FP 3 - but why?

Hello, please redirect me/ send me the link, if this is already asked, and discussed, I couldn’t find it, then. (:

I am just wondering, I have a FP2 and it is only 3years old, it was advertised with “a phone to stay/keep” and I was so impressed by Fairphone that they started a 2nd one after the first one was really really bad. My phone is not working worse than other smartphones, except the main camera. But where is the sustainability in making a whole new phone, straight away? I don’t get it.

if your phone works well - nice,

use it.

use it

and

use it

and then, when it not working well - repair it

if it not possible, buy a new one.

it is not the intention from fp, that you buy a new one, if your old one is a well doing product

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The FP2 will be no longer produced, so… new fresh customers also need a fair phone, so it’s logical to have a new FP revision.

Just the case that there is a FP3 doesn’t mean you have to throw away your FP2. There are a lot FP1 user around, still repairing their devices and keep them up and running…

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The reasons they made a new one are - in my opinion - as follows:

  • The design of the FP2 had some flaws and drawbacks; e.g. the phone is especially lacking rigidity and sturdiness to keep it in the jeanspocket all day long and the camera and battery are not that good
  • The specs of the FP2 are by now outdated in a way, that Fairphone could not have sold enough phones to reach the limit for producing a new batch. Even more so, since the FP2 with it’s specs would have to be sold at a much lower price.

Short version: To sell a phone, they had to produce phones and they opted to produce a new and enhanced phone with better spcifications, that they could present to the mass market.

As @LuBo already and absolutely correct posted:
That does not mean, you should get the new one. (As Fairphone themselves state: The most sustainable phone is the one you have.)
It just means, if someone wants (or better: has) to get a new phone, HERE WE ARE, with a fantastic, shiny and new product.

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My desktop PC is over a decade old, and because it’s so easy to upgrade it’s still running as snappy as ever. New hard drives, new RAM, new video card, new card reader, and even a ‘new’ floppy drive when the old one broke last year.

Your bog standard smartphone, on the other hand, is a terribly unserviceable device. It cannot be (easily) upgraded, people aren’t used to upgrading their smartphones anyway, the makers of Android won’t maintain old versions forever, firmware is proprietary and produced at the whim of chipset makers… the list goes on.

To improve on that, FP has taken on a rather monumental task. FP has to produce their own physical parts, keep a team of people employed fulltime to update the phone-specific OS, run customer service, and to supplement it all there’s a small army of volunteers running around on the forums to help users with their problems.

And after all that work, the FP2 will still end up being outmoded and unsupported because of the way hardware support is a proprietary nightmare, and Android versions that run on hardware from 2015 will just stop being produced because they’re not profitable. Terrible stuff and definite cause for a people’s revolution, but right now it’s the way things are. And taking that into consideration, FP could keep producing FP2s, but who in their right mind is going to buy a phone with five year old hardware*? If FP wants to keep producing fair, ethical, repairable smartphones, they’ll need to keep up with the current state of technology - and that’s what they’re doing. Not by upgrading the old, but by making the new. It’s imperfect, but it’s better than anything else in the world right now.

So me, I won’t buy one. Maybe I’ll get the FP4, or FP5, or something else entirely. Maybe we’ll all be far too busy drowning in boiling seawater to be thinking about smartphones. But for those who don’t own a working FP2 or other smartphone, or are finally, tearfully, retiring their FP1, the FP3 is a way to get a great, modular, ethical smartphone in 2019. One that lets you disable SIM cards.

* Me. the answer is me.

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Couldn’t be better sayed, so I marked it as solved :wink:

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After having FP2 for 3,5 years,I today made my mind up and I have signed up for a new FP3…But I’m disappointed, I thought that I should keep it for a longer time. These years has been a challenge. As soon a problem was solved, a new occured. The finally thing was the primary microphone, it doesn’t work anymore and I’m fed up with temporary solutions. I hope that Fairphone has learned from all mistakes in FP2 and I give them a second chance. But no third.

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I believe, if I had a better quality screen, quicker SoC, more RAM, more storage, better battery, NFC, fingerprint reader, USB-C w/QC3, better camera, while keeping almost all benefits of the FP2 that my smartphone experience is going to be more pleasant. Although one disadvantage is no degoogling for the time being. The design is also more robust because of the different modular design (which has the disadvantage of being slightly more time consuming to disassemble).

I look mostly forward to NFC because it will allow me to use decent 2FA with my smartphone. I already have the required hardware for it. Heck, it even works on the FP2, with USB OTG. Which is annoying.

If for you it adds nothing, that’s all good and OK, but for different people it is going to be different.

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Yeah, but it’s for > r e p a i r s < :wink:
It’s not for “showing off”, like I so often do with my FP2. While it’s good for impressing (not so sure about convincing :wink: ) people, it obviously was in many cases rather bad for durability and contacts.

And for repairs it is still way faster to replace the screen, than it was with my FP1 or with any other phone (maybe except Shift, but I have no idea regarding their phones).

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You’re quite right - Bas van Abel mentioned the ‘party trick factor’ (as I believe he put it) at the release party, and the hopes that the new design will keep people from constantly taking their phones apart to impress their friends.

A clear example of technology being used to control people, and probably the beginnings of real life Skynet.

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But is it FP2 being designed to make us take it apart or is it FP3 designed to take away the freedom of simply taking it apart, hindering us to impress our friends or is it both?
I am sooo confused and feel soooo manipulated; no matter what. :wink:

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Obviously the end goal is to make the Fairphone more and more difficult to open. The next step is the invention of superglue, and R&D spending on proprietary screws :roll_eyes:

Every device choice has concessions. Which is why the smartphone market is as diverse as it is. So many choices to make. Although, perhaps, often that diversity isn’t interesting for us, other people view the Fairphone as such. The typical “shit specs :rofl: /moves on” type of post.

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I really like the posts summing up the prices for the spare parts in the shop to then say you can build the Fairphone 3 yourself with them for less money … oblivious to the fact there’s a core module, and it’s not in the shop :slight_smile: .

(Ok, I’ve seen only two of those up to now, and one was already corrected by a commenter).

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I guess you are ironic, aren’t you?
Just in case someone is taking this serious:
The fact, that the FP3 is harder to dismantle than the FP2 is an enhancement.

The midframe of the FP2, or the core module, is qute flexible; so is the display.
With the FP2 those two parts fixed by a plastic sliding mechanism only.
Many people reported problems with the display or the core module due to loose contacts.

With the FP3 the midfrane (seeming more sturdy itself) is connected wit 13 screws to the display. And Fairphone is including the fitting screwdriver with the package.
Therefore the FP3 is more rigid, the connections are fixed and as an add-on the precious materials needed for those connections could be reduced.

Result: Stronger, more stable phone using less resources. :smile:

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Yes, hence the :roll_eyes: it is used to denote sarcasm/irony. (Another one is :wink: but it is less precise/clear. It is a flaw in text communication, hence the roll eyes is an important smiley/emoticon/emoji/whatever_it_is_called_these_days)

FP3 has even 1 more module.

Difficult to say a lot about a device I have not yet used. Patiently waiting :slight_smile: (I ordered around 12.15 cause of an OS update).

12:12 here. :slight_smile:
But this phone is a gift, so I will keep talking of something I don’t know firsthand.

Status Update:
Shipping “late October” now.

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Yours will have approx 2 days delay cause of Germany (if I’m not mistaking?) compared to me near Amsterdam (1 day for sure) but yeah I’m sure you’ll get yours earlier. Just one more thing… that shipping late October is not counting for you or me, is it?

I presume that’s on new orders, or do you mean also on your launch-hour order?

Noooooo!
One could really watch the shipping date change with orders the first days.
I have listed this here:

Shipping dates are always what was shown when you ordered.

Edit:
@JeroenH
I really don’t expect ordering 3 minutes later to have an influence on delivery date.

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OK, glad I understood it correct. Seems like a fair way to handle it.