Extending the life of a FP3

I started with my Fairphone 3 in February 2020, with the hope that I could make it last for 5 years. At nearly the three year point I need to do a battery replacement (rapidly decreasing battery life and now no longer charging properly).

However I am weighing up whether it’s worth doing this or whether to give up and replace the phone as for the past 6 months it has been running increasingly slowly, and sometimes locking up entirely for 10 seconds or more. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating to use, and if things get much worse it will be nigh on unusable.

Has anyone found any ways to improve performance on the FP3 and hence extend its usable life? Is there for example a lighter OS that would help it run a bit faster? Any known issues with apps which might be slowing it down? Is anyone else planning on running their phone that long and has found a way to manage the issues?

Thanks for all your help!

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Hi and welcome to the forum

My 2 year old is good as new. You can search the forum for users that have had the phone for three years.

  • Do you use an SD card? If so ensure it is formatted as portable. If not try and save as much of your data as possible and do a factory reset. Ensure any SD card in future is formatted as portable.

  • Meanwhile start the phone in safe mode which will disable custom apps

  • Clear the cache on the apps you use

  • Read up on FP2 ( 6 years etc. to see a) how people are OK and how they got around the slowness.

On the battery. How do you charge it.

Allowing the battery to reach zero and charging to 100% often is very stressful although doing it now and then does help calibrate the battery but is not important to do this even on a bimonthly basis.

Have you checked the battery via the onboard system info.

Using the Phone keypad Dial *#*#66#*#* then Service tests > Test Single > Battery status


https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048843571

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Just borrowing some things from a different topic which apply in general …

Have you ever …

A) checked whether a lot of the phone’s storage is full?
B) checked the sdcardguide for possible SD card trouble?
C) done a factory reset ?
D) installed the phone from scratch (as an Android so-called factory reset will not touch the installed OS)?

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Thanks for the suggestions! Reading around it seems as though my phone should be running better than it is (still interested in general tips for performance though alongside fixes, thanks for the suggestion of checking the FP2 user tips that should be useful).

Some info on progress so far:

  • SD card is formatted as portable
  • Storage is <90% full
  • Rebooting into safe mode doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of difference to the general response of the phone but it’s hard to test for the extreme slowness/freezing incidents as this is intermittent
  • Nevertheless I’ve been going through and paring down apps to just what I’m currently using today. Will start doing cache resets on everything else soon.
  • Based on more reading around I’ve also ordered a spare sim to transfer to if I manage to rule out the other things.
  • I’m hoping to avoid a full factory reset, but that will be the Hail Mary I guess.
  • Charging the battery - I used to just do this overnight, but recently whenever it’s (very frequently) needed charge.
  • The battery status check claims good health, but I’m not sure I believe that. Will recheck it when it decides it’s not going to charge again.

Charging overnight is probably the worst option as it is likely to charge to 100%, which is not ideal often, and then keep it at such, which is worse as the battery isn’t designed to be a full charge for very long.

Yes that’s very vague.

You can also check the voltage via that ‘Service’ at 100% 90% etc. and see how long it takes to drop from 100% to 90% and compare from 60% to 50%. The top 10% may be fine as a voltage ref but not sustainable for any length of time.

Generally I charge before it gets down to 30% and stop anywhere between 60 and 90, but never leave it overnight or unattended for long. Rarely I err and allow a 100%

I should try to use iode os. The stock Android is not the fastest. With iode os the FP3 feels as new. It is smooth, Android 12 and everything works well and fast. And you got the smart charge option, so charge the battery not above the 80%. It will give you a longer battery life.

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For the FP2 at least, to avoid sluggishness the advice would be to have some more free storage,
e.g:

I had al litte bit the same problem with my fp3. I went over to murena os and the speed is excelent now.

‘We will continue to call the operating system that we develop as “/e/OS”.’ :wink:

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Banking apps and similar can detect if there is a different ROM on the phone than the one from the factory and are not working. Is that the case here with the Murena (e/OS) as well, or can I use all the features with it?

I am living in the Netherlands. I have had no issues with banking apps, goverment apps, or any other “important” app. Everything works fine.

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There is no guarantee.

In the e forum is a topic listing apps currently working (still keep in mind that this could change in the future)

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It is using Snapdragon 632 processor which is not fast. The main issue I have with Fairphones is the mediocre processors they are using. The processor is the most important factor for the speed of the phone.
My Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S is 4 and a half years old but still very fast because of the flagship processor it is using. Still I don’t understand why company based on longevity of their phones is skimping on the most important part for the long life of the phones.

My advice is get a phone with a flagship processor, it doesn’t matter if it is 1 or 2 years old.

I’m also running /e/ OS (currently Q) on my 3+ year old FP3 with the first battery and don’t have any issues with performance or battery life; it varies between at least one day with intense usage up to several days. I avoid fast charging and discharging below 15%.
Apps like “AusweisApp2” (german ID card app) are working fine, I am however not using a banking app on the phone.

I started using my FP3 at Dec 2019 and I am planning to use it for five years or longer, as I did with my FP1 and FP2. It is running with the first battery and I have no issues so far. The FP and FP2 needed a spare battery after 3 or 3 1/2 years, but the FP3 needs to be recharged one time a day, sometimes every 2 days, I try to keep the charge between 30 and 90%.
Well, I am not what you would call a “power user”, at some days I check my mails three or four times and use my sports apps for some minutes and thats all.
I know, that the FP3 isn’t a racer but it is still functioning reliable and has no freezes or other problems.
Storage usage is 50 to 60% usually. I have no unnecessary apps opened and I close open browser tabs regularly.

Hope that helps a little for your decisions and you get your phone running fast enough again for your needs. A new battery would be a very little invest then.

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