I love the idea of Fairphone, and when it works, I love the product! However … why is it so glitchy? Is it that there aren’t enough staff or is it that their knowledge of code is patchy? I get that there’s a lot to know about how the product works but it’s frustrating how I can’t just pick it up and use it! Things will tick along nicely then bam! there’ll be a problem that wasn’t there yesterday.
The forum is pretty useful and I can see that there are changes being made to improve the customer service (very much in need!) However, one has to wait for responses in the forum and the customer service branch is too slow at the moment.
I really want to support this product but I’m finding it difficult to at times. A forum shouldn’t be required, and I’m not someone who has extensive technical knowledge and responses in there can be rather techy.
I really hope that issues can be resolved as it would be so sad for people to abandon the product because it just isn’t up to scratch. I had, and still have when things are working well, such enthusiasm with this 'phone. But my friends and family won’t be rushing to get one based on my experiences.
I compare the FP2 with my Xperia Z5 compact. While the Z5 has a next generation processor (Snapdragon 810, 8cores vs. Snapdragon 801, 4 cores), more often then not, the FP2 feels more snappy. I guess it’s because the software on the FP2 is better optimized to run on 2GB of Ram, which both phones have.
Not much, the Sony software is relatively clean. It has some apps that are not really required (like Album essentially doubling the functionality of Google Fotos) and some that is Sony Advertising (What’s New and Xperia Lounge) but all of them can be deactivated without problems.
BTW: I am running the original Firmware from Sony, Android 7.1.1, Security Update is June 2017
Discussion seems to be turning a bit away from the problems described by @spooky.
I really can understand his frustration sometimes and I already had someone in my family turning away and selling his FP2, due to problems with the phone on one hand but much more so with the service on the other hand.
Nevertheless; you still have to keep in mind, that this is the second phone, fairphone is producing and the first one developed by them, as FP1 was an off-the-shelf product.
In addition they obviously lack the amount of money, time and personnel needed to do the same testing that can be done by global players. Well, even they do sell OS with bugs or hardware that fails.
Therefore, in my opinion, when buying a fairphone you always have to keep in mind, that you are still doing some final testing (in a way).
That is so much more the case, as fairphone is meant to be useable with all kinds of OSs and as the community is very engaged and working miracles in that direction. That explains the “techie” answers in this forum as well.
In conclusion I would say, that at the moment you still should not buy fairphon like any other phone, but only, if the idea behind it means a lot and you are willing to cope with some possible flaws.
Just to be clear: My phone is working really fine and doing all I want and need without any problems so far (I have one of the first batch). So I am proof, that not every fairphone is faulty and bugged; I just guess from the forum and someone elses experience, that the likelihood of one bug or the other might be higher and support - as is with lots of companies - sometimes still has some way to go to live up to its promises.
Thank you; I appreciate your articulate response. In the main I love FP and I hope to see the company succeed and to know that I’ve been part of it. It’s just on a day to day basis when something that did work no longer works, it gets frustrating!