Very interesting concept.
But: way to expensive (for me at least) and no NFC…
@jftr,
I used these two chipsets as comparison; only a performance difference. I also do not want to put them in my phone, they’re more for laptops 
I’m not familiar with the architectural details; are they very different (apart from having more cores for perfermance?)
@RL, I think the statement “98% of people act amorally” is not fair/incorrect. Assume you need a new phone, but you do not need all the features. That may be an ethical consideration based on the principle “I don’t buy more than I need”. That person believes he does not need a 525€ phone (or higher specs = more expensive), but takes one of 300€. Can you call that a “unethical decision”? This argument favors a downgraded version
I think we best stay away of the “this is ethical but not that” discussion.Continuing the discussion from Fairphone 2 announcement - discussion on new Fairphone specs:
Ah sorry, I didn’t understand that you meant the difference between the i3 and the i7 and compared that difference to downgrading the Snapdragon 801 to something less powerful.
Although the i7 does not only have higher performance but also many more features, that comparison does indeed make more sense.
I’m just a simple user who knows one chip has more performance than the other, and that the later is more expensive. No hardware specialist, clearly
Hi,
I was really interested at Fairphone 2 up to the moment I read the news. I cannot understand some things. Few things are related to the specification of the smartphone and the other to its ethical aspect.
- The screen size 5" is too big, I would prefer max 4.5".
- Android as OS is not a good choice, I expected at least Cyanogenmod or Ubuntu phone or Firefox OS.
- General specifications are comparable to a samsung S4 (excluding a better CPU of Fairphone 2) which has been released on early 2013 and it cost 200 euro or less now.
My question is related to the productions cost. What is the reason of so high cost? It depends on the limited quantity? Only 100,000 devices per year for Fairphone 2 compared to 25,000,000 of samsung S4 devices? Or producing fairly does it require so high cost?
If increasing the quantity to a level comparable to the commercial smartphones will bring to a comparable cost, all the famous producers have to adopt the same standard of Firephone 2 on mining, labour right respect, etc… Whereas, if also increasing the quantity up to a comparable level, will maintain so high cost, we should ask to ourself how much are exploited the labour and the environment by actual famous producer.
Thank you
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Well, I wouldn’t call that unethical. Notice I did not say that most people act immoral - I said they act amoral. People often don’t take moral principles into account. That’s what I meant.
If fair production is more expensive, then we don’t need to re-examine the unfairness of other production methods. We know that conflict mines are bad. We know we don’t like child labor. Or crazy hours combined with crazy low wages in Chinese factories.
You just basically said: “If producing fairly costs too much, even when done in great numbers, we should just produce unfairly.” I’m not going to agree with you on that.
The price might be fair overall - but alas too high for me at present time.
I really do not care for yet another Android driven smartphone, optional official SailfishOS support - would make this a completely different animal.
No, you misunderstood me. I said that “If producing fairly costs too much, even when done in great numbers, we should think about how much the workers are exploited and the environment is polluted”. We should convince the governments to add a tax on the final cost of the products that do not respect civil rights and the environment.
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If you speak German, there is actually a petition going on atm, demanding the possibility to sue companies, who do not respect human rights in foreign countries.
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Oh, all right. Analogous to taxing CO2 emissions when green energy implementation isn’t going fast enough? Sounds good. I would like exploiting people would not be the easiest or default business model.
But I believe there is some effort towards more restricting policy. Fairphone mentioned the possible and hopeful trend towards better documentation in the production chain in one of their blogs. This would make the origin of source materials more transparant, and encourage companies to ditch conflict materials. Also, see Stefan’s comment.
You are right, we should try to discourage unfair production, not only encourage fair production.
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THX for the link…
I shared it via my FB account…
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@Robin, the key (if not only) differentiator of the FP is the fair-dimension. None of the other producers can claim (or has as target being “fair”) a social, value-based enterprise. Other companies (Apple, Samsung…) have share holder value as key (only) driver. It is evident that a FP device should be competitive in its range (top-range, mid-range, feature). What type of device you make is a matter of strategy.
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Does anybody know or presume what the middle button on the right side (viewing from the front) is for? May be it’s a shutter button.
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Good question. Because of it’s location (close to the camera) I’d guess that the power button also functions as shutter. The lower button seems to be connected to the element that displays the map of Congo, whatever that is.
Good point. May be it’s not yet functional and can be used for functions related to the expansion port.
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Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that yet. A dedicated camera button would be great. It could be one since the black part spotting the map of Congo seems to house connection circuits. It could easily bridge the gap between that button and the camera. That means the power button would not necessarily need to be the shutter button.
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Yeah, it looks like a shutter button to me too. What else could it be for? I quite like the button lay-out overall.
In other news: Wired just published an article on Fairphone. Man, this announcement really gets the team some press. Well done, FP team. Here’s the link, which I will also add to the list above: www.wired.com/2015/06/modular-ethical-phone-can-repair-instead-replace/
Some info I find interesting in particular:
- They claim the Snapdragon 801 will do 2.5 GHz max. I really don’t know much about this, but it’s a different number than I’ve seen elsewhere.
- 'Like the original, Fairphone 2 will run its own flavor of Android 5.1 called Fairphone OS." This is the first time I’ve read that FP2 will not feauture stock Android, but will have its own special sauce on top of it.
- “… and cost around $500.” This is good news for non-EU customers! The price in euro’s is higher than the team would have hoped, because of the weak euro - we already knew that. But now it seems that non-EU customers will not be affected by that. Which is nice.
- Wired claims that even the processor can be replaced. Hmm. To the best of my knowledge, the pcb with processor and some other things can be replaced as a whole module, but it cannot be replaced on its own, right?
- Expand to markets outside Europe in 2016.
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I’ve not owned a smart phone before and was considering to let the fairphone be my first. I like the “fair” concept and am willing to pay extra for that. But now over 500€? No way. I don’t need a premium phone, just give me something that works, guess I’m not in your target group (anymore?).
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If you mean Fairphone’s target group, you should ask them directly. This place is a community forum and we don’t have a particular target group here!
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