I was tempted to make a photo of the Post NL fan with the delivery man walking to my door, but I hesitated for I think it would be an invasion to his privacy, so I made a photo of the unpacking instead:
.
First impressions:
size Not as big as I thought it would be, it does fit in my pocket after all, no need for a belt sleeve.
SIM The SIM slid in easily (though I had to get rid of the glue on my card that got there by having me put the card into an adapter for the few days that I had it cut down to micro-SIM size but still needed it in my old phone before the FP2 arrived).
micro SD-card The Micro-SD didn’t slide in easily nor does it get taken out easily due to two tiny protuberances that keep it place. Also, it makes the rubber band round the screen bulge a little where the SD-card sits (it’s a vulnerable spot for the rubber band, as there’s a slot for the on-off button in almost the same place. I did take the SD-card out, as I don’t really need the storage space, I just thought it would be an easy way to get my old music back).
protection It was quite hard to get the back cover round the phone, especially to get the rubber band to slide round the screen, I used a letter opener made out of a non-sharp material but with a tiny point to get the rubber slide round the screen, just as I use a tool to get a rubber tyre fit onto the wheel of my bike. But as I wrote above, the place where the SD-card and on/off button sit, shows a slight bulge in the band, where it’s a bit loose and doesn’t fit well round the screen. The screen itself is protected by a foil, that gets held in place by the rubber band that goes over the screen for half a millimeter on all the edges, but the foil is maybe more meant for transport than for permanent protection? I left it on though, even though it’s a bit loose - handling the phone while trying to fit the back cover easily makes air bubbles beneath the foil that needs to be pushed out again.
USB connection My old cables, stemming from mp3-players and tablets had mini-USB connectors, I found out the micro B-USB that’s needed for the FP2 is different (even tinier) so I had to get into town first to buy a new cable. USB speed was fast when loading data (music, documents and movies) from my computer onto the FP2.
screen I immediately downloaded my favourite viewer apps from the Google Play store (I did use my old Google account created for my tablets, so I could make use of the apps I paid for for my tablets): FoxIt for pdf’s and Moon Reader for epub’s. The screen is large and crisp enough to read books upon without straining the eyes, which was a surprise to me. One of the benefits of having a smartphone, is having books with you at all times for lost moments.
One thing I do miss on the screen, is the ability to put more than 4 app shortcuts next to each other on the homescreen, nor is there a bottom bar that stays on all screens. I could use the Nova launcher instead that I installed to make my Samsung Tab faster and that allows for many more apps to be placed on a screen, but that would mean losing the quickstart screen for most-used apps that’s opened by swiping from right to left, that Fairphone advertised and could be handy, once I make a habit of using it.
music quality A much bolder sound than I’m used from my Sansa Clip +, it has power, but is also a bit rough, can sometimes rumble a bit in the mid-low range. My gripe with my Sansa Clip was, the quality was good, but I had to position my Sennheiser CX300 earplugs very specifically balanced in my ear to get a full sound or I would just hear the higher frequences. The Fairphone has so much power, it doesn’t seem to matter much how well my ear-plugs are placed. It does lack a bit on definition though. But my experience with audio devices, be it amplifiers, earphones or mp3-players, is the more high-end a device is, the more time it takes for the sound to ripen. Any amplifier, headphone or mp3-player I owned that was worth it’s money, sounded a bit dull and lacked the higher end frequencies in the beginning. I expect the Fairphone to behave the same. Best thing to do is play pink noise for a long time on high volume, but lacking a pink noise generator, playing lots of different genres in alternation for a long time works as well and that’s what I’m planning to do.
stability My FP2 has been fast and stable on this first day and there was only one bug I encountered: the exclamation mark appearing next to the Wifi icon after getting back in Wifi range when returning home. I’ve read on the forum that when it’s giving that warning, it uses a lot more battery power than without. My workaround: activate flight mode, than immediately deactivate it and the exclamation mark is gone. ‘Flight mode’ is a strange thing though to have on a Fairphone: for the exact same reason I own a Fairphone, caring about this world and it’s future, I have never and would never fly in an aeroplane. The ‘Flight mode’ would be more aptly named ‘close wireless connections’.
TL;DR and too many details? Blame my autism for not being able to differentiate between the essentials and the details.