The plastic the Shell is made of is significantly harder than that of the regular case. This means it cannot be bent as easily, which ensures a firm fit despite the edge not being continuous. This also makes the phone a bit harder to remove from the case, but within reasonable bounds.
There is in fact a hole for the microphone on the Phone’s left edge. It appears it was simply not included in the marketing renders uploaded to the FP Website.
The card holder comfortably fits one ID card. A secondone fits in there quite firmly. Inserting a third one is challenging but doable. It seems the slot was designed for a single card, but the fabric might well expand a bit if you put more than one card at once into the slot. I’m not sure ho easily the seam will break if you push it too much. I honestly don’t intend to find out.
The surface is matte, as is the surface of the original case, so it feels quite nice when holding it imo.
At least subjectively the edge of the shell is pretty flush with the screen, so you probably shouldn’t put it down on rough surfces face down with an open flap, but that’s what the flap is for I guess.
The flap fits on the screen pretty perfectly.
The fabric connecting the flappy part with the shell is reasonably soft. I did a few drop tests ob my bed (soft underground, so the Phone’s protected) from 1-2m of height. Since there’s no magnet holding the flap in place, it usually opens up furing the fall (except if dropped face-down with clesed flap and no rotational impulse), but it actually landed face down with lid open the minority of times. I guess there’s a bit of luck involved in how you drop your phone. What the flap still provides is scratch-protection wheb the phone is placed face-down on a surface.
The black stripe on the inside if the flap is some kind of cutout revealing black fabri underneath. At first I thought this was there to provide some transparency for the light sensor, but that does not appear to be the case. Maybe the black surface is needed for the proximity sensor to trigger correctly. Interestingly it aplears, the stripe is not alligned with the selfie camera/upper edge of the display, but is already located on the upper end of the display itself (below the camera notch).
As for the FP5-Fit of the FP4-Flipcase I have not test device at hand at the moment, but I imagine many of the allignment issues would be gone when the FP5 is inserted into the case, as there are mostly long open stripes along the edges instead of exact cutouts (except for the left microphone). Also the slight camera misallignment will obviously persist. Since the FP4 soft case did fit reasonably well into the FP4 standard case during the last meetup ecxept for the mentioned misallignments, it may be worth a try to see how bad it is. Maybe we can arrange a little test with your device some day @Volker? Also the favt that the FP5 camera sticks out further from the devive itself should be managable, as there’s a bit of space left on the back - the FP4 camera is not flush with the back of the shell.
Also a cosmetic note: There’s a glossy ‘Change is in your hand’ written on the matte inside that’s hidden once the Phone is inserted. Othe than that there’s a little ‘FAIRPHONE’ logo cutout on the bottom front of the flap’s outside.
As for the durability we’ll have to wait a bit. For now the case seems reasonably stirdy. I guess tge two thibgs that have the nost potential to fail would be the seam if the cardholder as well as the triangular fabrick part glued to the back of the shell. (It’s glued in a partial-cutout, so that its more or less flush with the backside of the rest of the shell btw). But we’ll have to wait and see for more on that.
I can provide some Photos of the case with the Phone inserted later on, when I have a different camera at hand, that’s not inside the Phone in the case. For now the Photos of the case itself will have to do.
Also I will gladly post an update if I notice anything else of relevance or forgot something.
Thank you for the comprehensive report. Photos 5, 7 and 8 also provide some reasonable hope that the FP5 power and volume buttons (which are spread a bit more widely than their counterparts on the FP4) will most likely be all out in the open and fully accessible and usable in this case as well. Thanks for planning another FP5 in FP4 case test.
Update @AndreasChris Fairphoner @JBap was hoping it was possible to wake up the display when lifting the flip case flap. I was wondering if an app like WaveUp (also available on the Play Store) could enable this. Perhaps if you find the time, you might want to try.
Hey FP community,
As a FP4 user and sustainability enthusiast I created a website for customizable and on demand printed phone cases: indimise.com
You can individualize fp4 and fp3 cases.
What do you think about it?
Glad you like it!
For now I don’t sell the STL. But let me know if you want to print your design on your own. Just take in account that the designs are optimized for PA12 in SLS.
my rowan Bark case has just arrived. while I love the look and feel of it, I’m afraid I’ll end up returning it. the USB port cutout appears to be wide enough at first, but the charging cables that I’ve bought a while ago have their plugs juuuuuuust a little bit too wide:
and it just won’t fit through the cutout in the case, which means I’d have to pop the phone out of it once or twice every day. it’s a shame because it seems like it’s just a matter of a fraction of a millimiter more that would make the plug go through. just something to be aware of if you’re considering getting it
my first instinct was to say that I have no tools or skills required for that, but it turned out that a few hours with an ordinary nail file and silent prayer that I don’t damage the narrow band of the wood between the port cutout and the edge of the case did the job! still, I feel a bit icky about having to modify a product as expensive as that.
I would have used sandpaper to softly decrease the thickness of the cable plug instead of drilling a bigger hole in the case - but that’s personal choice
I had that problem too with the Bark case, I just widened it myself with a sharp knife (3 minutes of work). That’s the advantage of wood, right…
I had a few cables that would fit the original hole but my favourite cables wouldn’t fit, so I widened the hole.
I have a FP4 with a Fairphone protective case. The case feels somewhat bulky in my hand compared to the caseless phone, and it also makes it fiddly to access the power button to unlock the phone.
Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative case that provides good protection but is less bulky and has better access to the power button?
I have checked the replies in the thread but some of the suggestions are now a couple of years old, and maybe someone has found a better option since — and if anyone has a case going spare, I’ll happily take it off their hands
Perhaps if you find the time, you might want to try.
