Iām about to ditch my FP2 earlier than I hoped to I think. Iāve had a mostly bug-free experience for 6 years and 4 months (I ordered mine in July 2015 and it got delivered in January 2016, Iām proud to be āOne of the first 17.418ā like the inside of the phone says (that statement does make me loath to recycle it, I have such fond memories of being one of the earlier supporters - not the earliest, that would be a FP1 owner). I was glad my phone didnāt have as many issues as other people reported back then, I guess I was lucky with a stable build. The only irritating thing was the proximity sensor often not working, with the screen reacting to my cheek pressing it when making a call, so sometimes a call got aborted. And Iāve had times when the screen stayed inactive after a call. But that got solved by a recalibration of the sensor.
However, for the last two months Iāve had problems connecting to my provider. The SIM card fails to get recognized, first haphazardly, then it got solved first by having the caches cleaned and then by a total factory reset. But a week after the reset the problem returned and now I canāt make calls nor connect to mobile data at all. Iāve put the SIM in my old Nokia 1100 and my FP2 is a small-sized tablet now, with just WiFi, providing offline maps, music and reading on the road.
Iām still waiting on an answer from the overburdened Fairphone support, but am tempted right now to switch to a Fairphone 4. I dislike it not having a jack, but at the moment thereās an offer for only 2 days more (till the 31th of May) of wireless earbuds worth 99,99 for free and what they offer is noice cancelling, something my current earphones donāt have. Me having autistic spectrum disorder and being very easily overburdened by environmental sounds (especially barking dogs and car and other mechanical engines) itās very tempting to have noice cancelling on the go.
It feels sad not to continue the use of my Fairphone 2 for longer, but Fairphone stated a phone should last 6 years back then, if I remember well. That was the target they aimed for, if my memory serves well. And with 6 years and 4 months, at least my Fairphone 2 made that target. Not without help though: the backcase has been changed thrice after pieces breaking off, I upgraded the camera, the display module has been replaced once when the display broke down and would show no image no more and I replaced the battery after 5 years of use.
Itās a slow device though, reminding me of the sluggishness of my computers when I still worked with HDDās as system drives. I thought of opting for the cheaper FP3 with 3,5" jack, but the cpu isnāt that much faster than that of the FP2 and if I get a new phone now, it should last me at least till the end of 2028 (another 6 years and 4 months from now) and my guess is by that time an FP3 will feel really really sluggish. Plus with the FP4 you can get a 5 year warranty. If my old Fairphone 2 had 5 years of warranty, it would have saved me ā¬158,54 of replacements (2 backcover + 1 display module) excluding shipping.
Still, Iām proud to be part of the movement and to continue doing so.