Hi there,
I purchased my FP1 two years ago but I am giving it up now - just like any other damn phone on the market I will have to purchase another one because it cant be repaired. And I have tried, yes I did:
First of all: I LOVE the idea. Not love like any presidential candidate loves anyone and anything but really the idea moved me and amongst all the great things fairphone stands for I find the idea to keep your phone as long as possible an honorable one. I have had uncountable phones in my life and it is simply not good. So I bought the FP1. With the special cover.
In the meantime I had a few questions to the customer support over the years and it seems that you (fairphone guys) have significantly improved in this area. From super long waiting times to fast answering and reminder and follow up mails. My battery died - exchanged. My cover and back had issues - changed. But now the most annoying part - I cant charge my phone anymore if the cable is not held steadily at a certain angle, a problem everyone has encountered in his life I am sure, this damn part cannot be exchanged. Because you dont know if it will ever be produced. The tipp to go to a good cell phone repair service didnt help. I have literally 5 cell phone repair services around my street, no one seems to be able. Now I tried long time to ignore the problem but in fact even if I plug it in it only charges in 30% of the cases which makes it impossible to use it. And that is too much. I have used the FP even though it is an inferior product (I have an iPhone as company phone so it is not very fair to compare though) that is not very fast, not super smart in its functions (from superuser to the inbuilt browser that cannot even detect a mobile version of a page in around 80% of the time) and not very applicable for my use cases (I run a lot, the bluetooth connection always breaks, I have switched to my company phone).
So…what should I do? Even though the idea is great and it is better to invest in a FP than in a regular phone I am quite frankly pissed that the life time is 2,5years for an inferior product. I dont want to hear the 3 “reason whys” from your website repeated. The products promise didnt come true and I honestly dont know what to do. Supporting the idea even though reality doesnt hold up to it seems equally wrong. For the same price as a FP2 I could get a better phone that also lasts 2,5 years. Sorry for my rant I just had very high hopes but looking at my phone which says it is charging but somehow didnt make it over 7% over night (again in 30% the cases it charges completely) I cannot use it. SUCKS!
Best regards,
kajetan