can. I’ve probably added hundreds of places for my area. Basically, when I go somewhere new, if it’s not in OSM, I take a few pictures and add the place when I get home, and I’ll put in the effort to enter hours, phone number, etc from their website. It’s a pain, but hopefully someone down the line appreciates that.
All of that info exists in GM though, so the only reason for me to use OM is stubbornness. OM is fantastic, but it’s hardly “better than Google Maps in every way,” in fact it’s probably worse in most ways. However, I prefer it and will keep using it because I refuse to use Google services.
Ok, I accept all that, but the maps just are better to me. I grew up with the UK Ordnance Survey maps, and that’s kind of what I want from my maps.
I’ll amend.
I’m using this phone right now and I love it. it feels solid. Im using a degoogled ROM and it just works, there seems to be a lot of people pressing for graphene os specifically and discrediting the phone for what it is. its so easy to take apart and cheaply repair its great. it’s perfect for folk who want a decent smartphone that you dont have to worry about being thrown around. sure it’s not perfect but it is still a very good
I have been shopping for a rom for my FP. Which are you running?
calyx os is what I use
I use CalyxOS on mine. It has microG all working by default so if you need that sort of thing it’s probably the easiest way to get it up and running
What’s the cost to replace a cracked screen?
You can buy the OLED display as a spare part for 100 EUR on the official website. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?category=4&filters=31
Yeah, that plus labor is 80% of what I typically pay for a whole brand new phone… I know why it is this way, but it really is this way and that makes it very hard for low volume players to enter the market.
Smartphones of this price would be low quality, impossible to self epair, and very likely made with very poor social and environmental conditions. It’s the opposite of what Fairphone does, so the comparison is not possible.
The headphone jack user to lemmy user ratio is apparently nearly 1:1
Yeah, Lemmy is full of people stuck in their way and insisting older tech is better because they refuse to update
Sometimes older tech is better. I have both Bluetooth and wired headphones, and I prefer the wired ones. In fact, I’m wearing wired headphones right now, because my laptop has a jack. I can’t do that on my phone, because my phone doesn’t have a jack (and I refuse to use a dongle), so I use inferior Bluetooth headphones.
I would much rather have a slightly larger phone with worse water proofing if it means I can have a headphone jack. I have never had an issue with water ingress, or with a slightly thick phone, but I have had an issue w/ my Bluetooth headphones dying and not being able to plug in my wired headphones. In fact, my Bluetooth headphones have the option for a wire, so I just need to plug in a cable to keep listening if the batteries die (fairly often when traveling).
but I have had an issue w/ my Bluetooth headphones dying and not being able to plug in my wired headphones
and I refuse to use a dongle
Sounds like your problem was self-made. I use wired headphones flawlessly without the 3.5mm jack and reap all the benefits of both worlds, because the older tech isnt actually superior
I’m going to lose the dongle, that’s the problem. If it’s built-in to the device, there’s nothing to lose.
What’s the benefit of losing a popular port? I don’t need my phone to be waterproof, nor do I care if my phone is slightly thicker. So it just feels like a downgrade.
Only 400€ to go until I can afford it.
Aaaand it’s impossible to buy in the US. Even if USians want to do the right thing, we’re not permitted.
Import? Buy one on ebay?
Of course, not being a billionaire is illegal here.
