This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I really value the camera on my phone, since it is essentially my main camera and I enjoy taking pictures. I might rather lean into graphene-ing this pixel than a fair phone, unfortunately. But probably not purchase a future pixel, since they abandoned the physical SIM slot
I am leaning toward Fairphone to replace my Apple.
I've been running a Fairphone 6 for about 6 months now and it's by far the buggiest phone I've ever used. I'd love to keep using it until the security updates stop but it's already such a miserable experience already I can't imagine how bad it'll be in a few years time.
It's been fine for me
Can you elaborate on how it has been buggy? What kind of issues have you come across?
I'm interested in this brand and their Gen 6. I kind of wish I was in the market for a phone. Unfortunately I bought a used Pixel 6 three years ago and everything is just fine with it 😄
My 5yo Pixel 6 inflated just last Friday. I panic-ordered a Pixel 9a, but since Google didn't fulfill my supplier's shipment, I cancelled and switched to a Fairphone today. It'll arrive tomorrow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You can change the battery of Pixel 6, it's not insanely hard.
I replaced the power button and battery on my android phone. Managed to fix it by watching YouTube tutorials.
Wow. Two FP posts in a night. Paste of my comment.
Faiphone is being frog marched out of Australia. Each telco is shutting it down and blocking IMEIs. Sucks for the people that imported them.
Cant even use it as data only. So unless you use it as puerly on WiFi it's going to landfill. 😔.
cam them, and ask them to add the imei to allow list ?
I have a fairphone 6 in Australia with no issues.
Can you elaborate?
Any links to this story please? Couldn't find any
Search Telstra 3G shutdown. They were the first to block all in 2024 (and can confirm still blocked) Optus is now blocking on the 10th March. There's one telco left in AU. Everyone else sells one of these three.
Much discussion in this FP5 thread. https://forum.fairphone.com/t/3g-network-closure-australia
Despite what people say the phone works and has all requirements for the network, VoLTE calling and emergency calling. The telcos tho don't want to take a risk with "unknown" modems. So they disable network.
Canadian telcos did this 15 years ago, but I haven't heard of behaviour like this in a long time. You need to write a complaint to your government.
Looks like FP3 is lacking and Telstra are just assholes about FP5
International sale might work
Any chance the Aus govt might step in?
my mum bought a fairphone 3 about 5 years ago and is extremely happy with it, so far she's gone through one usb-c port and one battery. it looks and feels exactly like a normal phone but it pops open with just 4 screws. helping her fix it has taught me that phone manufacturers could make repairable phones easily and they all just choose not to
I used to run a small electronics repair business and you are 1 billion percent correct. Slowly watching things over the years become unrepairable was just such an obvious business decision for profit over customer satisfaction. There is absolutely no reason to make those changes unless you have a profit driven motive. So so so many electronics used to be like the fairphone your mom has. Pop it open, take out what's broke, replace it with some OEM or 3rd party part you bought for like 2 dollars and you're all set. It's so frustrating nowadays with how purposefully difficult manufacturers make any repairability. Can't even change a damn battery in your phone now! lol
I want GrapheneOS more than repairability, personally. I hope the Fairphone + GrapheneOS combination is possible some day...
The Graphene devs explicitly only support Pixels. Sticking with Graphene means continuing to give Google the profits from your hardware.
/e/OS is not bad as an alternative. The system wide ad and tracker blocking is nice.
Sticking with Graphene means continuing to give Google the profits from your hardware
GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixel because they are the most secure Android phones, with open-source images and 5+ years of security updates.
You don't have to give money to Google. I got my Pixel 4a and my mother's 6a from second-hand sellers.
This is a big issue that the fairphone doesn't have its dtb open yet. It's not easy to build ROM for it. Despite their core claim of sustainability, without addressing the blobs, it remains just a tad more convenient for green minded people. We need a full Fairphone.
That's fair and all, and I see your point. A 100% "fair" phone is the end-goal.
Butin the battle against corporate douche-baggery, if we keep making perfect the enemy of good, we'll never get anywhere.
/e/OS is not bad as an alternative. The system wide ad and tracker blocking is nice.
I switched to e/os on a couple of motorolas that supported it and it's great so far.
The comparisons to GrapheneOS are fair to some degree, but also not. Graphene is meant to be privacy and security hardened, whereas e/OS, while it is more secure than regular android, is more concerned with privacy hardening. The biggest misconception people have seems to be thinking that privacy and security are the same thing; and while that is true on the surface level, security (a la GrapheneOS) goes much deeper.
So while my phone may not be as "hack resistant" as a GrapheneOS, it's degoogled and very protective of tracking, which is what I'm primarily concerned with. So I'm happy.
I just wish I could afford a fairphone in Canada.
FYI, I think your third mention of Graphene was meant to be /e/OS.
Whoops. Thanks for the catch.
I just bought a refurbished (as new) Pixel 9 to use Grapheneos.
Saved ~50% and didn't pay Google.
I recently moved from an iPhone 11 Pro to a Fairphone (Fairphone Gen 6), and it’s been a genuinely great change.
It’s made me realise how little I actually use most of the features you end up paying extra for in flagship phones. Because of that, I’m really looking forward to keeping this device for five years or more.
The only thing I occasionally miss is camera quality especially at concerts or when travelling but it’s a small trade-off rather than a deal-breaker. I’d love to see future Fairphone models improve on this.
Hopefully, Fairphone helps set a trend as more people start looking for products that are ethically sourced, repairable and built to last.
Still running a FP4, only replaced the battery and the charging port. No further issues, works like a charm.
The situation won't improve until some big company goes full "IBM PC" thing with open AT, ISA, VESA, etc tier standards for phones.
This phone is better just because you can open the case. Spare parts are still provided by a single company. Not a big step ahead.
Better than nothing though...
Better than Nothing though.
Nothing phone has a pretty average repairability score, so I'd assume so.
If it supported GrapheneOS I would be using one too.
The choice of only supporting Pixels comes from GrapheneOS's side, not Fairphone. Fairphone got some great ROMs support, and even have an official partnership with one of them (e/OS).
