This is a good suggestion in order to reduce e-waste but I personally don’t want to do it if Fairphone releases a phone every two years for the simple reason I would buy a phone with mid-range capabilities from the previous year (at best) which will be quite “slow” for the new standard six years after its release.
To conclude, if the phone release calendar stays like now, i.e. a new model every two years, I will buy a new one every four years if it is a Fairphone or I will go for another brand if I can wait for five. I am the only one thinking so ?
I would buy a new phone, when the old one isn’t working anymore or doesn’t fulfill my requirements. If that’s after four, five oder ten years, it doesn’t matter at all to me.
I’m personally on the other side of that spectrum, my previous Nexus 4 was 9 years old when I switched to the FP4, and it’s still working. But that 's because there are still people who update the software and try to backport kernel patches (outdated firmware is obviously still a risk).
If Fairphone keeps updating the FP4 (at a hopefully faster pace in the future), I really don’t care when they release a new device.
The moment I see them dropping support for the FP4 early, or if the next ones get priority support, that’s a signal for me to switch to a different vendor, should my phone ever break.
Hm, this is an often discussed point here in the forum.
What I personally do not get: Every time when this is pointed out, this is made out of the ego perspective.
There is potentially an increasing amount of people out there who care for sustainable poducts. If these products are only offered in a five year intervall, what should people do if they need a susatinable device four years after the last device was released? Should they wait a year? Buy another brand that is probably not sustainable?
From Fairphones perspective there will probably be very low sales for the actual phone in the 5th year. For econimic and impact reasons it does make sense to release a new device in shorter intervals. That gives freedom of choice for the customers.
It is a live documentation how introduced some (or many) people are in the marked release cycles, as they are not able to decide if or when they are in the need of another device anymore. That happens monstly in the small electronic device industry. Way less in the automoble industy for example.
Hm.
I had the FP2 as daily driver for 5years when it became too laggy for me. I would not have bought a new FP3 (too old in my eyes and not worth the money any more) however bought it second hand. That I changed already to the FP4 after 8 months had “reasons” nothing to do with the FP3 (although its running quite laggy with IodeOS at the Moment, would it be my daily driver, I would do a factory reset and/or fresh install).
Fairphone offers 5 years of parts, warranty and software starting from the release date.
Someone who buys a Fairphone 4 years after it’s release will get less support time than if they were to buy any other random phone.
So it totally makes sense for them to release a new phone every two years or so. That also gives a 1-year-EOL peroid, so that someone switching from Fairphone 4 to 6 doesn’t need to buy the new phone straight when it comes out (and thus supplies will be low).
I also don’t really get the arguments for longer cycles.
I have the feeling, that more often then not, the argument is just “I got really bad impulse control and I always need the piece with the highest number on it, so if FP releases a new phone, I have to buy it.”
I’m not sure that makes sense. The minimum warranty is 2 years in any case, and I’m not sure ‘any’ and therefore ‘every’ other random phone will have more than 2 years.
Yeah, well, software updates and spare parts aren’t covered by warranty.
But you are right, let’s rephrase:
A potential customer has no advantage in buying an expensive Fairphone with one year of software/parts left, over buying any other (cheaper) phone from any decent manufacturer.
What I meant is, if I buy a Fairphone on release, I pay much more for long potential usage (and a fair aspact that one might care about or not).
If I buy a FP short before EOL, I don’t get any especially long usage.
So they need to make new devices at least semi-frequently, so that anyone who buys a new FP at any time will still get long term usage benefits.
On the other hand, with the current right-to-repair wave and a bit of luck, thiss will be obsolete because other manufacturers will live up to similar standards.
What? What makes you say that?? Spare parts have a two year warranty from the day you buy them, so even though there is no warranty on the original FP3s any spare part bought at any future date has one for two years
Again the minimum warranty is 2 years ??
Software support only covers the default FOS if you buy direct, which makes absolute sense.
You have some odd ideas, maybe you haven’t read about it.
2.1 The Fairphone smartphone device, the separately bought Fairphone accessories and replaceable smartphone parts (“Spare Parts”) are covered by this Warranty for 24 months from the date of delivery to the original purchaser.
Spare parts are guaranteed to be available until 5 years after the device comes out.
Warranty is >2 years only if bought early enough. After 3 years of release, there’s only the legal 2 year warranty, like every . single . other . phone. No advantage there.
Software updates are never covered by warranty. As in, having warranty means in no way that you are going to get software updates. And warranty also doesn’t mean that replacement parts are available.
But again, I had bad experiences with you before, so I don’t expect you to try to understand what I am saying, because your main point is to disagree, no matter what.
I should probably argue, that you really shouldn’t give me a lot of money, maybe you’ll also try to disagree with that.
So you acknowledge now there is a two year warranty on the phone and a further two years on any spare part.
If the phone doesn’t work within that period, be it the hardware or the updated FOS software then Fairphone will repair or fix the issue. When a phone fails to work and is sent off it will be ‘fixed’ which may include hardware replacements or a firmware reboot etc.
All in the two years.
So I’m not sure what point you are trying to make as it’s 5 years at the momment and 4 years from 2023 and there will probably be an FP5 in a year or two.
And take note that Fairphone are refurbishing the FP3s and the FP3+s and providing them with two years.
So it seems reasonble that in two years there will be quite a few options.
