Linus reviewed (roasted) our phone | Fairphone reacts
I can't believe some of the points Linus made against the Fairphone, especially given he's onboard with the same compromises for the Framework laptop. 🤭
Eh, I stopped paying attention to Linus after the whole debacle last year.
Hmm, no, actually I think I stopped paying attention to him quite a long while ago. I think once they went all in on the clickbaity titles and just non-content, algorithm filler.
I first reevaluated my perception of him (shall we say) after that AWFUL “let’s try Linux” series, and it didn’t exactly get better from there.
The Microsoft ball gargling is ridiculous on its own
The Linux series was one of the best, because it showed what would happen if someone who didn’t know what they were doing tried to move to Linux. Linux shills have been preaching “it’s the year of the Linux desktop” forever now, but since it’s so different from windows and macOS there’s a massive learning curve that only shows up once you’ve switched.
I would bet 8/10 people who have used windows/macOS for 30+ years would have many of the same problems as Linus did. I know I’ve made many of the same mistakes that were made by Linus/Luke in that series, including accidentally nuking my DE.
Linux sucks as a desktop if you aren’t already familiar with Linux from the terminal. There’s a few edge cases, but for the most part it’s not a good experience if you do anything more than web browsing.
I’m no Linus shill, though I do enjoy their content for the most part. He’s not a tech god like people make him out to be, he’s just a slightly above average tech nerd who’s a good presenter. And that’s the audience that the Linux shills are trying to push the OS onto.
I gave up a while back, and can't really nail down what actually got me over the edge to stop watching.
Really didn't help that the one time I checked back in, because I hadn't seen anything from him in a bit (prior to the latest scandals), all the latest uploads was him being totally unrelatable and barely even tech-relevant while trying to heat his pool with his water cooling loop.
I ignored him for years because of his click bait video images, but then started liking him due to the scrap yard wars. But then quickly grew tired of his regular content after a couple of months with what a shill fest the entire thing was from their begging for likes to begging to buy their merch to begging for patreon.
Who cares what linus thinks he is a youtube shill.
What a dumb take. Linus is one of the primary tech reviewers. After he got blasted by GN they got their shit together.
Whenever I see Linus I feel like everything is rushed and not thought through. He barely knows what he is holding. He just doesn't care; he has 20 more reviews he has to record today. Or something like that.
"Deal breaker! It doesn't even do my laundry."
That's honestly my biggest problem with him as well. He makes such a big thing about having 900 videos a week or whatever that it just makes you think that he can't possibly put any real effort into any of them, it's literally not possible. Why not reduce the number videos and actually produce better quality content.
Part of the problem is that he has to be in every video or almost every video the channel producers. If you look at something like Corridor Digital they have a number of people who are regularly on camera so individuals don't have to do a bunch of videos one after another. So each individual video gets more focus.
What's the point in putting out a badly informed review, all it does is weaken your brand.
Part of the problem is that he has to be in every video or almost every video the channel producers.
I disagree with this argument, him being in every video doesn't reduce the quality because the videos aren't written by him, and the products aren't primarily tested by him. He's mostly serving the role of an actor/host. I guess it maybe reduces the possibility of re-recording clips, but I don't think that's the largest factor in a video's quality.
That feels like a far assessment. Makes me think that he grabbed the tigger by the tail with his career and is afraid to let go.
I don't think Linus Sebastian is worth watching during the NCIX days because he always seem like someone who would spend the least amount of effort and say whatever is popular to get the most amount of views. As you can see in this video, a lot of the criticism he made on the Fairphone are really nitpicking and isn't fair (heh) at all.
For example, the phone thickness, which he measured with a caliper as a point, is not a metric most people outside of reviewers would care about, especially since most people puts a beefy case on their phone immediately anyways, and size is usually the main tradeoff with modularity.
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
That being said, having a long, uncut and unfiltered reaction video towards criticism by having the co-founder improv on the spot was not the smartest thing to do on Fairphone's part. He came off as defensive and completely unprepared in the video and failed to address the criticism effectively (with some easy rebuttals if he was given even a little time to prepare) effectively, which is not great for PR.
The video could be much more effective if they cut it down to half the length with an actual script. It's a YouTube video, there's no reason to do it completely live and unscripted.
For the last part: I'm pretty sure it's just his thing to do "real" things, instead of scripting, cutting it down, watching it before or anything.
I also very much got the feeling that he acted in a defensive and hurt way, but it's his real emotion and I can understand it since Linus is bashing the phone much more than "necessary".
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
Of course the support is great, but some other phones also achieve that without a slow and old SoC.
The Fairphone seems pretty nice in theory but the performance is pretty poor and the price is high.
Poor in comparison to what though? I know what the benchmarks say but I don't really notice any differences between the Fairphone 5 (what I'm currently typing on) or my previous phones (Huawei Mate 10, Zenfone 6, Zenfone 8 Flip) in terms of daily driving (aside from battery maybe). I'm sure there is for gaming, but that's the one thing I don't use my phone for.
To me, the profile thickness is a benefit. Tiny thin phones scream "compressed electronics, overheats fast, difficult repairs"
Linus is full of shit in a lot of videos
I know what phone I'll be looking for when the piece of shit in my pocket finally dies. That maneuver where he popped the cover with a fingernail and hotswapped the battery sold me.
Hey, totally unrelated question: Didn't linus recently take a lot of flak for shady/unfair reviewing practices?
He's trash and the people that defend him are useful idiots.
Yeah. He took flack. It was more about the completeness and accuracy of the reviews rather than being unfair.... at least from what I recall.
They did a whole show of the matter, suspended uploads for a week or so, did some internal restructuring, hired a new CEO. Linus is now chief vision officer or some such nonsense.
Bluntly, I liked LTT videos more when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house, putting out a couple videos a week...
You knew the information wasn't perfect and that was fine. It was enough to give you an impression of what to expect. They did a recent comparison that confirmed something I already knew, by taking a smattering of the "same" CPU and testing them against eachother. They found that some were quantifiably better than others. To me this was proof that all reviews are skewed. You never know which way they'll be skewed, and it really doesn't matter. The fact remains that all tech reviews are going to be different than personal experience. They're also going to differ from reviewer to reviewer since, even if they're using the "same" hardware, that hardware might be slightly faster or slower than other reviewers by a small margin. Once upon a time the hardware was so similar and the differences were so small you could effectively ignore this variance. Modern hardware is so fast that even a small variance can make a pretty significant difference to benchmark performance.
So you have to take literally everything posted as a review with a grain of salt. It's not accurate to what you would experience buying the exact same stuff off a shelf. As lithography gets smaller and smaller the relatively minor variance will have a larger and larger impact to the final products performance.
It's the way of things. All things. Whether it's a car or a computer, some just roll off the line different.
when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house
Much of the recent criticism relates specifically to toxic/bro culture and a work culture that encouraged cutting corners, mistakes, and burnout. I'm not sure what was going on in the house behind the scenes was a model of a professional workplace.
When they ditched the headphone jack fairphone ditched environmentalism.
The fairphone 3+ was their last fair phone.
It's just another cheap phone now. Made in the same place from the same stuff as other makers, with maybe a year of extra security updates.
They started by doing stuff differently, now they do things the same as everyone else and want to pretend they're different.
It's still a modular, repairable phone. That's objectively different to a regular phone. Not to mention the broad support for ROMs.
I still wouldn't buy one because of the cost, reduced performance, reduced battery life, and worse screen than other phones. It's not worth it even if it's upgradable as it can't be upgraded enough to stay relevant forever anyway unlike a framework where you can plop in a new motherboard.
Sounds like you didn't watch the video
Which part of the video talks about the audiojack? I must've missed it.
You are wrong but I feel like arguing with you is pointless so carry on.
Linus simply isn't the target audience for this phone. He says he's onboard with their mission and everything, but then makes points that aren't relevant to their mission. Also, if a company as dedicated to their mission as FairPhone (or so they claim, I haven't personally checked) can make a phone like this, then probably the reason other companies make better phones is really because they don't care about ethics and morals but cold hard cash.
The point is; he wants a Framework-like approach to modularity and feature set. That means a phone that's good enough to actually holds its own without retreating to being "ethical" or "modular."
Fairphone is just the worst deal you can get even if you consider the ethical side of it. This is because rescuing an old phone gives you a much better experience for less than half the cost and keeping tech from the landfill is a lot more ecologically friendly as the work and sourcing was already done regardless of you purchasing the device.
The point is; he wants a Framework-like approach to modularity and feature set. That means a phone that’s good enough to actually holds its own without retreating to being “ethical” or “modular.”
Even Google failed at that and he's expecting a cash-strapped startup to do so better and ethically at that too? He's naive, ignorant, or both.
Fairphone is just the worst deal you can get even if you consider the ethical side of it.
It is not, if you buy a new phone. Then it's ethically better to buy a FairPhone. If all companies were held to the ethical standards of FairPhone, then we could talk about performance, but if you care more about performance than ethics, that's your deal.
Nice, cc in case this gets hoovered up into a llm?
You got it! 👍
The only LTT review I'm interested in is a review of the culture in the workplace.
I hope Madison is doing OK today.
Hurts so bad to get your 1 in 1000000 dream job to get sexually harassed out of it.
I agree with a lot of the points LTT had, I was pretty excited for this video when I saw it. But the response was just complaing and excuses instead of just being nice and simple "here's the issue you had, We can either fix it, or can't for these reasons..."
Yeah, I was expecting something like "Yeah, this is an issue, we know. It's that way because we had to make a trade-off to enable ..." but it was mostly just lame excuses or just talking about something entirely unrelated to the point being made.
Like the thickness of the device and bezels. Just accept it, the FP is thicc. It's a conscious trade-off you made. Be open about it. Don't whine about measuring with the camera bump included (if anything, measuring from the bump gives the FP an advantage since its bump isn't as thic as others?). If the bezels are a little thicker than the competition, just state why that is (i.e. to make it easier to replace).
Had to stop watching after that or I would have died of cringe.
for sure. I managed to power through but it didnt get better at all
ITT people mad at Linus for pointing out all the reasons the phone wouldn’t appeal to a mass market audience
Lemmy as usual disregarding pragmatism to be as dogmatic as possible
“You mean people DONT like a thick, heavy phone with a garbage camera and poor battery life? Well obviously, everyone else is wrong”
I don't care what fairphone or Linus says. They got rid of the headphone jack. A "modular" phone my ass.
The second biggest dealbreaker for me after the small battery.
Ok, they have a USB-C to jack dongle, but guess what USB-C port's wearout is the reason I was looking for a new phone in the first place.
Port wearout, isn't that a good reason for a repairable phone?
I don't know much about the fair phone I do remember a day when cellphone batteries were user replaceable and back then you could get third party larger batteries with larger cases. Is that available for the fair phone?
I've got a list of must haves for phones and that is on it. Obviously nothing has met my list in years.
Whatever you wanna say about the fairphone, LTT shouldn't have any say in the review industry after their back-to-back lying to the public AND sexual harassment debacles. They've been sleazy for years, taking money from companies they claim to review impartially, and twisting everything into a meme factory instead of putting the tiniest amount of effort into quality reviews and tech journalism.
Linus is absolutely the last guy you should be listening to on anything unless he's explaining how he managed to salvage his reputation after covering up toxic and predatory workplace behaviour and still coming out the other side a multimillionaire.
back-to-back lying to the public
What?
sexual harassment debacles
... that none of which ended up in the court let alone confirmed. That's an allegation, not something proven.
They've been sleazy for years, taking money from companies they claim to review impartially, and twisting everything into a meme factory instead of putting the tiniest amount of effort into quality reviews and tech journalism.
Straight up one of the points GN made. Which they really did improve upon. They don't pump out as much content now, as well as generally higher quality content again.
salvage his reputation after covering up toxic and predatory workplace behaviour
:D
coming out the other side a multimillionaire.
Guy created and ran a YouTube channel, expanded it to be a media company. Hosts a forum, sells high quality merchandise (you can look up the coverage of their bag or screwdrivers from places like project farm). Also runs a premium video hosting and live streaming service for creators. That's what we call "earned it."
This comment just reeks of toxicity, rather than criticism.
Fuck Linus "Tech Tips"
5 years later
This phone sucks, the display looks moderate at 1° viewing angle, isn't as powerful as my desktop PC, and we think all resources should be mined in the most unethical ways so we can have 20 more hours of tiktok on a single charge.
Tech channels go further and further from the mark of "good". I'm not playing AAA games on my phone, I don't watch YouTube for 20 hours straight, I prefer larger bezels (even if slightly uneven) because I tend to touch the screen accidentally if they're too small, and I prefer more responsible resources even if it means less battery life or performance.
I don't need a PC in my pocket and Linus is just going too far into the techbro headspace for me to trust him for anything .
This video is how so many tech reviewers are now, credit to MeatCanyon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GsoZOpw8aE
This is exactly what I felt while watching this. Does anyone really care about bezel width or weight or thickness when the differences have to be measured with callipers? And that stupid yellow tint when you're not looking directly at your phone. I'd actually like worse viewing angles for my phone because it seems better privacy wise.
Battery life is kinda nice if you're travelling or just not sure when you'll next be able to charge, but in those cases the solution is always to just get a battery pack for emergencies. All of these criticisms seem so out of touch with how people actually use their phones.
And when those compromises mean you have your phone longer and buy a more ethical, sustainable product that pays workers... Easy choice.
Tbh both have fair points from their side of bias.
Phones don't use much energy. I'm not getting the "efficiency" thing for wireless charging. Even new standards are basically the same.
This CEO sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about
Energy lost as heat during the power transmission. It's what makes the phones warm during wireless charging. That heat decreases the lifespan of the battery and makes the phone uncomfortable to use, which is why wireless charging speed is limited once the phone reaches a certain temperature. I specifically avoid using wireless charging on my Pixel to extend its battery lifespan since it will live for 7 years and battery replacement is expensive. New wireless charging standards could probably play with frequency and other parameters in order to reduce energy lost as heat, similar to how increasing the voltage in a circuit decreases loss to heat for the same cables.
Yes but that's mostly relevant when using fast wireless charging. Slow wireless charging doesn't get that hot. And it reduces friction on the USB port.
Furthermore this phone has a swappable battery so it would be fixable if the battery degraded
I can think of reasons to not to include wireless charging such as repairability. The efficiency is bs as people can still charge wired if they want to.
I specifically avoid using wireless charging on my Pixel to extend its battery lifespan
You shouldn't bother. I exclusively charge my Pixels wirelessly and keep them around forever as development devices and the batteries on all of them are fine.
The long and short of the lower efficiency of wireless charging is a concept called Free Space Loss
In order for energy to pass through an open space it has to use some energy. Unlike a cable where the pins are contacting and the loss is far lower.
Yes but it's not massive amounts.
Phones use practically no energy compared to PC's laptops, washing machines etc.
And if people want that level of charging efficiency... The USB C port still exists...
My latest phone is a xiaomi note 12. It has 120 watt charging and I never knew I'd love this so much! 0 to 100% in 30 min. No need to plan charging any more. Just give it 10 min and you're good to go. Charging efficiency is maybe the greatest feature I look for now, besides connectivity
I don't watch LTT anymore thanks to Gamers Nexus. I was shopping for a new graphics card for my mother's desktop and I did see the confusing inconsistencies they were talking about in at least one video.
It just seemed like an improvement to switch to AMD from Nvidia ever since she switched to Linux. I'll watch this later!
Ligma test strips
Just shows the lack of knowledge LTT have really. They just dont understand Fairphone at all, or even how people use phones apparently...
did he grope the phone? not intending to watch any of his shit.