FP1 Spare parts availability (batteries, displays, motherboards, etc. [out of stock!?])

Is there a reason why you do not bring all available screens of the FP1 on the market? They are out of stock on the shop, but you can still send in your phone to replace the screen. Why would you keep some of them within the service center for people sending in their phone? I guess this way you will end up after a year with a lot of screens in the service center where you could have helped many DIY-fixers that are now switching to another smartphone because 130 euro is just too much.

They were doing it this way because there were still some phones in the warranty period. I don’t know about now, I thought that the last FP1Us were sold in November 2014.

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This motivated me to finally hunt down when exactly the final 1500 FP1Us were sold. It seems that this actually happened in the first days February 2015, so the final FP1Us should be going out of warranty in February 2017. As far as I remember, the batch sold out the same day ordering was made possible.

Not sure if the link works for anyone else – here’s the 29 January 2015 newsletter reporting about the last FP1U sale.

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When will the motherboard for FP1 be available again? I need it because I cannot charge my battery anymore. It seems to be damaged (and it’s not the battery or cabel).

Probably never. You can of course contact Fairphone via customer support. It’s easier to get an official answer there.

If your Fairphone is out of warranty, finding a repair shop to solder a new USB port to your motherboard might be the most reasonable attempt. If there is no local repair shop who can do this, have a look at the list of repair shops familiar with Fairphones.

The other option is Fairphone’s buyback program (if it is still valid). For details on that, contact Fairphone Support as suggested by Stefan. :slight_smile:

Hey,

i´ve got a FP1U and now the display is broken. Unfortunatly display units are currently out of stock…
I am sorry, but is FP serious about not to have such an important spare part available???
I know about the small amount of produced FP1 phones. But what about this 60.000 phones with
currently or in the future broken displays? --> Waste! and nothing to repair…

I have to say i´am really disappointed about this… I campaigned for FP1 and told around about spare parts, about repairing your phone and not buying a new phone every time something is broken.
now i have to reconcider my opinion about FP…
In case I would now buy a FP2 is FP then in around 2,5 years also not producing such an important spare part like a display on it, because FP has developed then FP3???

The idea of FP is/was nice, but it seems not working and all people with a FP1 are/were kind of guinea pigs to test what´s working and what´s not… that´s ok, when it´s comunicated like this…


Fairphone doesn’t produce any slate parts. It’s their partner factories. And if they don’t want to produce spare parts, Fairphone itself is screwed… :frowning:

Unfortunately it’s not in Fairphone hands… I fully agree that it would be a shame if they decided to stop production of spare parts so early!

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Unofficial second hand Fairphone 1 marketplace (sell/buy)

Fairphone made the promise. We believed them. If it is impossible to keep, they should not have made it. It is their responsibility.

Did they really not see this coming? Did they make this promise without checking whether they can actually keep it?

The least they should do by now is to explain where they went wrong and how they are going to fix it and what this means for FP2 and future models who will likewise have very small production numbers compared to mainstream phones.

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Where did you ever read a promise by Fairphone?

You can read all about it on Fairphone’s blog e.g. this article.

Where did you ever read a promise by Fairphone?

before I ordered it. Durability was one of the key selling points in the ads. It was promised very explicitly. And no, without assured spare parts availability you cannot have durability.

I searched the page you linked to for the word “promise” which yielded 0 results. Instead it talks about challenges and Fairphone’s approach.

Well, sorry, but now you’re just silly. So you mean when in 2014 they spoke of “Lasting Value” enticing people into buying their phones, they technically did not make a promise by which they are legally bound? I wasn’t suggesting that they broke any laws, I just say they screwed up royally on this one, and what they are promising for model 2 is so vague that I am not going to to this a second time.

(“While we still can’t guarantee that manufacturers will continue to supply the specific components we need for five years, in the event that a component is no longer available, the modularity gives us more room to modify the design to accommodate a certain change.”)

They haven’t even been able to update android from a totally totally outdated and unsupported version to a minimally less outdated version, and yes, they have promised repeatedly that this update was coming.

Quite frankly, I am growing increasingly sick and tired of all the “I feel so betrayed” threads. While you certainly have a very important point in saying that the availability of spare parts is a key necessity for long-lasting phones, I’d suggest you cut FP some slack.
I’m sure you realize how incredibly complex the supply chain of a smartphone is and how many factors play a role. FP is not Nokia, they had neither experience nor suppliers. They started from scratch and they used all the possibilities that were possible for a small startup in a highly competitive high-batch-minimum-margin-oriented market. They had to start somewhere. It still hasn’t seized to amaze me how incredibly persistent these guys were in taking on an entire market that does not care the least about the people at the bottom. Of course, it was impossible to make a perfect product right from the start. That was perfectly clear to every reasonably thinking person involved. Someone said we were used as guinea pigs, well yes. Of course we were. That is part of the idea. To stand there and demand a phone that is perfect right from the start, absolutely fair to everybody involved, technologically equivalent to that year’s latest flagship phone while not costing more, that is insane.
Nobody had any idea how to build a smartphone, but when you look at FP2, they have certainly learned their lesson. “FP1 sucked so I’m not buying an FP2”, that is childishly defiant.
They had the courage to take a step that in no way I would have ever had the courage to take, I would have given up when first looking at the sheer amount of parts and their shady supply chain.
Going vegan can be painful, buying fairtrade can be painful. That should be clear to anybody involved and that does not mean we shouldn’t try it.

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Lollipop is actually still the version with the highest Android market share (33,4%), compared to Kitkat (22,6%), Marshmallow (29,6%) and Nougat (0,7%).

Edit: Source (23.1.2017)

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Thanks for noticing! :blush:
No I’m not silly, but I think it’s a big difference whether you promise something or you make it your goal. And no, a promise is not legally binding.
Fairphone never promised anything, because they knew that it was never just in their hands. They are a small player and can’t change the game overnight. They can try their best to reach their goals, but if the industry just doesn’t comply then they are pretty much screwed.
Last thing I heard they have not given up yet, but are still trying to find creative ways to get FP1 spare parts created at reasonable prices.

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Thanks very much for this clear statement!
I’ve the same view…
Dosc

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Are you seriously denying that durability was one of their major selling points?

And again, I understand that it is difficult to get manufacturers for spare parts if you have a very small production number, but that when they got people to crowdfund them, because they were believing their promises. In 2015 they wrote

If you do buy Fairphone, we’re selling spare parts and offering repair tutorials to help make your phone useful for as long as possible, plus adding features like dual SIM to make the phones more attractive on the secondhand marketplace.

Note, there is no qualification here. They don’t say “we are selling spareparts, if we find a producer”, they don’t caution that it might not be the case. So what is this if not a promise they made obviously before carrying out their due diligence. They could have known.

Just as much as it was known by the time, that Mediatek is a very opensource unfriendly company, which caused the FP1 to be almost never updated (because the source code for the drivers was not available).

And by the way, of course promises can be legally binding. If you sell a product and your advertisement promises certain features that it does not have, you are of course liable.

Sorry, but that was not part of the deal. If that’s what’s happened, I do feel betrayed, because I had not given my consent, because they never asked me about that.