Ok, so I´ve had my Fairphone 2 for about 7 months now. While I love the idea of a fair phone that´s parts are changeable, I must say that I have some serious issues that I wish folks around the drawing board to solve soon.
What is wrong with the antenna of the phone? I live in Finland and me and my wife have the same exact mobile carrier, and when we go anywhere outside the urban area, my FP2 is practically useless. She has iPhone SE and (as I said) the same exact carrier. Standing next to each other she is having full or next to full 3G signal while my FP2 is showing zero signal. I mean completely dead. I might as well shut down the phone all together, because it´s not just unable to get 3G or EDGE reception, it´s unable to find any signal. The mobile reception sign on top bar is completely empty. And we don´t even have to go anywhere far in the wilderness, just outside the urban areas. And it´s not just iOS vs. Android thing. Just last week I noticed the same thing with my pal having the same mobile carrier as mine, but a Sony phone. While she was able to call a video phone via WhatsApp, I couldn´t find any reception what so ever while standing right next to him. What´s up with that?
Compared to many other modern phones, mine is often very laggy and I get a lot of “not responding” messages. Right now the phone is attached to my computer and charging. As I try to open it, nothing happens. Often, when the phone is charging, this happens.
I am sorry to say, that as much as I love the idea of this phone, and will keep using it hoping the future will bring some improvements in these issues, if the folks at Fairphone really want people start using these in a large scale, they have to address these issues.
Is anyone else having same issues with the mobile reception? Are these something that can be addressed and are these something that the folks by the drawing board are aware?
Hi,
I have got that sometimes with some cables, but not all of them. I often use different USB cables, depending on where I am, and one (no brand, no info on the cable) often makes the phone unusable while charging (but I usually can bring it to life when I unplug it, sometimes I also have to push the power button off and on), as opposed to another one which never causes problems (brand huawei, no info on the cable). The cable from a Samsung G3 does not work very well either.
You can find here some information on chargers here: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/207891033
And a list of chargers compatible with the FP2:
Not that not only the charger but also the cable make a difference. I my case, the same charger with a different cable behaves differently. It is possible that using a data cable makes a difference.
Have you tried to play with the settings? In “preferred network type”, if you change to 3g or something else, does it change something?
See also another way to change settings:
Not sure what you mean. Like opening the whole phone and cleaning the antenna? No I haven’t and don’t think that’s something a common user should have to do. At least on a phone that’s about 7 months old.
la 3. elokuuta 2019 klo 16.42 JeroenH via Fairphone Community Forum noreply@fairphone.com kirjoitti:
Not opening the whole phone, just detaching the display.
It could be this if its an older or refurb model. On a new model, this should not occur right away, so if you bought a new one (not refurb) and you had the issue right away then I would assume it is not this issue.
You are right that this should not occur. Fairphone should’ve used gold for reception instead. But this would’ve made the phone even more expensive.
I am also having problems with the antenna.
I have dual SIM, (IT and NL), and I usually use italian data in NL (which works better than the dutch provider I used to have).
First of all, when selecting a roaming provider most of the choices are not allowed (the phone says it can’t connect, try again later blah blah blah), not to mention that most of the networks do not even appear in the list.
Secondly, the data don’t work. I’ve tried with another phone and I can guarantee it’s not the simcard.
If I only keep the italian sim, data works perfectly. When I reinsert the dutch sim, data seems to be working fine. Not sure what is going on, but I guess that’s a temporary fix?
I never had this problem with my older FP2 that I pre-ordered, but I have it now with the second FP2 I bought in March '19, after the first was stolen.
Do you know that you can only have 1 sim for data?
You have to set one sim to 2G so no data and the other sim to 3/4G to receive data.
So you can’t have 2 sims receiving data at the same time.
@Teeko I have had similar problems with the network/reception in rural areas of Finland. The weird thing is, that it has changed over time: at first I had trouble even in Riihimäki and some more rural areas in Pohjanmaa, but in a year that totally changed and now I have no problems in either area. This year I went to Valamo in Eastern Finland, and the problems were back. I have absolutely no idea how these things work, so I don’t know if it’s even possible, but it almost seems like my phone somehow got “used to” the places I’ve been before, and with new rural places it gets confused.
I recently contacted support with another issue, but also mentioned this problem, and they suggested I’d compare the network specifications on my phone and the other phones that work in those areas. I have no idea if this will help you (since I don’t understand any of it and I have no way to test these things when I’m in Helsinki), but maybe you’ll be able to get something out of this: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/203478389-What-are-the-technical-specifications-of-the-Fairphone-2- I don’t know if it could also have something to do with the phone-carrier combo, possibly? I’m using Saunalahti, if that information is in any way useful to you.
With the lagginess I’ve found that Fairphone Open and especially Lineage OS seem to run much smoother, although I’m probably not the best person to listen to on this since I’ve been having a lot of other problems with my phone recently. I’m pretty hopeful that support will be able to solve them, though. I’ll keep you updated if I get any new answers concerning the network problems during this process.
Mutta tsemppiä puhelinongelmiin, ymmärrän että on varmaan turhauttavaa! Ja kiva nähdä muitakin suomalaisia täällä
