There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves - This sustainable smartphone aims to reduce global electronic waste

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?

jedi ,

is this an ad?

kadotux ,

I see it more like a hacker news style “show HN”

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

It won’t even make a dent in the amount of damage that oil companies are doing.

ilmagico ,

While you might be right, does that mean we should all stop trying to be sustainanble because “oil company bad”? At least they’re trying to set the right example.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’m saying we should force the people who are actually polluting to change their ways instead of basically doing nothing on our own.

psud ,

Sure, we all agree, you’re getting nowhere though talking about it in a thread about a phone

djsf ,

I’ve had a fairphone 4 running /e/OS (aftermarket) for a month now and im very happy with it. It consistently surprises me and exceeds my expectations in terms of flexibility and reliability (and of course privacy).

You should be aware that there are occasionally compatibility issues with common apps – particularly proprietary ones. The worst incident was when the NordVPN app stopped working for me a few days ago… though this may have been a problem with /e/OS or the custom launcher ive installed rather than with Fairphone. I ended up switching to Mullvad VPN and i like it a lot more.

Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps via the App Lounge… i get a google error message stating that my device isnt registered with the Google Play Store or something like that. not sure if its just me or a widespread problem. I suspect it is an /e/OS issue that might not present itself if u are just using stock Android. If you have some absolutely must-have google play store paid apps that you can’t do without, I’d avoid /e/OS for now and some research to make sure this bug doesnt exist when using Android on FP4.

At this stage i cant recommend it for mom & dad or someone without any tech savvy whatsoever… but the privacy and flexibility make these minor setbacks absolutely worth it to me.

Overall i have no regrets and I can honestly say this is one of the most satisfying purchases I’ve ever made.

nossaquesapao ,

I tried /e/OS too, and had a great experience. The system has a polished feel and a lot of privacy-oriented settings by default, when compared to stock android.

I see a lot of criticism about that OS on reddit/lemmy, but never objectively stating what they mean, so I don’t know what to think about it.

psud ,

Lineage OS can (optionally) link to Google services, so that would be a suitable OS for users needing Google

ImTryingLemmy ,

Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps

It’s the same on my Pixel 6a with CalyxOS and the Aurora Store (anonymous access to Play Store). We simply cannot get a paid Play Store app to work without logging into Google. I can get my bank app, local transit app, firefox, bitwarden, etc from there as well as what I’ve settled on for driving nav, HereWeGo.

That’s TomTom’s free nav app and it appears to get it’s traffic info from the commercial solutions TomTom provides to truckers (paid service for them). It’s good enough, but I do miss Google Maps sometimes. I like it better than Apple Maps.

Most everything else is handled through FDroid and the apps are decent to great, no show stoppers. I don’t use it for much that would leak privacy on the app side besides banking, browsing and navigation though. It’s not for everyone.

The only way I can think of to use paid apps is to pay the developer directly and then sideload. I don’t even know if any devs do that.

As long as /e/os hangs tough my next phone will probably be a FairPhone, I really dig the philosophy and repairability.

uzay ,

You can buy apps from the play store with your google account in a browser, then log into your google account in aurora to download them. If your google account is important to you, you should be aware of the risk that google might ban it though. I recommend using a separate account for aurora. And it’s also of course less private than using aurora anonymously.

ImTryingLemmy ,

log into your google account in aurora

Yeah, no deal. Google login does not touch this phone. It’s just how I like it.

BlackSkinnedJew ,

I believe the concept behind Fairphone sounds interesting, but I think this thing about being environmentally friendly shouldn’t be focused on high-end devices, if the Fairphone 5 costs the same as 10 cheap devices(considering cheap devices have a lifetime of 1.5 years) and a biggest % of people would be able to afford a 60 bucks device vs a 600 bucks one I don’t see the point here, maybe they should make a device focused on the cheap budget pocket to really fight with the devices consumerism who are the ones what mainly create the e-waste problem. I’m not an expert but this is my humble POV.

MaximilianKohler ,

Needs indefinite software support too. It has 8 years software support, which is the best that exists I think, but that means I’ll have to trash it in 8 years for no good reason. The only reason I’ve had to get rid of old phones is because they weren’t providing security updates anymore.

BlackSkinnedJew ,

Security updates are good but the major of the weakness it’s the human using the device, there wouldn’t be any security update which can fight a dumb user, my humble POV.

I’m not saying you are dumb, what I’m saying it’s from my POV security updates are redundant.

According what I know about devices security updates are meant to protect corporations interests they usually are not to protect you from being hacked it’s more like to protect the corporations devices from you hacking it.

__dev ,

There’s vulnerabilities like the recent iMessage exploit that are executed remotely through no interaction by the user. In combination with the ability to self-spread you get mass exploits like WannaCry which spread to 300k+ computers in 7 hours. All you need is a network connection.

BrowseMan ,

The problem is that, apparently the software support is lacking.

It seems security updates are (very) slow to come.

It’s a shame because the concept is very interesting and was thinking of taking the fairphone 5 as my next phone. However the bad feedback regarding updates made me look into another model

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

I wonder if its just cheaper to make the crappy disposable devices, either because just gluing shit together is easy, or because the existing business model & supply lines based on planned obsolescence are established and optimised.

Ultimately any business model based on chasing anything but the most money is going to be at a disadvantage under capitalism. Want to prioritise good products, less waste, human dignity, not destroying the ecology? Well, you’re going to make less money, so you can spend less on capturing market share and you will always have a more niche and more expensive product that will be left behind by products that focus on money above all else.

BlackSkinnedJew , (edited )

I believe anything don’t cost by itself, I mean money and prices are a man-made concept englobed into economy, so I believe making cheap stuff and making expensive stuff are just two concepts englobed into capitalism.

My point would be, to get rid of e-waste we don’t need eco-friendly corporations, we need to get rid of the mayor problem which it’s capitalism by itself and it’s consumerism practices.

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

Yeah, in a better world where the people have control of the means of production, we wouldn’t care at all about financial return when making something. We’d make it to work well and to last and to be repairable, just like current open source hardware is. We’d make it for us.

BlackSkinnedJew ,

True dat folk! ✌️🤞

pearsche ,

Imo, paying a small extra for the device makes sense because it’s not a huge company, and the r&d must be expensive.

BlackSkinnedJew , (edited )

Yeah I mean for people who can afford any phone out there it’s not a big problem, but if you are from IDK maybe the 80% who cannot do it I believe it’s better if they focus or at least have a line of products for the people who would be interested in a budget price phone, people who don’t need the most great-eco-friendly phone with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of ROM, maybe something optimized for work with 4GB/64GB configuration and could last 5 years it’s a better idea for me but anyway I’m really not interested into having 24 cores CPU and 350 megapixel camara just to watch porn and news in Lemmy haha. It depends of the needs of the user but maybe focusing too into a more practical phone for the 80% of users could be good for the business.

pearsche ,

It’s a very neat idea (I myself would get a mid range phone like that), but I wonder if they can actually do that… Has anyone ever asked them?

BlackSkinnedJew ,

The problem I think it’s about the production and costs, all corporations nowdays manufacture in China so I believe if there would be a great budget/eco-friendly phone or another products what can actually fight in the global market it have to be a Chinese company who make it. But I believe the Chinese are not interested in it if they can keep making cheap stuff and sell it like hamburgers for the hungers. So for Fairphone being an European company I think it’s better to stick in the high-end niche. At least that way they can sell their stuff to eco-friendly wannabes and keep making a good profit in the side.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

With geopolitics being what they are I think there is a lot of onshoring coming. As well as moving production from China to other places.

RedTie13 ,

I feel like I still want a phone that is repairable but also upgradeable. Slowly being able to swap in a better screen, better camera, and a new mainboard when it’s time to upgrade.

jol ,

Yes I’m very disappointed the the FP4 looks almost the same as the FP4 but isn’t backwards compatible in the slightest… I was looking forward to upgrade my screen.

projectsquared ,

The Google Ara was supposed to be exactly this. I think it has since been abandoned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#:~:text=Google%20planned%20to%20launch%20a,planned%20consumer%20launch%20in%202017.

Adanisi ,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

I think the Pinephone/Pinephone Pro has this functionality.

It’s still very much a developer’s device, though. It isn’t ready for widespread use.

AceFuzzLord ,

Can’t wait for companies to start, every year, slowly making their phones slightly bigger and make the components unnecessarily slightly bigger to ensure you can’t just use an old phone with upgraded parts. Doesn’t matter if the parts don’t actually contribute to the overall function, just so long as you are trapped into buying a new phone.

aprnu ,

When are we going to get worldwide shipping Fairphone? Next year maybe?

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

Very interested in repair but I also want software freedom, and I’ve not heard anything about avoiding proprietary drivers/software.

localhost443 ,

I run /e/ OS on my FP4, super easy install. Been loving it.

Pyrozo007 ,

I would love to use /e/ but I couldn’t get it to install. It seemed my phone was the wrong version of the phone it was. Like a revision 1.01 kind of situation. They should also change the project name, it’ll be killing their SEO.

localhost443 ,

That’s a shame, are you talking about a fair phone? I was not aware there could be versioning issues, I thought the hardware was unchanged per model.

Pyrozo007 ,

I am not talking about a fair phone

vanveen ,

How do you do if you need for work to use Google products? I would love to use alternative OS, but I cannot because of my job

psud ,

Lineage OS can work with Google services. Probably others too. But beware that unlocking the bootloader to install anything may disable some security

localhost443 ,

You unlock during the e os install but it makes you relock after. Not aware of any additional security issues using this process

localhost443 ,

Google services are not installed by default but you can install the play store and other google apps from the built in app store if you need them. The only thing I am lacking from stock is google pay because I haven’t installed any google services but I’m fine with that trade off.

The built-in anti tracking and privacy features a very nice

Srootus , (edited )

I’m writing this on a Fairphone 5 right now, the hardware is great, the only slight issue is the USB C Port is a little looser than I would like, not enough for a problem, alas.

The main issue currently is the software, there’s a few well known bugs that cause annoyances that the Fairphone forum widely know about, one of which requires you to hold the power button down and force restart the phone. I am confident that the developers and customer support are aware of these bugs and are working to fix them.

Overall I’m happy with it, £700 isn’t too bad for a phone that I’m going to try to keep for the whole 8 to 10 years that have promised security patches. Sure its doesn’t have flagship specs, but no day to day tasks for me require that power.

jol ,

I have to say that in terms of software the team is amazing. They seem to listen to the community, and work super hard to keep up with the updates.

ImTryingLemmy ,

USB C Port is a little looser than I would like

Maybe yours is one that barely passed QC. That’s one of the replaceable modules though right? Might be worth contacting CS about.

Srootus ,

I mean I would if the cable kept becoming unplugged, its more it wiggles more than I’d like

bitwolf ,

Fairphone 5 Please come to the US ☹️

Mr_Blott ,

You’re not allowed nice things until you get rid of the guns, remember?

AceFuzzLord ,

If you have friends in the EU, maybe you could pay them what it would cost in terms of buying and shipping the phone over here. Or, if you can find one, maybe there’s someone online who does imports that might be willing to help import one.

But yeah, I really hope they expand their business here even though they’ll be absolutely 100% legally bullied out of business and forced to leave the US market because cApItAlIsM.

Melco ,

This is total green washing marketing bs.

They purposely removed the headphone jack and started selling disposable earbuds. This one move alone will generate more ewaste than any swappable parts.

This company is full of it. They don’t care about the environment and they certainly don’t care about their customers.

13617 ,

I can disagree with this a little. At least the bootloader isn’t locked. But overall, you’re right.

Virulent ,

I mean, how many people still use wired earbuds? I’d be surprised if it is 5% of users

Digestive_Biscuit ,
@Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk avatar

I have three pairs of wired earphones (plus more regular headphones) and a portable DAC amp. I know what you mean though, Bluetooth headphones really are the norm these days. The tech in them also make them hard to repair.

synapse1278 ,
@synapse1278@lemmy.world avatar

I would still us wired earbuds if my phone still had a headphone jack… It hard to find a good phone that still has a jack and this sucks

Emerald ,

Use a dongle or usb c earbuds

synapse1278 ,
@synapse1278@lemmy.world avatar

I had 2, lost both :(

Donkter ,

“I mean, how many people in this town eat hamburgers anyway? Ever since the only hamburger shop for miles around burned down I would be surprised if it’s 5%”

bitwolf ,

I do, however the headphone jack on my last phone was so bad I ended up just using the dongle anyway to get decent audio.

kttnpunk ,
@kttnpunk@lemmy.world avatar

Me, everyday. Bluetooth just doesn’t offer the same sound quality.

Grass ,

I use a usbc dac and a 3d printed brace to prevent it from bending. For how infrequently I use the earbuds it’s fine for me. Most of my phone based music listening is at work on an AliExpress Bluetooth device hooked up to the speakers pulled from my car before junking it. (Catalytic had been stolen and it had 400+ thou. km on it)

GoodEye8 ,

Are you going to back that up with something or stick to “my word is truth”? Because it doesn’t take much to go to their site and see that the earbuds are discontinued. Or that for a company full of it they sure go to great lengths about being transparent. They even have a page explaining why they removed the headphone jack.

I get that their own site could all be “just marketing” but that’s why I’m asking where’s the proof that they’re as shitty as you claim?

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

they certainly don’t care about their customers.

Yes, because if they did they would make sure to provide the security required by GrapheneOS.

SquirtleHermit , (edited )

While the headphone issue is problematic, it’s a single issue amidst a deluge of ethical and sustainable practices by the company. Including, but not limited to:

Fairphone carefully sources the components in every device, and the workers who put them together have safe and healthy working conditions. Where possible, Fairphone uses recycled materials (plastic, tin solder paste, steel, and nickel alloy), sources Fairtrade gold, and buys cobalt and silver credits to support the improvement of working conditions for miners.

The factories that make the Fairphone pay a living wage to workers. It also employs 100 percent renewable energy. Fairphone invests in projects to reduce CO2 emissions, and to balance bringing a new phone into the world, Fairphone recycles the equivalent amount of e-waste. It has a B Corp certification, which means its claims have been independently vetted, and Fairphone regularly releases impact reports.

(As reported by wired.com)

Absolutely they should get push back on the headphone situation. But calling it “greenwashibg marking bs” is textbook “letting perfect be the enemy of good”. Simply put, almost no other company even competes with Fairphone in the field of ethical phone manufacturing.

bitwolf ,

The headphone jack is worse off than just the USBc port.

While I’d like two USB ports (one in top and in on bottom), the headphone jack won’t be missed.

echodot ,

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.

Honytawk ,

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.

jivandabeast ,

phones don’t really need upgrades

Huh??? I went through 4 phones during the lifespan of my last PC

Patches ,

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.

jivandabeast ,

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

Bartsbigbugbag ,

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.

Patches ,

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.

Bartsbigbugbag ,

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.

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

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.

jivandabeast ,

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

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

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.

MrScottyTay ,

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

Mr_Dr_Oink ,

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.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

bitwolf ,

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.

brisk ,

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.

Mr_Dr_Oink ,

Galaxy s2 was easily my favourite phone.

doofy77 ,

Hardcore oled burn in though. Probably because of the RGB pixel structure instead of the pentile that Samsung use for everything else.

0x0 ,

old hardware does not like newer os versions

You got that ass-backwards.

that’s planned obsolescence

There ya go.

Mr_Dr_Oink ,

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.

tabular , (edited )
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

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.

hh93 ,

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

Nacktmull ,

I am happy with my FP3, only weaknesses I perceive are the low res camera and the almost never working finger print sensor. Besides that it´s a really good phone. When I got it I completely disassembled it and put it back together -just because- and it still worked!

DacoTaco ,
@DacoTaco@lemmy.world avatar

Couldnt the fp3 camera be replaced with the plus camera? Or is it low res too?

Nacktmull ,

Yes, the camera+ module is compatible and can turn an FP3 into an FP3+

squirrelwithnut ,

My wife and I got new phones earlier this year, because her battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore. The FP5 looked awesome and had everything we wanted, but they won’t release it in the US. So we were stuck with the usual suspects. I understand why FP can’t bring all of their stuff here, but it still sucks.

Potatos_are_not_friends ,

I’m the US… Literally a new phone every one or two years.

If you’re thrifty like me, it’s every four years. And watch as that phone suffers from bad battery life, then incredible slowdown, then apps not updating/working, or worst… your phone provider refuses to support your device any longer. You Feel forced to upgrade your perfectly workable mobile device.

We pay a subscription fee for both the service AND the hardware.

BearOfaTime ,

My current phone is 5 years old. Could use a battery (which I can buy for $10). It runs faster than any phone in my circle (running a fork of Lineage, currently Android 13, and it will get the update to 14 any day now).

No reason phones can’t last a long time.

Oh, and I paid $100 for this phone, so I have 3 them, one for testing and one as a hot spare, and still spent less than buying new.

mememuseum ,

I’m still rocking my Galaxy S8. Gonna use it till the battery is toast.

I’ll get occasional hangups and stuff but it’s definitely useable still.

BrowseMan ,

Same here. However the lack of security update + battery life ans slowness is pushing me toward a new phone.

A shame, it’s still in good condition. And that small form factor is becoming more and more rare…

bjoern_tantau ,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

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.

whyNotSquirrel ,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

you got me

KpntAutismus ,

almost like a toyota, outdated and often too expensive for what it can do but will last forever.

EatATaco ,

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.

pastermil ,

I mean, they’re not even that expensive to begin with.

EatATaco ,

Agreed. They’re statement was very subjective, so it’s kind of hard to argue with that metric.

KpntAutismus ,

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.

Patches ,

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.

Azzu ,

Can confirm, nothing broke yet :(

Grabbels ,

I was so ready to go hard on this comment, you got me there pal.

brisk , (edited )

Ironically Nokia* now make highly repairable phones** again

  • Specifically, the company that bought the Nokia Phones brand

** Only their G series

Churbleyimyam ,

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

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •