Fairphone novelty (novelties?) to come on 30 September 2021

Mobile phones without a headphone jack tend to put an analog audio signal on the USB-C port as well so you can use them with a cheap adapter. But there is a good chance that this phone will support digital audio over USB-C as well (maybe even the FP3 already supports this, as this is in fact simply an audio device over USB OTG.)

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I read about this but it seemed like not many mobiles do that, therefore I assumed that the FP4 won’t do this, either. But yes, if this is the case then the adaptor is really simple and just connects the contacts with each other without any DAC or complicated electronics involved.

If I remember correctly even my FP2 is able to run my USB headset via an OTG adaptor.

To get an idea about quality of these adaptors I found this link quite interesting:

I think if you understand all the measurements there you’re qualified to say if the adaptors cause a loss of quality or not :wink:

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The adapter may be simple but referring to another post, there was concern expressed by @DeepSea, that an adapter being used in the jack socket would increase its rate of physical fracture.

The issue was that having an adapter puts greater lateral strain on the port.

a) A USB-C port is more fragile than the jack, I think

b) In the case mentioned it was to feed into an amplifier, in which case the phone, adapter and cable could be stationary. In this case with a headphone cable it is unlikely to be stationary hence increasing the strain on the usb port .

c) Generally it would be more lasting for the port if it didn’t have multiple uses.

Maybe a magnetic connector would remove some stress.

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First they would have to announce their choices.
A lot of guessing going on on something unannounced, as if it’s all here and definitive. But it’s nice if people can spend their free time together on something :slight_smile: .

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I am seriously thinking about wether I want to continue (…) recommending Fairphone to people I know. They better have a damn good explanation for their choices on Thursday.

IF they were to make a choice that is substandard in your opinion… Which brand of phone would you then recommend as being the most sustainable and fair trade, with the most transparent supply chain?

As far as I know, they are ten steps ahead of the competitors. IF they take a few steps back (which would suck, might I add), they would still come in first.

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Honestly I wouldn’t mind much them removing the SD-card slot, if the price difference is not exaggerated between different storages sizes… Unlike what Apple does.
Why that ?

  • You need a full guide to use them properly… And if you don’t you could lose all your data and have to hard reset your phone and format your SD card.
  • I’ve had an SD card that failed me. The data on it was lost for good.
  • SD cards were mostly used to expand the phone’s memory when they didn’t have enough to store all apps and data. Which is not really the case anymore, with 128GB of minimal storage. And clouds.
  • SD cards are an extra expense and mean more pollution and child labour or bad working conditions.
  • SD cards can break (they’re very thin) or be lost (they’re very small).
  • it allows the phone to have more room for other components…

As for the headphone jack:

  • I’ve had so many broken cables making it impossible for me to keep my headphones or earbuds more than a few months each. Which is definitely polluting and costly. If Fairphone stopped selling their wired earbuds, it might because changing their cable regularly might not have been so ecological in the end.
  • At the opposite, I have wireless earbuds for more than 3 years now. They still work really well. And I use them very frequently.
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  • I’ve been using SD cards for more than a decade, still have a 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 Gb

  • Never used a guide. Formatted in a Windows PC and used everywhere else with no problem.’

  • None have ever failed and I move them from phone to phone and amongst three PCs a Windows XP to Win 10 | Ubuntu, Raspberry pie x 2 as well as 2 FP3+ 2 Samsungs

  • They cost very little.

  • Never broke one, never lost one.

  • I have all my data in my hands and replicated three times.

  • So easy

:desert_island:

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I’m tempted to join the discussion with a very strong point of view :wink: but let’s not forget we have very little evidence to support the assumption that the SD card slot is about to go.

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Well very weak ones definitely won’t do. I always think that challenging opinions are useful if they don’t focus on the polarisation of what is good or bad etc.

But OK keep your thoughts to yourself, after all that’s what Fairphone are doing. Anyway I’m off to sleep without the nightmares this impending FP4 may conjure up.

Just hope it’s a bright day or two 28, 29, 30 or three tomorrows.

I bet you can probably hold your breath for three days.

It’s all fine tonight:

  • There is a phone jack
  • There is an SD card slot
  • There is an FM radio

Better disappointed in three days than miserable for three days

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word.
There is no evidence at all if the FP4 has an sd-card slot or not. We have no pictures of the inner side of the phone. We don’t even know how many SIM-slots the FP4 will have.
Just a bit - 2 days more - patience an we’ll probably know the answers to all those open questions.

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Can we wait for the announcement before we judge them with these big words you have?
Beside that it is a company, if you are to radical you loose it and in the end you have nothing.

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I would only recommend buying second hand phones. Just because they’re in the lead doesn’t mean they should get away with anything.

We already saw pictures of the phone from every angle so unless they are fake (which I don’t really think) there is no headphone port.

For me the calculation is very simple: two ports are better than one. If they replaced the headphone port with a second USB port it would be a completely different story (and imo a big improvement)

Indeed what you said just for you. If there is no headphone port what do you think as company what is important, which ports give the most trouble and which ports are used by the majority of users? That is the most important question, less is more, apperently it is human nature to think about solutions which add resources / material instead of substracting them.
**Look for research on this subject for Leidy Klotz by the way.

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It was called Fairphone:
“The ________ that can change a whole industry.”

Sure, it’s the FP4. But why should the FP4 change the industry? According to this, e.g. the FP3(+) would have done the same.

Has anyone here had this theory? My theory is that they have found a way that the Linux kernel and baseband can easily be updated and provided with security updates for 10 years. That would cover all 3 levels of security. (Fairphone has control over updates for the operating system itself anyway).
This is an extremely difficult task and would indeed be a great game changer in the industry. So far, this is the only reason why a smartphone cannot be used (“safely”) for much longer than 3 years. Fairphone itself has already made the painful experience that there is no more help from e.g. Qualcom after a certain time. Nevertheless, together with the community, they have made another update for the FP2 possible with great effort.

A hidden hint to this could be their tweets from 23.9. They are not about the Fairphone, but about smartphones that can be used for 10 years. (or not :wink:)

What do you think? Completely absurd? :crazy_face:

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Only if you align yourself with a Red Hat/Debian/Ubuntu LTS release. That’s really not an easy thing to do. The SoC is also challenging without vendor support, since those are closed sources blobs.

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Ok, we’ll only have to wait less than 48 hours to be sure but as there were some speculations about the FP4 not having an SD slot anymore: today’s leaks indicate it will still have one :wink:

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There should be something else indeed. It could be also a really strong collaboration with /e/.

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Where is that leak?
:onion:

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I think this is what he means…
It’s in German though…

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Hmm, so no OLED display? That’s a bummer for e-reading.

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