Been looking at the Fairphone 6 and damn, support until 2033? That’s actually insane.
The whole replaceable parts thing is pretty sick too. Battery goes bad? Just swap it instead of dropping $800 on a new phone or getting the battery replaced for $100
Probably gonna throw /e/OS on it too because why not.
What’s everyone else using? Anyone actually have experience with Fairphone or am I just getting hyped over nothing?
i’m using a fairphone 4, i’m pretty happy with it.
i like their goals of sustainability and repair friendly builds. i just got a security android update yesterday, although the one before was quite a few months ago, so it’s not as frequently updated as it was in the first few yearsYeah I’m getting a 4 here in a bit and it’s still supported. And should be able to get parts for at least 3 more years.
oh wow, why not a 6?
4 has cheaper parts overall and looks like other OSes are going to support for a long time. And they already removed the bugs in the 4. I dont buy new phones until about a year out when they are thoroughly tested. Its also significantly cheaper to buy the phone outright. I cant afford the 6 in the US. Way too expensive.
I got bit a couple of times with Terracube and their “promises”. The phone literally fell apart in my hand. Glue came loose and parts stopped working after a while. Worst of all, no software updates for years.
Ive been disappointed with fairphone 5, OS updates were late and not in full. Other security risks like the original OS signed with android test keys. I see that you want to flash another OS on there so this isn’t relevant for you, but I am a bit disappointed.
I’m 90% happy with my fairphone 5 with calyx. Only downturn is that it’s too big for AFAB hands, but it’s hard to find a phone that isn’t these days. So, to me, there’s no downsides to it compared to other phones. Id get it again simply for ethical reasons and recommend.
I have a few major gripes about the Fairphone 6 which otherwise looks like an awesome phone. It costs an extra $200 in the US. So it’s a midrange phone made out of plastic for $900. Really difficult to justify that unless you have a ton of disposable income. Then you can only use it on T-Mobile. While it’s awesome that parts are easily replaced, I wish there was a way to upgrade over time. I’d imagine those parts will cost more in the US as well.
T Mobile and their partnership with Starlink make this a hard no for me.
Which, also semi-related-unrelated Delta airlines signed up for MuskratLink as well.
T-Mobile also cozied up to the Mango 1.0 admin and Shit Pai to get the Sprint merger through and hoard great 5G spectrum in the Legere era, so they’ve been aligning with Fascism for quite a while.
One will find though, that most business will align with a garbage regime for the profits, so the best thing to do is spend as little money with these companies as possible, while admitting in the case of utilities, one can’t truly quit them completely.
Trump’s tariffs likely contribute significantly to that added cost.
Yep. Might make it really expensive then…if it doesn’t change in a day.
Thats sadly a US problem, I live in the EU and can buy it for maybe 680USD. If the price is the biggest problem for you then that’s great news about the phone
Yeah, if I lived in Europe it’d be almost a no brainer. Although the lack up upgrade path without buying a completely new phone is still kind of a bummer. I’ve had my iPhone for 3 years and never needed anything with it repaired. By the time something in this phone does break, I’ll likely be due for an upgrade anyway. Wish I could buy a Fairphone and slowly upgrade the parts so I would no longer be tied to an upgrade cycle. To me that’s way more attractive than a highly repairable phone.
They can ship it with e/os already installed, which is awesome.
I know someone with a fp4. It seemed like you could get ‘more’ phone for the same amount of money, at the time. But then again, i have a feeling that not all brands/models are supported in the same way that fairphone strives to.
It seems easy enough to install /e/os afterward. Thinking about buying the phone in store
Well be advised it may not be as easy anymore. Cause I’m the computer person in my friend group I recently switched an fp5 to /e/. It has some kind of firmware security built in where you can install only a system with the same or higher patch level. The system installed was at a higher patch.level than the /e/-system available, which gave me headaches.
Results may vary.
Gotcha. I managed to install e/os on an old galaxyS8, which was easy enough. It took some time to find the right guides since its an older phone, but i imagine there are more resources for a newer phone like the fp6, 5, or even the 4.
I wish we had that option…
Time to move to EU😁
@twikz FP4 here with /e/ - no complaints, has served me well for many years now. Graphene fanbois will cry that it’s very insecure, but in a world where big tech (google et al) are the biggest threat factor, /e/ makes the most sense to me.
Agreed, grapheneOS seem to care more about security than privacy perhaps
GrapheneOS user out of convenience here, but strongly considering FP6 for my next phone. GOS team are indeed very zealous about security. Which isn’t a bad thing, but from a purely statistical standpoint, the chance of being hacked on any recent flavor of Android is very low as long as we download apps from reputable sources only. Android by itself is already far ahead of typical desktop OSes in terms of security.
USB 2, therefore no external monitor.
If they make 6+ (like there was 3+) with USB 3, then I will consider getting it.?? my fp4 can use the external monitor, no way the 6 can’t
it’s usb-c 2.0, not usb 2 maybe that caused the confusion?edit: nope, the 4 and 5 does have usb-c 3.0, the 6 has usb-c 2.0 that is weird, going back like that
Think they said it’s because of keeping the cost down, I never do anything except charging with USB C cables on my phone anyway
I had a fairphone 2 years back. Had the battery replaced once, otherwise it worked fine. It was a bit clunky, a bit slow, the camera wasn’t that great, it felt a bit out of date overall, but I’m not crazy about this sort of thing, I just need a basic smartphone. For me the environmental and fair trade aspect was the selling point, not the technical stats, so I can’t really speak on that. It was … a phone, lol. It worked fine. Friend of mine is using a newer one (not sure which one) and says they’ve done a good job to bring it up-to-date and especially make the battery last longer. I don’t think they aim for super high perfomance cutting edge phones, so don’t expect that. Oh, because you can take them apart, they are obviously not waterproof. Just something to know.
My only turn off is the lack of a tele-camera: I love the 4x (104mm eq.) on my Pixel 6 Pro and I don’t think I can live without it.
I use iodé OS and I’m having a blast.
I like the idea but it’s missing wireless charging and has worse almost everything compared to my 5 year old phone…
Guess I’ll wait for Fairphone 7
Wireless charging wastes so much energy, I would be surprised if a Fairphone would ever have that feature
Yeah true. I could live without that if it had better ip rating, larger screen + battery and faster charging
support until 2033? That’s actually insane.
That’s actually EU regulation.
7 years support after the end of product sales and at least 5 years of updates after end of sale of spare parts (Which means, mathematically the company intends selling the phone for one year and spare parts for 3 years from now on.)
So they basically “brag” with conforming to the rules of their home market.
Don’t get me wrong: Having long support cycles is awesome. But that is not something the WANT to do but they HAVE to do.
Battery goes bad? Just swap it
In my 26 years of using mobile phones I never ever felt the urge to swap the battery. Repairability of smartphones is such a non-issue in reality, it amazes me that people are so crazy about it.
or getting the battery replaced for $100
Speaking of which. The official shop doesn’t have a battery for the Fairfone 6. The battery for the Fairfone 5 would cost me 100 Euros (~116 USD)
What’s everyone else using?
I use a Pixel 7 Pro which has something audibly loose inside. Since everything works I don’t see any issues with whatever part has become loose. I think I will stick with it for now.
I stripped down Android to the bare minimum, use an app that blocks all data traffic except for the apps I want, and use an alternate launcher. That’s the most de-googling possible except replacing the installed Android version with something else.
It’s funny how the official Google phones are best for de-googling and causing the least amount of vendor lock-in.
Repairability of smartphones is such a non-issue in reality, it amazes me that people are so crazy about it.
I’m sorry, but I take issue with that statement. Here’s how many steps you need to take to remove a battery from popular phones:
- Google Pixel 9: 39 steps. Involves applying heat to the battery. If that sentence doesn’t make you wince, then I don’t know what to tell you.
- iPhone 16 Pro: 40 steps.
- Huawei Honor 10: 20 steps.
- Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: 27 steps
And I have to stress, this is the number of steps to just GET to the battery. I didn’t count the steps for battery replacement and reassembly. And all of these require some sort of specialty tools like having a gel pack to melt the glue inside the phone, or specialty screwdrivers for proprietary screws, etc. Not to mention the time and patience you need to expend.
Contrast this to the Fairphone 4:
- Fairphone 4: 4 steps
No tools needed. 2 minutes. So no, I absolutely refuse to believe that phone repairability is a non-issue.
Yes, that’s awesome. Easily replaceable parts should be the default – but within reason. If I lose compactness, functionality, or performance just because I have the option to change a part, then it’s a no-go for me.
Especially with batteries. Maybe it’s just my bubble and the outside world regularly changes their phone’s batteries, but in my world I never needed to change the battery. Nor any other part.
If one wants to support the Fairphone philosophy or regularly changes parts of their mobile: go for it! But in my world the Fairphone just is a lower mid-tier device with a high-end price tag.
I used to switch out my device when it started charging weird or issues with the battery, I had S21 which the charging port stopped working, I bought a new device because of it.
And that’s just battery swaps. Getting to the screen to replaced on most phones is an even bigger nightmare.
In my 2 decades of using smartphones I had to replace the screen once (out ow my own stupidity of thinking I could balance everything from one room to another, which I could not, and my phone kissed the tiled floor).
The replacement, including a new screen, cost me €80 and took two days. It was carried out at an official partner store of my phone manufacturer. That’s perfectly fine, considering how convenient it is to have someone else do the work for me.
I think they probably dont repair their phones. Tbh my phones usually stopped working with software before anything breaks behind, with the exception of the screen.
My experience as well. Fortunately, I was able to remedy this by flashing a fresh install of LineageOS. Though, I do understand that not every phone is able to do this and even if it is, the process can look intimidating for newbies.
Yeah I’ve looked into that but never had a phone that seemed supported
Indeed. Batteries are consumables, not something that should be babied from 20% to 80% because it’s too difficult to replace.
You don’t need to baby your batteries anymore. The is what the battery management system is for. Just plug it in whenever you feel like – for how long you want to.
Think what he means is that with a fairphone you don’t have to care about how you treat your battery, because you can replace it within 5 minutes for around 40 bucks
Honestly, I never really cared how I treat my batteries. Neither in my phones, or in my other mobile devices. Just plug in or put it on the wireless charging pod and forget about it. It was always other parts that failed before I noticed something related to the battery.
It’s not 2006 anymore. Batteries and battery management systems have matured – regardless of what “popular tech” magazines and video creators habitually proclaim.
Worry less – and enjoy your device more :)
@Dirk @twikz Fairphone already offered long support before it became a legal requirements. And I think it’s valid that they advertise something they’re offering you even it’s its mandated by the EU.
Also how do you come to the price of 100€ for the battery? It’s just 40€ on the official shop.
But I have to agree that the Pixel Phones are great too. I looked into it and installing a custom ROM is as easy as plugging in your Phone and opening the ROMs webpage via WebUSB
Also how do you come to the price of 100€ for the battery? It’s just 40€ on the official shop.
Yes, you’re right, wrong product :) Its 40 Euros.
Yeah that’s what I’m on about
I use a Pixel 7 Pro which has something audibly loose inside.
Pixel 8 user here. My phone also makes noises as if something is loose when I shake it. But I searched for what could cause that and the answer seems to be that the camera shutter is moving inside, which is not a problem. Maybe it is a similar situation with your phone.
Damn you! Just shook my 8 Pro. Something rattling in there too. I never noticed it before!
So it likely is by design(?) I have my phone since release and just noticed it a few months ago.
My pixel 7 pro had the same, I thought it was because of the optical camera stabilisation
May I ask you for the alternative launcher you are using?
Contrary to normally using free open source software only, I’m using Smart Launcher – which is pretty much non-free closed source software. But I can tolerate it because how good it is.
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@Dirk What app are you using for ‘app that blocks all data traffic except for the apps I want’?
You can also check out RethinkDNS
I’m using NetGuard in whitelist mode: all traffic is blocked, including all traffic from system applications, only apps I allow can access the Internet (I can even control if the apps are allowed to use WiFi only, Mobile only, or both).
NetGuard install itself as VPN to provide the functionality. The VPN is local-only, so apps that want to connect to the Internet, use the VPN, and then NetGuard does it’s actions, and then the regular internet connection is used for outgoing trafic via the local VPN. With this, no root access is needed.
