At this point the only thing stopping me from getting a Fairphone through Murena is the fact that they only support the T-Mobile network. All the MVNO options on T-Mobile seem bad. They all have ridiculously low data caps, even on the “unlimited” plans.
Idk if it’s helpful but Google Fi uses the T-Mobile network. I’m also using T-Mobile’s home 5G internet with an external 3rd party antenna out in the boondocks. I get 150mbps down, 15 up.
Metro has unlimited for $25 no hard throttle, but lower priority after 35gb and restricted tethering. the TMobile prepaid unlimited plans get priority data and if you top up with target there’s no tax and sometimes sales.
Interesting for the alternative OS options - a device like this one would be great if there were some really good serviceable Linux distro for phones … And yes, I know they exist, but they’re not up to the level needed by most people for a daily driver. As for Android, it’s a nice idea to have a phone that lasts that long, but would it actually be reliable and fast enough to use for 8 years?
Sadly, no option to get this in Australia besides grey import, which is going to be pricey. I’m going to keep an eye on the way this line of phones goes in future, but for me at the moment there are too many unknowns and the price tag is too high.
Dammit, what’s it gonna take for the Fairphone to be brought to the US? The only options are buying it from the Murena shop with their /e/ OS installed or to get the European model from somewhere like eBay or Newegg.
Does the european version work in the US with their slightly different frequencies? Personally, I’m a little leery of the entire Murena thing. I get the privacy angle, but I’m more interested in the hardware.
From what I’ve seen as long as you’re not using a CDMA network like Verizon it reasonably works. There might be some minor issues when it comes to network performance on 5G/LTE but lots of folks claim that it’s been working just fine for them.
What’s the downside of the Murena route? I’d probably install /e/OS anyways.
No downside really, guess I’m just more curious what the stock OS is like for the Fairphone
The stock OS is pretty comparable to AOSP with the Google bits installed, a custom camera app and the Fairphone app (which can be disabled or removed IIRC).
It’s very barebones, the opposite of a (cluttered IMO) Samsung touchwiz or similar customised UI
And you can also overwrite it and install stock Fairphone Android, it’s pretty easy.
The fact that they don’t include a headphone jack that’s been an audio standard for decades makes their claims of sustainability seem like marketing bs. And the argument that it’s to make the phones thinner is bs too, since most phones now are bricks compared to previous generations. It was all a ruse to sell crappy bluetooth headphones with recharcghable batteries that are going to wind up in a landfill.
I agree with the sentiment but at least they sell wireless headphones with similar reparaibility as their phones.
Yes how convenient. They opt out of a port worth cents but luckily they sell hundred dollars headphones with batteries in them. I already have wired pairs and don’t need any more.
Idk, I never use headphones jack in phone’s box as I already have mine. And smaller boxes might be a purely economical decision, but it still has an impact on transportation.
So you just invalidate their whole effort to make a phone in 2023 that actually held together by screws, and not glue because it lacks one audio-port?
Yes, because it doesn’t just “lack” it. They deliberately chose not to include such a simple thing so they can sell more shitty wireless headphones. I already have good wired ones, so no thank you. And I find this extremely anti-consumer and anti-sustainability.
I never quite understood the headphone jack thing. It’s a nifty thing to have but an adapter is a one time purchase. It seems like nowadays lack of headphone jack is just a minor inconvenience.
Its not convenient unless you need to use it extremely frequently and can keep track of it because of that.
I barely use my adapter so when I do need it, its another 15 minutes to find it or realize it got thrown out or something. Its just not convenient. Convenience would be leaving both ports, or for headphone companies to split the end of the cable into usbc, lightning, and audio jack
Leave it on your headphones?
Or just get some wireless headphones and be done with it.
Worth it just so you don’t knock the wired ones off your head when you move about, or yank the cables out of them and have to buy new ones.
I can see the point of wired if you’ve got some nice audiophile kit, but a phone is not that.
Except that wireless headphones have more complexity, points of failure, and usually shorter life. Just avoiding batteries alone should give a longer life and do less environmental harm.
As a counterpoint to that, none of my wired headphones that I used when walking lasted more than about 18 months before they eventually got snagged one too many times on jackets, etc, and constantly cut out unless you hold the cable just right.
My bluetooth ones (£60-ish AKG) I’ve had for 5 years and they’re fine. More than fine. Battery still lasts ages (40 hours ish, means recharging every few weeks, although it gives the low battery warning too early for my liking). No tangles or snags or feeding a cable down my shirt to my pockets. I used the 3.5mm jack for it like once on a plane for my Switch, but even that support BT headphones now.
I even use wireless at my PC now, because surely everyone has tangled a cable under a chair wheel, gone to stand up and just about ripped their ears off. HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless are what I got and the battery life is nuts.
Because they removed something that was convenient to try and force people to either spend more money on adapters or buy Bluetooth headphones.
And if you need to charge at the same time? That’s yet another adapter.
There’s USBC headphones
That is true, and you can get USBC dac cables for existing headphones that have the ability to swap cables.
But it’s still yet another thing you have to buy when your existing stuff already worked fine, and it still ties up the USBC port so unless you wirelessly charge you still need an adapter.
It’s just less convenient and as far as I am concerned removing the jack has offered no benefits to consumers.
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Like its previous devices, the Fairphone 5 is made with ethically sourced materials by workers who are given a living wage bonus and is designed to be easy to repair with a lengthy software support period.
But this year’s model is specced-out much more like a modern midrange smartphone, with an OLED display, fast 30W charging, and dual 50-megapixel cameras at the rear.
If that sounds normal or even a little pedestrian, then that’s kind of the point — Fairphone has never been a company on the bleeding edge of smartphone specs.
That should keep the phone usable from a software perspective until 2031, though Fairphone’s press release says it’s aiming for 2033 as a stretch goal.
Like the Fairphone 4, there’s once again no headphone jack here, and the handset is available in three colors; black, blue, and (the correct option) transparent.
A living wage bonus is paid to the 2,000 people who assemble the phone and components like its battery, PCB, and vibration motor.
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Very cool. Great reviews as well from what I’ve seen. Definitely on my top contender list. Currently, after flashing a custom ROM, I’m happy with my OnePlus 6T - and upgrading without a clear need certainly goes against Fairphone’s values.
Im using a stock 6T and the wifi disconnect issues and screen locking when reception is bad is really getting on my nerves. Any tips for which ROM i should try that could fix these issues?
I am using LineageOS with zero problems.
That CPU is weird, I wonder if “industrial grade snapdragon” is much more expensive than “consumer grade snapdragon” if the difference is just driver support
They’ve previously been on their own when releasing newer versions of Android onto older Snapdragon CPUs that aren’t technically supported by it, which hasn’t helped things when the updates take a while to arrive as is.
At least now with the industrial CPU they’ll have support available from Qualcomm 💪 and the various performance enhancements and security fixes associated with that
Anyone know if fairphone will work on Google Fi?
As a repairability and sustainability advocate … This is good news.
As a Fairphone 4 owner … This is bad news for my resolve 😅 when I got my Fairphone I decided that I want to use it for at least the 5 years they guarantee updates and replacement parts … So I guess I’m stuck now … Which isn’t a bad place to be I love my Fairphone 4 it’s great … I just still have the “new shiny thing” mentality stuck somewhere
If you can sell or give the old phone to someone else, they are also displacing a non-fair phone. So filling the market with fairphones (That are still supported) is a GOOD thing. And you are still supporting the company, and all the people they pay as well.
In general though the best thing is to just stick with your current phone if you can. Every new phone still consumes resources to produce and probably replaces some other phone which then has to be recycled or might even end up in a landfill.
I still love my fairphone 3+. Had it for several years and have yet to need to do any repair or replacement. Pleasantly surprised and impressed! I also love that I can easily put a different OS on the phone (currently using e/os).
I’m loving my Fairphone 3! Upgraded the camera modules to the 3+ camera, and changed the charging port once after water damage. Also used /e/ for a while, but back to stock now.
The improved camera of the Fairphone 5 looks tempting (also OLED), but can’t justify upgrading when my Fairphone 3 ia still perfectly fine. I guess it’ll have to wait until 5G becomes an absolute necessity and I’m left with no choice. :)
I heard you’ll be waiting a while. I remember seeing videos and stuff that 5G capabilities are overpromised.
In the city I live in 4G/3G is actually a little spotty already, while 5G is working great. But I think that’s just Italian infrastructure rather than the old networks being phased out already…
/e/OS is the GOAT
Still no headphone jack and FM tuner though.
In my European country a law forces manufacturers to include a Dab+ tuner if it includes an FM tuner. Including an FM tuner is almost free, but a dab+ tuner isn’t. Samsung reaction to this law was to push an update that bricked the FM tuners in their phones sold in my country
Is there any phone released in the last 10 years with a FM tuner?
All the radio stations that I know provide a stream over Internet anyway, and the quality is much better than through a FM tuner.
Moto G and Teracube both have FM tuner, and the FM stations I listen to don’t stream because if their agreements with Major League baseball
Buy a small FM tuner for like $10 at the nearest electronics shop.
I have a Motorola One 5G Ace with a headphone jack and FM tuner. I can’t stream anywhere near my house because of the crappy cell service, so I use the tuner all the time. There are lots of decent radio stations here.
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This is the first one that’s actually attractive to me, mostly because the screen didn’t impress me on earlier models. I hope it comes down in price by 200€ or so.
699€ so far… That’s a lot
If you calculate what you’d spend on regular phones with a 2-3 year lifetime instead of a single one for 8 years (even including a few repairs), it might be actually cheap.
No headphone jack, no sale. I have three hard criteria:
headphone socket usb-c charging expandable storage
I’ll stick with my Sony. Two-out-of-three isn’t good enough.
Same. I can’t imagine having to remember to charge my headphones.
Earbuds are worse, it’s always one that’s dead because it didn’t sit properly in the charging case.
That sounds terrible! I am already not very good at managing the charge of my phone.
Genuine question: How do you manage not to lose one of the earbuds?
Powerbeats Pro have hooks over the ears and only get used when a wire would be intrusive such as workouts. I don’t much like them but they are hard to lose. They’re notorious for not charging properly and worked much better on Apple than Android, but at least I still both left and right buds.
There’s always the option to get a headphone jack adapter for USB-C. I haven’t used one personally yet, but I’ve heard it to be a viable alternative.
I know USB-C is more robust than MicroUSB, but that doesn’t feel like it’s good for the connector. I’d much rather have a bit thicker (Apple said they’re getting rid off the jack to make their phones thinner.) or a bit less waterproof phone (not having a massive hole in the phone helps to waterproof it), than to loose the headphone jack.
My experience: via iPhone 8 + Apple adaptor, it couldn’t drive big cans, and even for earbuds they lose significant volume. My phone has the 3.5mm jack, and it can deafen me. This matters more when hooking up to sound systems because it raises the noise floor.
It’s better than nothing, but it’s not good. I don’t know about the USB-C alternatives though - I can only hope they are better than the ‘lightning’ connector ones.
I wish fairphone was avaliable in some Asian counties at least.
