I am trying to decide whether to buy a FP4. I currently have a FP2 and the mic has stopped working. I’ve tried what I can to repair it myself and am not able to send it in for repairs because I live overseas and would have to be without a phone for quite some time to do that. It wouldn’t make sense to buy a FP4 if I’m still unable to make calls. (I use headphones with my FP2 to work around the issue, but that sounds like it is not possible with this issue on the FP4). Should I risk it?
I’m in South Africa with MTN, if there are any others on here who can report on this issue with that carrier specifically.
At the moment the quality of regular calls are not great to today’s standards, let alone in 5 years. Other than that, Teams has issues. Other instances are good enough, such as Signal. But since SA is not supported, regular calls could be worse than what I’m experiencing. No way to tell.
You may find a shop that can carry out a repair, it could be a loose mic. See
I have an FP3 with a 3.5mm jack for headphones, my daughter has an FP4 with a bluetooth and neither of use have problems.
The network/carrier bands are important a lot of places are closing down 3G, so if you were using that take care.
You can see the bands that the phones can use via the specs so ensure you have an equivalent where you are. Expand the Network section
There is also the method of purchase. There are companies that sell abroad, but unless they pick up the warranty on your behalf you don’t get any, let alone the 5 years for the FP4
It depends how you use your phone of course. Teams is really unusable. I also make regular calls for work. People don’t enjoy the quality. Fortunately those other apps have improved in terms of recording quality. But there are also other issues, that plenty people experience. So there may be no issues for you and your daughter, but there are for others. All depends how you use the phone.
Thanks. The Fairphone 2 works with my network, so I’m assuming that the 4 will as well, though I’ll double check. I’ve missed my window to buy it now (I knew someone travelling from Europe who could bring it to me but it’s going to take too long to deliver to them before they leave, so I’ll have to wait for someone else). I’ll give it a bit more time and think about the risk a bit more.
I have exactely the same thing.
On tegular GSM with full 4g réception people hear one word over 3 !! It s total crap. In the 90s phones where better. They hear you like a robot too.
When on lound speaker the samething happen.
The strange thing is that it works better on Signal or whatsapp!
What I noticed is as soon as I give a GSM call it goes on 3G like it is loosing signal. Then when I stop the call I get back to 4g.
I suppose there is a problem in priorities… With pixel 4a my 4g tethering would drop when I received a phone call (which is not nice), but at least I coule pickup the phone and discuss!
I have a lot of call that don t even ring too.
I am in france on free mobile, changed my SIM card.
Was worki g on pixel 4a and samsung a3 2017.
Make this phone work !
I have check and there is no Volte activate (no option for it in SIM card network).
Concerning my “shouting”. There are 2 things :
It is not allowed to lie in an advertisement in France. So calling this product Fair Phone is a lie, since the phone function is not working. People don t hear me over the phone for the past 5 monthes. This feature is part of the basic specs of any phone on the market since 2000. So dear fairphone “make it work”, please !
In France at least, the consumers are protected against “hidden broken features” for as long as the product is in use (vices cachés ) Achat d'un produit : garantie légale des vices cachés | Service-Public.fr
This means that when toyota release a car with broken brakes by design; even after 4 years they have to recall the cars and fixe it for free.
That said, I reallly want Fairphone to suceed, but it cannot be by delivering phones that don t phone! If the fairphone 4 is a kickstarter, I ll be glade to give it 10€…but this kickstarter has costed 570€.
Bottom line I don t feel like I am a monster “shouting” on forums; when I am just asking that fairphone make GSM phone call work both ways on FP4.
I understand your frustration, but as @yvmuell said, we are all just users here, Fairphone employees usually don’t show up in this forum. Your feedback likely isn’t reaching its intended target.
You have witnessed the pace of Fairphone support yourself, they are completely overwhelmed with work. I don’t think there’s somebody left who can actively monitor this whole forum, they don’t have the capacity for that.
Thanks a lo for your answers.
I am here for 3 more month. If phone call don t work then, I ll sell it on ebay.
And maybe come back for fairphone 6 in 2030. Who knows But if fairphone 6 cannot call from the moon and the samsung does I ll be disapointed too
I know there is nothing easy in designing and producing a revolutionnary phone… anyway thks to fairphone and this community.
In the current status , what I would say to friends is that fairphone is an anthousiaste phone for people who want to tinker with it, but not for daily driver. i really thought this 4th generation was out of the beta stage, it feels very very close.
Thanks for your answer, maybe in a few weeks I can even understand better your frustration as I will be switching to FP4 as a daily driver soon
I think you and others are a bit out of luck, as I assume there are many out there who use there phone without such issues, else we would see a lot more of angry posts here I guess. I could use my FP2 for 5.5 years without bigger issues and use a second hand FP3 currently as well without issues already since about 8 months.
Without going into details, I can tell you, that Fairphone is already setting up further things that should help to solve such issues better and faster (and in my eyes they would do themselves a favour, being more open in communicating such things to their consumer, as this might help to increase understanding and trust). I guess to reproduce such issues you need to use the phone with the respective provider and similar set-up, so its def not an easy task.
It is not called a Fair Phone, the term Fairphone refers to the extensive effort put by the company to source the materials in a fairer way and to pay better wages to the factory workers.
That you find the phone unsatisfactory is a personal issue. You had 14 days from receipt to say you were not satisfied and hence it is a little inappropriate later to complain about your decision to buy and keep the phone. Hence the feedback about you shouting or ranting.
It is a personal issue. Clearly many people have bought the phone and I see few complaints. My daughter seems fine and on the contrary does not tinker with the phone, neither do I.
Clearly if you have problems there is an official course to take and with a five year warranty you have some time to address your concerns to Fairphone.
I can though understand the frustration and disappointment if you have a faulty phone or unsatisfactory experience and if all that it too much for you then clearly you can sell the phone.
You’ve supported the Fair trade etc. and that is appreciated, so selling it on is no loss to the idea. Let’s hope whoever you sell it to finds it more suitable and you can get yourself an alternate phone that suits you better.
Welcome to the forum! Please read the thread Most issues are resolved. As far as I know there are still some issues with some carriers and with the Teams application. Other issues have been solved.
Thanks, already did, all 174 of them comments. But at the end i found the situation inconclusive. Some claimed it was fixed while others said it did nothing for them, and not long ago there was some frustration too. I though never heard of such problems till date with any brand i know. Fairphone must have some serious problems Programing. The device is now 1 year old… they’ll lose a lot of customers in this manner. Are you satisfied with your device? Would you buy it again or recomand it?
There are many phones that have issues, Fairphone is not the only one. Go to any subreddit or issue tracker of a phone and people complain. But I get the frustration. I also find it disrespectful to release a phone with issues that are discovered within the first hour of using it, and then tell the customers that it will be fixed but it takes forever. I also get that they need to bring it on the market to start making money already. But indeed, this damages reputation.
I’ll update the top post with the current statues as far as I know it. Oh, I can’t update it anymore. Then I’ll give the update here and mark this comment as a solution, then it’s linked at the top as well.
[-] Regular calls (depends on the provider, for me it’s not fixed, I use 2G quality while being on 4/5G, but it will be fixed soon)
Handsfree
Signal/WhatsApp voice messages
[-] Microsoft Teams video calls (still work in progress)
But if fairphone 6 cannot call from the moon and the samsung does I ll be disapointed too 
Please read the thread 
) supports VoLTE with my FP4. No 2G calls, absolutely no issues.