Sorry, I totally agree to @jbruggem here. The persistent failure to deliver spare parts cripples Fairphone’s concept: There is no point in having a phone with replaceable parts, if you can’t be sure these parts are available when you need them. Just trying is not enough here!
Considering that a good image is Fairphone’s key feature in selling phones, they seem to put way to less effort in solving this issue. First we are not talking about some days here. The display assembly is unavailable for months(!) now! And second: If something like this happens (and it absolutely mustn’t), customers waiting for spare parts need updated information (what went wrong?, what problems need to be solved currently?, how are we trying to solve them?, and how long will that take?). Fairphone seems to fail terribly here. The last statement in this board was posted some months ago and the support does not seem to respond at all.
This has to be considered a major issue. Unfortunately Fairphone seems to strongly underestimate it.
Quick question to the forum: Is there a display available by another manufacturer that is compatible with the FP1? I don’t really care what it looks like, it just needs to work…
We’ve been struggling to get the Fairphone 1 screen back in stock. The reason for this is that we have been facing quite some challenges in getting new displays produced. Setting up a new production line with a new production partner is always challenging, especially since we require relatively small production quantities (compared to industry standards and our own initial production volumes). Imagine that most factories make thousands, or millions of parts and we are talking some hundreds displays.
But we’ve managed to find a reliable partner in our current Fairphone 2 manufacturer: Hi-P. We have successfully produced a test batch of displays. These displays have arrived in the Netherlands and with the results from this test-run we are now confident that we can safely start mass production to the required quality level. However, Chinese New Year has now started and production in China grinds to a halt, so it will take some more time before displays can be mass produced and arrive here in the Netherlands. We now expect to be able to sell screens in March. Once this happens we will immediately notify you by sending you an email.
We are very committed to supporting the FP1 with both hardware and software and are sorry that this part has been taken so long to be available again.
It is hard to put an exact date as we do not want to make promises we can’t keep, but as a very conservative guestimate I’d say that displays should be available again the end of March.
Thank you for the clearly encouraging news!
I’ve been waiting for a new display assembly since the beginning of January. The long waiting time and a lot of different reasons given (first the move to other storehouse, than the seach for a newmanufacturer tied to the Chinese New Year celebrations) made it hard to stay a unconditional supporter of the Fairphone project. The fact that the FP1 display assembly was still available at the shops of some retailers (for another 30 to 50 Euro more than in your shop) was also very striking and irksome.
I still believe in the idea of using a smartphone that is ethical and built to last and therefore support the fairphone project, but this episode which seems to affect quite a number of Fairphone 1 users makes me doubt. Therefore I have two appeals to make:
Please take the provision of spare parts just as seriously as the production of new phones! This is a crucial part of what you claim to do differently than other producers. This is the reason why so many customers support you by buying a Fairphone.
Keep your communication transparent and exact! Chinese New Year was on February 10th. With the following 2 weeks of vacation China is resuming “normal” working hours these days. Your statement that “Chinese New Year has now started” whitewashes the fact that you apparently mismanaged the provision with FP1 spare parts. The trust of your customers is a precious good, don’t shatter it unnecessarily!
I am a pioneer supporter of the Fairphone project. I really appreciated your work and all the energy you spent to start this project. Please take my points seriously. I stopped recommending Fairphone to my friends due to my experience, but I would like to return to do so!
For completeness’ sake, out of stock at the moment:
Display assembly FP1
Display assembly FP1U
Flash
Motherboard FP1 (use FP1U motherboard instead, see below)
Vibration Mechanism
By the way: I’m guessing/hoping @Douwe is keeping an eye on this topic anyway and will provide updates here when there is any news, but it sometimes helps to use the forum’s user mention system (type an @ to get started) when referring to someone, as that way the user gets a notification about your post.
I don’t think it makes much sense to produce new FP1 motherboards. They cost the same as FP1U motherboards and you can put a FP1U motherboard into and FP1 (making in an FP1U).
Add me to the list of people with a broken screeen. Waiting a month will be troublesome but I might be able to get by because the screen is still responding just as well to touch and no part of it is sharp to hurt me when swiping. It’s just more dificult to view it because of cracks. Does anyone know if there’s anything I should do to make sure my phone will not break from me waiting so long to replace the screen? Maybe moisture could get in through the cracks or parts of the glass could fall of. Would it help to get a plastic cover?
I really hope the plan for late march will keep. I’ve really been very happy with my phone so far and would like to keep using it.
Also does anyone know if there are still displays available if I send it in for repair? In that case it could be a backup plan.
How is the progress in testing the screens, @Douwe? Maybe you can give us an update? Something like how many displays you have tested by now and how many more you need to test until you start selling the first ones?
Same question as dom, since my direct enquiry to the Support team shouldn’t receive a reply before days… Could be useful to everyone to spread out the info right here
I’m especially interested in knowing how many displays should (soon) be available, compared to the current number of orders? ie. since my screen was shattered a few days ago, can I hope to replace it before months?!
Another broken display, still functioning and no bleeding fingers though…
I’ll keep on supporting FP due to the facts above.
But I can imagine, that it can be a pain in the neck having to wait for so long for a new display if you’re really in need of one.
Good luck for your future deliveries of spare parts, FP-team!
Best,
Manu
Is there any news about the displays? How is the progress in testing them? By the way: What are you testing for exactly, @Douwe? Pixel errors? Colors? Or just general functionality? Maybe you could give us some details, @Douwe?
Does anyone here know if micro usb port and its placement on the mainboard was changed between FP1 and FP1U? Or stayed this part of the main board unchanged between the revisions?
I haven’t seen any good FP1U main board pictures on the net.
The pictures I saw looked bad. It looked like changing the port is pretty complicated even for experienced shops.
Currently I can still “wiggle” around the problem … The board is old, has design issues and it looks like MTK stopped supporting it … so I will try it myself as soon as it stops working completely.
I was interested about the quality management/control aspect. I had a discussion on how important/unimportant tracking problems like those is for a project. I think it’s important to change a production quickly these days, as soon as a possible hardware problem is identified. Even if this opens up the possibility of introducing new problems and more costs.
So you get at least replacement parts that will work, if you need to replace parts in already sold items. I’m not sure if the usb port problem was already well known during the time the FP1U was planned. Maybe they just changed the chip.
