Fairphone 2 users in the United States?

Are there any Fairphone users here in the United States? Specifically, the SF Bay Area / Northern California?
Are they Apple or Google compatible?
Who are the phone service providers?
I REALLY want to get rid of my iPhone.

Thank you.

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Some US users emerged over here …

… but keep in mind the big hurdles mentioned in your old topic still stand and aren’t going anywhere.

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How did you get one to the US? I want one!

  • resellers shipping worldwide (e.g. Vireo)
  • Sellers in the Market category of this forum willing to ship it to you
  • Family or friends in Europe who could act as a proxy to buy it and send it to you

Keep in mind the Fairphone 2 is not designed for use in the US and Fairphone provide no support over there …

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I wish! Also in the Bay Area. And would love to no longer rely on Apple.

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About a year age I asked if there were any FAIRPHONE users here in the US (specifically, San Francisco Bay Area). Anything changed since then?

FP2 doesn’t support any 4G bands used in the US, so it’s not really suitable as a phone for daily use there. And as others have mentioned before: There are no known plans for officially selling or supporting Fairphones outside of Europe. Don’t expect that anytime soon. FP2 and FP3 are not even FCC certified.

This being said: If you manage to import a FP3 yourself, it should work. More or less. Unlike the FP2, it supports many frequency bands used in the US. You can easily check how well it might work with your carrier. Let’s take T-Mobile US as an example:

  • Check what frequencies / bands they use for what services, e. g. on Wikipedia.
    As you can see, they use bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 66 and 71 for 4G (LTE), 2 and 4 for 3G (UMTS) and 2 for 2G (GSM). Also read the notes. Things change and you will want to use your phone for a few years.
  • Match these to the frequency bands supported by FP3 (listed in the Network section of the tech specs): For 4G, bands 2, 4 and 5 match; for 3G and 2G all bands match.

So it should work in all areas except those which have 4G coverage on bands 12, 66 or 71 only. 12 and 71 use lower frequencies, so these will most likely be used in rural areas.

You can do the same with any other operator. But there’s no guarantee that it works. Be bold and try for yourself!

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