Do girls have a better Fairphone 2 experience?

Help Fairphone 2
1

tl;dr: Is the Fairphone 2 more durable if not carried around in trouser pockets? Please comment. You might fix a dilemma I am having.

Hi everybody,

please don’t take the title too seriously. I really don’t mean to be sexist or to harm anybody’s feeling concerning the sex/gender-thing. I am interested in everybody’s opinion here. It’s just that going the girls/boys-way felt like the most catchy thing to do while still keeping it about 90% accurate. What I am really interested in is: Do people that do not carry their phones in the pockets of their trousers have better experiences with the Fairphone 2 than me?

Some background: Like most guys I know, I carry my mobile phone in the pockets of my jeans during the day, taking it out for calls, messaging, browsing, etc. In the nighttime, the phone rests next my bed and during sports I keep it on a shelf or locked away. That kind of usage hardly bothered any other device I owned so far, but it obviously was too much strain for the Fairphone 2. My Fairphone 2 was buggy but usable from the start but after about 18 months of usage, it pretty much fell apart: Random crashes (OS- and power-independent), broken touch functionality (along the long sides of the screen), non-functional proximity sensor (power button needed to end calls) and a few other things. Just the regular stuff a lot of people complain around here.

Now, after having spent about three months in what I call Fairphones customer support hell, they are willing to give me a refurbished unit. The thing is, I will not use that one because the support took so long and the device was so unusable, I had to replace it with a medium-priced, conventional product.

Since Fairphone is unwilling to refund money, the question for me now is whether to sell on eBay or whether to pass the device on to my wife, who is currently looking for a new phone. I am not really happy with any of those solutions because with my experience, selling the Fairphone feels like ripping of an unsuspecting person while giving it to my wife probably will end in the same level of frustration I had to experience for the last three months.

I am sorry for having to be this explicit, Fairphone team: Your support is just that bad, it really ruined your services for me.

Wow, this is becoming a long post – let’s get to what this is about: My wife will not use her trouser pockets, like most girls I know. So, if you are a Fairphone 2 owner who usually carries the device in a handbag or such, I would be really interested in your experience concerning faults and defects. My hope is, the device might be more durable if transported that way. If there are people around who could verify this, it might really help me choose an option. If you refute, I guess I am stuck.

Thank you very much and have a nice day.

2 Likes
2

By nature of it’s construction Fairphone 2 has much lower torsional rigidity compared with a Jolla 1 and Nokia N9 polycarbonate to hand, so tight jeans pocket is asking for problems. Ethical dilemmas apart I wouldn’t inflict it upon your partner as due to supply shortages pre-owned examples still seem to command high residual values.

2 Likes
3

As a girl and not using my trouser pockets my phone did not have random accelerator crashes.
As a mother - with children and a lot of phone accidents - it worked fine aswell. :slight_smile:

6 Likes
4

So the real question is: 2010 emo-rock tight jeans or 1990s hip hop baggy jeans?

I carry my phone in my pocket, but in a pouch, which means that it is protected from dirt and from some shocks. Everything works fine for me.
You may need other variables: in a pocket without pouch, in a pocket with a pouch, in a bag without pouch, etc.

2 Likes
5

I had one jeans from '00 which had a zipper on the left pocket (where I regularly keep my phone). It still fit well, but I just ditched it cause of the zipper. It damaged one of my earlier FP2 cases with a scratch.

I’m a big fan of sweaters with zippers, pockets (and hoodies). Example:

Though not necessarily this brand, colour, or material (fleece). Guess what I use the left pocket for. :slight_smile:

In the summer I also use a moneybelt for my belongings. Esp when I go to Amsterdam. Having your phone in pocket is asking for trouble.

As for your topic, I find that females -in general- are more careful with their personal belongings and I believe it is related to hormones. But you can certainly carry a lot of crap in a handbag and destroy e.g. your screen in the process.

2 Likes
6

I read and heard that the FP 2 wasn’t playing nice with pressure/torsion, so once I got mine, I always kept it in the side pockets of my cargo pants (instead of the normal pockets as I did with the - smaller and more stable - FP1). I had around 1 random reboot per month.

2 Likes
7

I’m carrying mine in a Feuerwear Mitch 10 since almost 2 years now and have no issues whatsoever.

Even if that might point to issues with my hormones, it seems to be good for the FP2. :wink:

2 Likes
8

Thanks for the heads up, just bought one. Cause yeah, my FP2 did fall out of my trouser pocket whilst trying out shoes and the screen had a small dent from it (recently replaced it for 85 EUR though the screen also had the white spots afterwards but w/e).

9

I prefer pants with bigger pockets, thats it. Mostly military and work pants provide these, no problem here.

10

Carrying: I carry my phone in the middle-pocket of my backpack, or in the depths of my gym bag. It’s never in a pants pocket (girl pants? pockets? lol) and only rarely in a coat pocket. I have had no problems like the ones you have experienced, and so far, no scratches or other damage from the crap it lives around. My only problem was with a first-version cover that needed replacement. If your wife is likely to carry the phone in a bag, maybe she will have a good experience.

Service: Did you depend on email, or pick up the phone and call? I’ve always had fast service by picking up the phone and calling, especially if I created the ticket by internet so they already had pictures, etc. Customer service by email was “meh”.

1 Like
11

I’m also not carrying my phone in a trouser pocket and up until a month ago, I never had serious problems caused by the phone itself and not me (I’m the type to experiment on the software).
Now I’m probably having a hardware defect on the touchscreen (left fifth unusable) but the phone did its work seamlessly for over two years.
And even now it is usable, despite that left part not working - one-hand mode helps a lot with this problem!

1 Like
12

Your case seems to be a “common” problem. See this lengthy thread for some tips:

The troubleshooting tool from the fairphone homepage would be another option for a first step: Display > The touch function is defective

If you have your phone for more than 2 years, I guess you will be out of warranty, but maybe support can help you out and you will get a special deal? Check contactsupport for what to do.

1 Like
13

I already tried that, but thanks anyway :smiley:
Unless it does not get worse I can live with it.

1 Like
14

I usually carry my FP2 in a self made holster that is attached to my belt. This allows me to draw quickly when the phone rings, I don’t sit on the phone while riding, and it does not fall down and gets trampled upon when I am cleaning the hooves. No joke.

2 Likes
15

@JeroenH, I have the same jumper! :slight_smile:
Ok, back to the question. I am a guy and have a case for the phone. It is a bit tight in my jeans front pocket but I got used to it. It works quite well. I had lots of problems in the first year but it really calmed down in the last 6months.
So, I would say ‘get a nice case for it.’

16

Thank you very much for your input, everyone. Still haven’t decided for a solution, but your thoughts are very welcome.

Well yes, the prices on eBay do seem rather OK, I guess. Are you sure, ‘inflict’ is the word you were looking for. That does sound rather harsh. Then again, I wasn’t very convinced by the FP2, too :wink:

Thanks for sharing. That’s a plus for passing the device on to my wife.

Well yes, that’s what I probably would recommend everyone nowadays. I am not a big fan of pouches, though, since to do add complexity to a supposedly really simple task I perform a dozen times a day. With other phones I did have good experiences with bumpers. Unfortunately, there are hardly any of those around for the FP2. Just stumbled on the bumper cases offered by shapeways (to be found via your favorite search engine). These do seem nice. Has anyone had any experience with those?

Yeah, well, In my spare time I like those, too. On the job it is not really an option for me. Plus, I don’t really see why I should adapt my appearance to my phone. My keys, wallet and competing devices do not really demand that much devotion.

Damn, what did I do there? :flushed: :sweat: :blush:

Thank you. I guess that is another plus for passing it on.

I did about everything I could. Tickets, e-mails, phone calls. Also, I really tried to be supportive and reduce their workload by searching online, trying different solutions in advance and telling them in my inquiries. Got ignored most of the time. Response time was forever and I hardly got any applicable solution. Answers usually were prefabricated text blocks, from time to time completely ignoring what I had sent before. I do not really want to start a discussion here. In my experience, Fairphone support is just a really sad joke. Now that I think of it, I get so frustrated that just getting rid of the device does regain a lot of appeal :frowning_face:

OK, I can see the words “No joke” up there, but seriously: You have got to be kidding me :rofl:

Pics or it didn’t happen! Now I want that, too. Besides becoming a cowboy, of course. Thanks for making my day :laughing:

Yepp, most people seem to think about those lines. It is probably what I would recommend nowadays, too.

Thanks for the great answers so far!

3 Likes
17

https://www.google.com/search?q=silicon+bumper+"fairphone+2"

18

There it is. Made of old jeans hanging from my belt close to the right hand. I now have replaced this one with version two made out of a small leather wallet and with an RF shield on the side closer to my body. Just to avoid to get my “I am not a girls” fried.

mark_poppy
mark_poppy714×1024 165 KB

6 Likes
19

This is so cool. Thank you very much for sharing. Unfortunately, being the living-in-the-city-working-behind-a-desk kind of guy, it is not really my style. But still, very impressive. Plus, I guess using words like “holster”, “draw quickly” and “while riding” sort of grants an instant bonus to the coolness attribute of about any device :wink:

1 Like
20

Not for me. Heavy user here, keeping the phone in the trouser pocket for more than two years now. I had to insert the shim for the battery because there was an obvious problem when knocking the phone on any hard surface or slightly bending it when getting off the bike. But remember #bendgate? I don’t think it’s specific to fairphones.

Very sorry about that. I have had three or four tickets open with support and I’ve always received high-above-market-average support. Have you tried calling support? That’s the way I got everything fixed.

1 Like