The Fairphone 5 price has been dropped to €499. The phone is designed to be the most advanced environmentally friendly smartphone.
Fairphone 5. Designed for you. Made fair.
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I am writing right now from my degoogled Fairphone 4 running /e/OS.
I would buy again in a heartbeat.
It's definitely not the most bang for your bucks. But it's good enough for any use, it already outlived my last 3 phones, and it shows no sign of giving up (even when I was using the Google infested OS a few months back).
I'd recommend it.
People should never trust Apple
They slowed down their iPhones on purpose to encourage people to buy new ones.
I agree that nobody should trust any corpo, including Apple, but there's nuance to that story that never gets mentioned in these discussions.
Apple used to slow down devices whose batteries were starting to fail, in order to reduce the likelihood that your device suddenly turns off before the battery reads as empty. Simply put, if the battery couldn't guarantee a certain power output down until empty, they'd throttle the CPU.
The notably scummy part here is that they didn't tell users, and it wasn't an option you could change. To make up for it, they had a cheap battery replacement program for several years and informed users about the issue, and I believe it's optional now?
This was also several years before other manufacturers started offering OS support timelines comparable to Apple's. Apple still let you update a 6 year old iPhone when others were doing 3 years for flagships. Fairphone of course was an exception.
You should still get a Fairphone if it meets your actual needs or a Pixel if you need GrapheneOS, but if you're a non technical user who actually can make the most of a flagship, I'd recommend an iPhone over Samsung (just as expensive as Apple and these are the guys who put ads in TV UI nowadays) or Google (questionable stability with the Tensor chips in some iterations) at least. 5 years ago I'd recommend OnePlus, but those days are over. The stock ROM is now ass. I keep my old 7 pro around to play Real Racing 3 and with a custom rom I'm like 3 android versions beyond OEM support and it's actually super smooth. But I won't recommend it to a non techy user.
PS: I'm an Apple user, but not a diehard fan boy. I make comments explaining or defending them often because I feel Apple gets way more flak than their competitors who are usually equally scummy.
Additional note: they also did it with some Macbooks and I can tell you it had nothing to do with battery AGE. Machines that shower either a faulty or significantly worn battery would be slow. Apple considered 80% of nominal capacity to be the limit where a battery should be replaced under warranty on those, but the slowdowns started at like 50 or 60 percent if I recall correctly. By faulty I mean devices where the system scan in AST legally said "internal fault" or something. I used to refurb Macbooks.
It was noticeable in the 2012 macbook air because that model, a weird unicorn year with components that differed from both the 2010-2011 and 2013-2017 models, would significantly slow down with a bad battery even when it was connected to AC power. Literally removing the battery made it usable again. In other model years it was never really noticeable.
Yup. I had an iPhone 6S that was affected by this. When the battery was starting to get older, things like opening the camera would sometimes just cause the phone to die. I got the battery replaced for free, but flipping it to throttle instead of randomly shut itself down was an improvement, and likely extended the usable lives of the affected phones, not artificially shorten them. It shouldn't have been done secretly but it wasn't a conspiracy to sell more iPhones.
It shouldn’t have been done secretly but it wasn’t a conspiracy to sell more iPhones
If they weren't trying to sell more phones they'd have given you a notification with instructions to replace the battery and designed it in a way that a person with no special skills could do so instead of just crippling the device.
I mean, yeah, I said they should've told people, that was a bad decision on their part. I'm just saying if it was a conspiracy to sell more iPhones, it was a dumb one, because the net effect was to make the phone more usable. It wasn't crippled, certainly not more than "this thing just shuts down when the camera is opened sometimes."
I'm writing from F4 as well. The longer I own it, the more I'm impressed. Fixability has saved me replacing the phone twice now (I dropped it on the screen, and got cement in the usb charger).
If you're just considering spec, its fairly pricey, but the repairability easily makes up for it. Have a pair of their bluetooth headphones too which I love.
Question for OP: how did you find installing /e/OS? I have android still but am thinking about trying to install.
I use Arch and am fairly familiar with a terminal.
Avoid their Easy Installer, it just doesn't work. And pay a lot of attention to the anti downgrade feature of the Bootloader. It's described in their guide for the FP4.
Outside of that, just follow the guide, it was pretty straightforward.
It was honestly way more work to backup everything I had on the phone...
Does everything work on /e/OS? Like banking and etc expected uses for daily use.
tl;dr it works really great for me, but there is no complete guarantee for the future, if that's not acceptable stay away.
So far, yes, at least for me. Telegram, WhatsApp, Netflix, banking, you name it. I have apps from three different banks, and they are perfect. Even the itsme app of the belgian government works a-ok. But there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.
Notably Revolut has embraced enthusiastically the new Play Integrity system, and does not work at all on any third party ROM since late autumn. I was not a customer, but it has pissed many people off.
It is not impossible that this might happen with more banks in the future.
The App of my German mutuality didn't work at the beginning (refused to log me in due to "issues with my device") but after a later update now works fine. Who know how long that will be.
Some Google things you simply loose, such as Google Pay, I also have had very mixed success with Chromecast.
Android Auto works, but refuses to use any other navigation app than GMaps and Waze. I tried installing Mapy, HereWeGo, Organic, Magic Earth... But it doesn't work. I half understand the reason, but I haven't figured out a solution yet.
I also couldn't get Slay the Spire to work, I guess it depends on some Google Play Games feature. That's probably for the better, I already spend too much time playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon, which is an open source roguelike available on F-Droid. Highly recommend.
Yeah, I have a FP3+...
I'm actually feeling guilty about considering a FP5 because my current phone works absolutely fine, had recent updates and I have a good spare battery ready to swap out on long days... so... I'll probably stay with this one even though I want the new one
For how long did you had the FP3+? How much did it costs?
I currently have the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro and bought it for 250€. Ofcourse I'm awear that it's a Chinese phone but I bought it when I didn't know any better. This year it will be 5 or 6 years old but still works for the daily needs and I like to use things till the break or aren't really useable anymore.
So I'm curious how much yours had cost and for how long you used it. Also some other questions:
If you don't feel comfortable with sharing information don't answer the question but I would be interested as I maybe want my next phone to be a Fairphone too.
Um, not sure. I wasn't an early adopter, so 4+ years?
And... I think it was ~€400 + usual taxes and delivery, so, say €450 in total?
It's basically in use everyday, although I don't spend that much time on calls, but with (my own enabled) GPS trackers and sensors enabled for Home Automation and generally letting the family know where I am, I'll easily get a day out of the battery...
If I'm travelling I'm using the phone a lot more so the spare battery would probably be needed (in a 18 hour work day)
I've also bought a replacement bottom module as the USB port has become a little loose from charging... not replaced it yet (to get the most out of it), but will do soon.
So, yeah, the best bits are: instant battery replacement / recharging (it's great walking past all the other phone users tethered to their wall chargers) and longevity with replacment parts that I can change myself. (And still getting updates)
I'm bought a secondhand-good as new FP3 thirteen months ago and have been using it since, first running DivestOS and now running /e/OS. It only cost me 100 €. I can squeeze almost two days of battery if I the only thing i do is check messages and e-mail with all non-essential services disabled. Otherwise, with regular usage scrolling Lemmy, browsing news websites, checking messages & e-mails and watching the occasional video my battery will last for around a day
How is the camera?
(taken on FP5)
Looks good until you zoom in a little
This pic has 12.6 MP, it's not the maximum resolution of the FP5 camera (50 MP).
2nd, it's dawn. The camera has to increase either the ISO number (sensitivity) making it coarser, or increase the exposure risking blurr.
But this is the comparison though. Some phones are so much better at this
I have a FP5 too and the photos in daylight aren't that much better. If you zoom a little bit you see the same kind of blurriness.
I'm not a good photographer and overall the quality is fine for my usage, but it's still behind other phones in the same price range.
Dresden always looks nice no matter the phone. ;)
Nice pic! For me, it is often motives that move that are tricky to shoot
Reposting what I said below:
They're OK. They used to suck ass on a cosmic level, until a firmware update made it actually just fine.
Noone is going to be amazed, but they're fine.
My wife has a Pixel 8 with stock firmware which is supposed to be oh-so-great as a camera...
But the whatever built in AI Google put in that thing keeps messing with the colours worse than a Netflix show. So half the times I end up prefering the pictures I take.
According to Fairphone the cameras in the FP5 are actually much better, but I have yet to see an FP5 in the wild so...
Interesting, my girlfriend's friend bought a FP4 because she wanted an eco-friendlyish phone that would last a long time and she says it has been the worst phone of her life with tons of bugs, super slow specifically over 4G, mediocre camera, android auto works badly, etc...
(She uses android, not /e/ or calyx)
I want so hard to believe, but there are just as many reports of it being very bug ridden as positive reviews, so it is difficult, since the negative ones always seem to be detailed and specific.
I would also consider a pixel for graphene, but no SD card and 128GB or 256GB internal memory only is a deal breaker. My SD card + flash in my current phone is already at 245GB
I replaced the stock apps with better ones from fdroid and a friend's car just doesn't seem to like Android Auto from any phone, so maybe the bugs aren't with the phone?
I don't use Android Auto either (because it's 99.9% Google), but I know my car (Merc A220) just sometimes won't connect to my Fairphone over bluetooth... and it's definitely the car. Literally pull over, get out of the car, lock it... unlock it, get back in and bluetooth connects again. Not touched the phone... ffs
Ah that sucks! What kind of issues did she have?
I'm obviously one person, so not a good sample, but I've had F4 with stock android for about 3 uears and haven't seen any bugs yet, even with android auto.
As to the camera, I'd agree it's "fine" but if you ignore the repairability and ethical supply chain angle, you can definitely get a much better camera for the same price range.
I am honestly willing to have patience and cut some slack to someone that I feel is working with me, whereas I have zero patience for companies who tries to bullshit me all the time.
To put it differently, I prefer to put in some effort to use my tech, then to put in effort to defend myself from my tech. So that's my bias.
Commenting more in detail.
There have been bugs that have come and gone. Once, two years ago, they screwed up real bad and for a month the phone would randomly reboot a couple times a week. That sucked, until it got fixes. Otherwise it seemed just fine. The occasional issue was no worse than the Huawei I had two phones ago, and people seemed to think those were fine.
The camera was truly awful, but now after an update it's also OK. Not amazing, not wowing anybody, but just fine. My wife's Pixel 8a in the meantime keeps screwing up the color balance of the pictures so not all that shines is gold.
When I had the stock rom I used Android Auto on several cars, and all of them have been fine, but it's only been Volkswagens (and Skoda, Seat etc.) and one Opel, my sample is biased. With /e/OS (which I have since January) I'm actually very happy that Android Auto works at all, so far I only tried in my car.
I have 256GB of flash and that seems plenty. I honestly have no idea how anyone fills that up, but if it ever happens I can indeed add a SD card. Also it's dual SIM which, for somebody who moved around Europe a bit, is very very handy.
Yeah I need an SD card. I have ~160 GB on photos, videos, and a pretty decent music library synced to my other devices via syncthing. My current system apps (no games, just utility apps and messaging caches) + music streaming downloads (18GB) are 87GB. That is right on the boundary of internal storage if I don't take any more pictures or add any more local music.
Just android alone is 21 GB, but yeah if someone doesn't take photos or videos, doesn't listen to much music, and doesn't play any phone games, 128 or 256 is probably more than needed.
Oh, I was able to fill 128GB, but with 256GB I still have not managed. I was not even close after ~2 years, and then I had to erase everything when I installed /e/OS.
I do take photos and (rarely) videos, I just don't keep it all on my phone all the time, I regularly offload them to the home server (Immich).
Same with Series and Music. That stuff lives on the home server (Jellyfin) and can be downloaded to my phone as needed, with transcoding on the fly to a lower quality that's reasonable on the phone screen (for video) or simply to Opus (for music) to save space. My earbuds are decent but I can't tell the difference, so that's good.
Ah yeah, that is the difference. I always keep a local copy of my photos since immich has broken once in the past for me. That is one fantastic piece of software though.
I also use jellyfin, but the security on it is an absolute clusterfuck mess apparently so I don't expose it to the internet, so I use syncthing for my music.
I should really also set up a backblaze or hetzner off site backup for everything, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I don't expose either to the internet. I either vpn to the router, or (for movies and music) do most of the syncing when I'm at home.
I run CalyxOS on my FP4 which also works great.
How's the cameras? My Samsung cameras are absolutely incredible and I've finally managed to leave my olympus camera at home and it's incredibly useful to have something that can relatively compare
They're OK. They used to suck ass on a cosmic level, until a firmware update made it actually just fine.
Noone is going to be amazed, but they're fine.
My wife has a Pixel 8 with stock firmware which is supposed to be oh-so-great as a camera...
But the whatever built in AI Google put in that thing keeps messing with the colours worse than a Netflix show. So half the times I end up prefering the pictures I take.
According to Fairphone the cameras in the FP5 are actually much better, but I have yet to see an FP5 in the wild so...
