A few things i noticed after 10 weeks

Hello guys,

Over the past two and a half months that I have had the phone, I have noticed some things that range from neat features that could be developed to problems breaking the user experience. I will try to sort them from the most important suggestions to small nitpicks:

  • I need roaming almost daily, but it resets every time I return to Germany. This is not just annoying, when crossing the border it can be quite dangerous if someone tries to turn it back on during driving. (not that i would)
  • When I rotate the phone while watching a video, the sound stops for half a second.
  • The automatic brightness is still not very good; it often makes the screen too dark and takes quite a while to brighten when the light changes.
  • The fingerprint scanner is very fast – I’ve had the device turn back on a few times when I’ve pressed the power button, but this hasn’t happened in the last few weeks, so maybe I’ve got used to it or it was fixed in the last update. On the iPad, you first have to press the power button for the fingerprint reader to activate. It would be a useful feature to prevent the phone from unlocking when you’re just holding it.
  • Since I got my phone, it has happened 3 or 4 times that the phone was just turned off when I took it out of my pocket. Unfortunately, I cannot say exactly what happens, but I just have to power the phone up again.
  • I love the battery options (charging to 80% only and slow charging), but they should be more easily accessible. For example, there could be a notification when I plug the device in, or an option to only charge slowly at night. Best case, I could set the hours myself.
  • The switch is incredibly underutilised. When set to the flashlight it doesn’t work with a locked phone (you have to press any other button first). It is really slow. The Fairphone Moments is just some app that has no way to add more than 5 Apps to use (ridiculous to make it an exact number). And you can not even access the switch readings with remapping apps.
  • It would be a useful feature to be able to swipe down on the fingerprint sensor while using the phone to access notifications. (The LG G4 had such a function.) This would be especially useful since the phone is a little too big to reach the top with one hand.
  • The software is really really barebones. I don’t expect a Nothing-type design and customisation, but having a functioning multi app window or floating apps is widely provided even on low cost devices/manufacturers.
  • (The volume buttons are too low, which is still really annoying, especially since I have a phone holder in the car that uses that exact height – just make them higher on the next one!)

The (white) case i ordered started getting dirty after 3 days and peeling off after 2 weeks. Support refunded the money without any problem but it is annoying that you cannot really use the case with these optics and therefore the changable back is also less appealing.

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Welcome to the community forum and thanks for contributing your thoughts!

Please remember to report bugs to official Fairphone Support (see contactsupport ), for instance Roaming and phone turning off when in pocket. You can also make suggestions to FP through the MyFairphone app or Support.

Apart from being faster, an advantage of having the phone unlock just by touching the Fingerprint sensor, is that you substantially reduce use of the Power button. However, the following setting enables you to require that the button be physically pressed before the sensor is activated:
Settings > Security and privacy > More security and privacy > Fingerprint Unlock Behaviour.

Do you use the split screen function?

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