Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves - This sustainable smartphone aims to reduce global electronic waste::In a bid to reduce global electronic waste, Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves. What makes its technology so sustainable?
When I couldn’t repair my Nokia and replace the 5 € USB-Port because there happened to be a small crack in the screen (of course you have to remove the glued on screen to accese the innards), I caved and bought a Fairphone 3.
Worst decision ever. The stupid thing refuses to break to let me even use the better repairability.
you got me
almost like a toyota, outdated and often too expensive for what it can do but will last forever.
too expensive for what it can do but will last forever
As far as I’m concerned, this is contradictory; if something is going to last forever, and not ridiculously overpriced, then it’s worth the premium.
i think it’s worth the price, but some people don’t think as far. they just compare specs and say “this chinesium phone scores 2 points better in some benchmark and costs 200€” not knowing why it’s that cheap in the first place. old toyotas are still worth something for a reason.
I mean, they’re not even that expensive to begin with.
Agreed. They’re statement was very subjective, so it’s kind of hard to argue with that metric.
You say that but there are Toyotas with 100k miles and 15 years old selling for 4k off MSRP of a brand-new vehicle. Which is to say way above original MSRP.
In pure maintenance consumable items alone - it’s a bad deal. It’s so a bad deal when you take consideration that new cars can have half the interest rate of a new one.
Can confirm, nothing broke yet :(
I was so ready to go hard on this comment, you got me there pal.
Ironically Nokia* now make highly repairable phones** again
* Specifically, the company that bought the Nokia Phones brand
** Only their G series
I had the same thing with the FP2. I even got a cheap spare one from ebay to use for spares. Both are still fine. One is now an alarm clock and the other one is a gps for my bike
Fairphone existed for years now, and the title makes it seem like as if they made a new phone just now that is repairable.
Yeah, the Fairphone 2 is 7 years old and you can still buy all the important replacement parts directly from their store.
Does it still get OS updates?
Yeah, they’re touting this as if it isn’t old news. Yes, the phones are cool and yes, America can’t have them. What else.
Kind of. It doesn’t run Android with the Play Store so it’s a pretty different experience.
I have the Aurora store on my /e/os so I can get apps that are on Play Store too. Haven’t noticed any difference in experience except that well, no Play Store is installed.
But isnt /e/OS an android system too? Always wondered what stops a person from not just installing lineageOS on these phones? Basically did what i did with mine lol
You can easily do that indeed. You can even install the Play Store with microg if you really want to.
Yeah, I was considering getting one and installing CalyxOS but I don’t like that they removed the headphone jack. It’s even more sad in their own words
“we want to reduce e-waste by forcing everyone to throw out their wired headphones and buy a new set of wireless ones every couple of years when the battery goes dead”
Id need to look it up, but i think it had to do with it costing them too much to add it since their phones are made with components that are abundand and wanted by phone makers so it can be as cheap as possible for the consumer.
However, with headphone jacks dissapearing in phones they cant garantee that, nor provide the years of support they stand for. I’d like my headphone jack too, and use my laptop’s extensively at work, but i can understand their choice
It’s bs. They’re making excuses. Sony has a headphone jack and microsd slot in their newest phone. Samsungs made galaxy phones thin and waterproof with a headphone jack. They’re copying Apple to make money and they know it. I would pay their $800 if they show they care about this issue. They can still sell their bluetooth devices which will still work even if it has a headphone jack. If they truly want to save the environment, why make people throw out perfectly good earbuds.
the main complaint from me is still the headphone jack. they faced insane backlash when they released the FP4. i thought this company cares about the user as well as the environment. but it seems they didn’t realize that people want actual features (like wireless charging, the headphone jack, or a usable battery size).
don’t get me wrong, i own a Fairphone 4 and love using it. but making these mistakes 2 times in a row now is just pathetic.
Not including wireless charging IS caring about the environment. Wireless charging is extremely wasteful and inefficient.
It’s inefficient for energy, but it’s efficient at saving charging cords. My girlfriend goes through one lightning cord a year.
A phone only needs like 5 watt hours a day max, which is a cost of 365 * $0.08 * 0.005 = $0.15 a year at local prices
I feel like having to replace charging cords is an Apple issue specifically.
I’m horrified by the amount of time my wife had to replace her Mac charger because the cord was breaking.
I don’t think I ever had to replace the cord on any of my laptop, replacing the charger because the cord is breaking has never been a consideration before.
I’ve found that breaking cables is a personal issue. I still have an old usb Xbox 360 controller for pc gaming from when I owned an xbox. My partner has destroyed cables for laptops, hairdryers, headphones in less than 12 months.
Some cables are objectively worse than others (macbook chargers I’m looking at you) but a modicum of care generally is enough to make sure they last without too much hassle.
I work retail, people come in with broken Apple cables more than almost any other cable.
Surprisingly these people are also often very picky with getting the Apple-Branded cables as well, even USB C
Literally any cable other than Apples will not break like that.
I’ve had the same 100w tb3 cable for 4 years. It charges all of my devices and gets a ton of use.
Wireless charging is still a little gimmicky imo. It has only come in useful when my friend’s iPhone needed to mooch some charge off of my phone.
The headphone jacks are pointless to include bc they’re so horribly underpowered. USBc headphones or a dongle is 10x better.
Bought a pixel 6 after breaking my oneplus 6t.
I absolutley love wireless charging. Its so good i wouldnt want another phone without it. No abuse on the usbc port which is something i definately damaged on previous phones. Just me being clumsy and knocking it off the table with the cord plugged in still.
My experience anyway. Love it
I have only had one charging cable “break” (the cable sheath separated from the plug sheath, it was still usable and had no exposed wires since they all had their own additional sheath) since I stopped using Apple/Samsung phones as my daily driver.
I think the issue is crappy cables that are then super expensive so that they can continue milking you for every penny you are worth.
it’s efficient at saving charging cords.
How does the wireless charger connect to power again?
You don’t need to replug it daily. Usually the cord doesn’t break, actually, it’s the connector at the end of the cord
Then don’t use it. people who want to switch expect basic features like this for double the price.
“we want to reduce e-waste by forcing everyone to throw out their wired headphones and buy a new set of wireless ones every couple of years when the battery goes dead”
The hypocrisy enrages me here
I’ve been using the same pair of Sony XB50AP wired headphones for over 7 years now. It works fine (although not great) even after going through couple washing machine cycles. Meanwhile my wireless WH1000XM3 broke after 2 years of use.
Also I own an Android with no headphone jack, so I have to use a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle. And I can feel it’s slowly destroying the type C port’s connectors on my phone everytime I plug the dongle in, making the headphone connection sometimes not even recognizeable on my phone.
The WH-1000XM3 have repairable batteries. You can buy them online, and pop them in after undoing two screws
Thanks for the headsup but mine broke because of something wrong inside the device, probably something wrong with the pcb (might be water corrosion or something). Plus the headband on WH1000XM3 is just so easy to broke. I’ve replace both side of the headband just because it’s designed very poorly.
There are wireless earbuds with repairable batteries. Just not Fairbuds, which have soldered batteries (LOL!)
forcing everyone to use a high quality 9$ dongle DAC with their wired headphones
Ftfy
Which you have to carry around separately, which comes at a convenience cost and so you’re more likely to just go for wireless ones (I know I have after the headphone jack wore out in my phone)
And also not charge at the same time unless you get a well shielded dac dongle with a usb female which also allows charging and supports thunderbolt, which is another piece of future e-waste that you’ll have to carry around in addition to your phone and 3.5mm only dongle, as the unconnected wire will get caught on your hand if you try to use your phone
Your idea of a fix makes as much sense as apple calling selling you 90% of a new device fixing your device - let’s not allow degenerate business practices just because a brand like to think of themselves as green and ethical, it’s anti-consumer and anti-environment, no ifs, no buts.
My nice head phones came with a case, I usually keep them in that case. The dongle fits inside with them.
Unfortunately my previous phone’s headphone jack was underpowered and didn’t work well with my headphones so I used to dongle despite having a jack.
This is the unfortunate reality with most phones that do include the headphone jack (RIP LG)
The problem is there is no competition here. I’d love to see several repairable smartphones with slightly different features that create some competition. For example something with a max 5.5” screen and only a single camera.
Yes, absolutely. fairphone themselves say they want to create competition by making the fairphones. sadly, no one has really fully committed to this.
Actually, there is at least one other company specializing in sustainable / repairable electronics - besides Fairphone - I’m aware of.
Check out Shiftphone: Their new Shiftphone 8 (still under development / construction) will be a pretty solid deal with a reasonable price-performance ratio - already pre ordered mine and very excited for final delivery in March.
… Their previous models as well as spare parts, etc. are also still available through their shop.
I can’t speak to your other requirements but the Nokia brand has a couple of repairable phones as a result of an ifixit partnership.
As Linux Phones they’re a bit more niche but the Librem 5 and the Pine Phone/Pro are very repairability focussed
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Usable battery size? The FP5 has a 4200mah battery which is about 500mah less than the s23 plus which is pretty reasonable and I’ve found it very usable for day to day use. Wireless charing is a pointless gimmick personally and I don’t see the utility of it. Lack of a headphone jack is a pain though.
Wireless charging is a good alternative to have when your usb-c port breaks.
Of course, with Fairphone is is less of an issue since replacing those is like 15€.
I thought the same of wireless charging before I tried it. I now have a charger on my desk that I sit my phone on whenever I’m there. Charging isn’t something I ever even think about now. It just is charged.
I’ve just never had that be a problem for me. I’ve had wireless charging phones before and I never really felt having a wireless charger any more convenient than just plugging my phone in. Really the only time I used wireless charging was on an old phone when the micro-b port failed but with the advent of type c being and the ease of swapping a charging port on the FP5 it just seems to be adding needless expense to the device to have a less efficient method of charging the device.
My guess for the real reason is that they buy off-the-shelf components from suppliers and don’t have enough money to design and order a custom motherboard with a headphone jack.
they designed the whole thing themselves. that’s why the schematics are publicly available. they definetely made a choice to fuck over users.
Laughs in FP3
Jep their decision that I shouldn’t waste energy is the reason i don’t want one(wireless charging)
plus it’s easy as heck to add during development, i simply don’t get why they didn’t include it.
I do sometimes feel like what we really want is something a little bit more like how Framework are doing things. Yes it’s easily repairable, but it’s also easily upgradable.
Upgradability isn’t really a design consideration for fairphone. So everyone is stuck with the kind of mediocre camera that they decided to put on it. It would be nice if the option was there to have something a bit better.
Actually, they do.
The Fairphone 3 was upgradable to the Fairphone 3+ by buying spare parts like the camera and installing them yourself.
The thing is that phones don’t really need upgrades.
phones don’t really need upgrades
Huh??? I went through 4 phones during the lifespan of my last PC
Yeah and you didn’t really need any of them.
A smartphone from 9 years ago is still enough hardware to handle everything a smartphone needs to do.
This is not true because you need to upgrade your software and patch it to keep it secure, and old hardware does not like newer os versions. Your phone will run more slowly if the os is newer (i believe that’s planned obsolescence in action, though)
I appreciate that the hardware is still good enough functionally, but only if you want a less secure phone.
You can install current day Linux Mint on PCs from the Core 2 era, ~15 years old, and it runs like brand new. OS bloat is not inevitable, it is a result of greed.
That’s the fault of the manufacturers. Google does their best to mitigate this but the unfortunate reality is that when Qualcomm drops support you’re going to stop getting updates.
There are efforts to get these phones supported within Linux. When that happens they can just run forever.
My Galaxy S2 actually had more updates than it could handle. While the last useful update had already slowed down the phone somewhat, the last available update was actually completely uninstallable - the portion of Google play services that was required to be installed on the system memory was larger than the entire system memory.
I more than doubled the useful life of that phone by switching to LineageOS / microG.
Chip support is definitely an issue with these devices, but it’s Google that’s running the treadmill.
Galaxy s2 was easily my favourite phone.
old hardware does not like newer os versions
You got that ass-backwards.
that’s planned obsolescence
There ya go.
Yours is a bit of a redundant comment, then right?
In the context of what i was replying to, it made more sense to say the hardware had a problem with the software.
It’s technically true either way, though
But yes, it would have made more sense to say the software doesn’t play ball with the old hardware.
But since it’s intended to be like that, it doesn’t really matter how i say it. The point still gets across.
Maybe if you don’t communicate with people regularly lmfao.
My current phone is about 3 years old and is getting slower with age, the camera is mid when compared to newer models, the under screen fingerprint sensor is ass, etc
My first phone? A slow mess, not running a modern operating system, overheated if you looked at it funny, camera looked like there was Vaseline on the lens, battery was shit, usb micro-b, etc
My phone is 5 years old, I’ve replaced the battery twice, and it runs just fine. I was planning on keeping it for a long time yet, but I’m going out of the country and US border patrol can take a copy of your phone when entering or leaving the country, so I’m gonna buy a new phone right before I go so it doesn’t have much data on it in case they decide to take a copy.
The frugal in me says Back up and then Factory Reset. Honestly the only reason I replace them is because they get too damaged. I wish I was nicer to my phones but I’m just not the type of person to baby them.
I have like 200gb in photos and videos on this thing and I don’t pay for cloud backup, though I thought about that also. My old backup phone is getting really old though, so I’ll probably just cycle my current phone into its role And give the old one to my little brother as a WiFi only device.
the camera is mid when compared to newer models
This is a weird take. New phones having newer features doesn’t mean yours got worse than it was when you bought it.
A factory reset and battery swap will restore most old devices to their original state. If they were good enough three years ago there’s no reason it’s not now.
Right, except the original comment was that phones don’t need upgrades. I’m saying that my circle of people, myself included, all appreciate getting new phones for newer features. So the notion that upgrades are unnecessary is a little delulu
For battery swaps, I’m not arguing against that. This is all under the main comments about frameworks strategy of designing upgrades into their product – so i don’t have to buy a whole new phone to get a new camera and battery :p
Appreciating an upgrade isn’t the same thing as needing one. I’m glad(?) that you recognize you and your friends are submitting to social pressure and consumerism but if you’ll forgive me I think it’s still a very weird take when not buying something you don’t need is still an option.
I’m still rocking my pixel 3 from ages ago, still don’t feel like i need a replacement, plus i prefer my 3 over the later iterations and from other brands
I wish that was true but it feels like the opposite to me. Running videos in a browser on my phone seems to be worse than when I first started using it - I suspect due to them becoming more demanding.
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The main upgrade they need is the processor because the companies making those are not supporting newer Android-Versions and at some point that becomes a security-issue.
Problem is that replacing the processor to a newer generation usually means the whole mainboard is obsolete, too and then is very quickly doesn’t become easy to upgrade anymore
just switching between different types of cameras, screens etc. wouldn’t be as big of a problem but that’s also not part of the main-problem either
