As long as the FP3 suffer constantly from a sudden death, there will enough spare parts available from these devices.
The problem with the FP2 was the randomly reboots out of the sudden multiple times a day.
Modern devices (FP4, …) will be die because of inaccessibility to the firehose loaders.
Not for me a real issue, havent experienced that over a long time or every day, and it seems several people are still happy with it for whatever usecase. So yes might be, it was an issue for you.
Not as long as you have an invoice, so yes some might die beacuse people brick it while trying the flash and dont have an invoice or some out of the blue and people dont have an invoice, however out of the blue only having EDL mode seems almost 0% to me.
So
Simply no. Many people suffered from this problem.
Yes and many not thats the point.
how long before Fairphone deliberately make that defunct? All trust is gone and I’m walking.
“Deliberately”, that is quite an accusation. Do you have any proof for that?
Frustration with the limited lifetime of advanced technology is understandable and something that I expect we all feel at some time. But unfortunately it’s rather in the nature of such technology. Whereas my Father’s high-quality stainless steel gardening spade is still “going strong” after sixty years and still a favourite perch, when not in use, for the garden’s robin, I don’t expect any more from it today than my Father did back then.
Not so my telephone (I call it that, but in fact it’s an advanced multi-functional pocket computer that can make phone calls).
The best we can do at the moment, it seems to me, is to prolong the useful life of devices as much as we can*, hopefully always beyond the initial estimates, and when the time inevitably comes, see that they are correctly recycled so that the impact on the environment is kept to an absolute minimum.
That is the present case with the FP3. Initially intended for five years of support it got seven from the manufacturer and will probably get another two from other parties. The user may then isolate it from potential software threats and continue to use many of its capabilities. After that, the responsible thing to do is to offer spare parts to those making an even longer journey, and recycle the rest.
I don’t expect any more from it today than my Father did back then.
Not so my telephone
Yes, but that’s not the point here.
The day will come, when I want to replace my FP3.
But that’s not the case yet. I don’t expect it to to be faster, have more memory or a better camera or whatever than the day I bought it. I simply want to use it, the way it is (and the way I bought it). I do not want to dump a perfectly fine phone, because the manufacturer decided to neglect it.
I perfectly understand your point of view and naturally share it.
Unfortunately, every device is designed for a specific context. While the earth in my vegetable patch is much the same as it was sixty years ago, the environment of IT, in a wide sense, is constantly changing. A device designed to conform with the technical standards of ten years ago is made obsolete by the changes of technological context.
An example is 3G. When the FP3 was designed, we were already beginning to move to 4G with LTE, so the FP3 is compatible with 2/3/4 G. But now we have 5G and the 2/3G networks are being shut down so that their frequency bands can be made available for the next generation. But that’s just an example, and mobile phones rely on a lot of different technologies that are all constantly changing, so that their hardware becomes obsolete. The only ways to avoid that, would be to halt developments in IT, or else have full control of the design, manufacture, maintenance of the device and all its components, software and radio-telecommunication systems used by the devices throughout the world.
So we have to do the best we can.
The manufacturer (I presume you are referring to Fairphone) can, and in this case has, made efforts to prolong the life of devices, but their freedom of action is also limited by the manufacturers of the components, notably the SoC (Qualcomm in our case).
One last point, that it’s important to make I think. From a technological point of view, there’s likely no reason why you shouldn’t continue to use your phone “the way you bought it” for quite a few years. The fundamental reason why you wouldn’t be advised to do so, is the discontinuation of software updates principally for purposes of security. The only thing that really makes those necessary, is the malicious behaviour of certain human beings.
Again. That’s not the point.
If sometimes in the future the FP3 can no longer connect to networks, I would (probably) want to buy a new phone . But that’s not the case yet. The Fairphone 3 has 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE Advanced. It works fine, and 4G/LTE will be availiable for many years from now.
I agree with most that was said here. I just have to add again the CPU and RAM issue, which I partly count as technical progress and changing user behavior, and partly as “negligent or malicious influence of 3rd parties”: If programmed carefully and not just focused on quick evolution and maximum sales, the very same functionality that Android and the Apps have today could be had at half or less of the technical resource consumption, which would shift the point of diminishing usability significantly into the future. Many websites and Apps play unnecessary videos, a few browser tabs consume GB of memory, many processes are running in the background. This issue is the main reason for wanting to replace my FP3, and for finding the current Fairphone offerings with “only” 8GB not sustainable enough. Increase RAM or make it modular somehow and I"m on board again.
On the whole, considering that smartphones are used and abused many hours each day, I find that a lifetime of 7 years is a good return on invest, and replacement which may be necessary due to various reasons (often simply due to wear and tear or mechanical damage) is not the worst thing ecologically and financially, if happening only after 7 years.
Longer usage is of course desirable but for all those reasons not realistic. Considering other consumer electronics which just use one connectivity standard (anyone remember Digital Satellite Radio…?) or fully rely on the manufacturer’s servers which at some point are shut down (Logitech remote controls, many Smart Home systems, …), the situation with Fairphone is not that bad at all.
The FP3+ was sold until November 2022. That’s not even 4 years.
7 years from starting sales, same deadline as all companies use. The FP3+ was no new device it uses the same SOC as the FP3, so the SOC has a 7-years support lifetime. well and why the SOC is important here has been explained and discussed ad nauseum and will not change by questioning ad nauseum.
Edit: even 4 years is more than others do. Using HMD as example as devices also have higher repairabilty: 2 Version Upgrades and 3 years of security updates from GLOBAL launch date.
Very pleased to hear that Murena e/os have extended support for the Fairphone 3 for another two years. Wish I could say they same about the availability of spares for the Fairphone 3. I have a broken display module and am struggling to buy a spare part from Fairphone to keep the phone running. Not exactly in the spirit of the Murena partnership
Have a try in the marketplace at this forum.
Thanks very much but I do not believe that spares should be the responsibility of the community.
For the absence of doubt, the phone is not officially discontinued by Fairphone until August 2026 and arguably spares should be available at least until the end of 2026
The EU ecodesign requirements mandates
at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model
not from starting sales. So this is the standard for measuring livetime in the EU.
Thats not applicable for such an old device, that was sold long before this came into place.
Fairphone ain’t one of the big players, so suppliers are not waiting for them to place an order. If possibly only 100 displays are necessary to fill the shelves until August, there will be nobody ready to produce such a small batch. And if Fairphone has to order 5000 to convince a manufacturer to produce them, this stock would last for ages and thus is far to expensive.
So I can of course understand, that the situation isn’t really satisfying, but quite usual for a brand like Fairphone.
Hi folks,
I’m not tech savvy… I could just about follow iFixit videos, but when it comes to operating systems, I’m at a loss. I would like to de-Google my life, but my freelance consultancy is currently enmeshed 
. I have a FP3 (no +).
I also can’t seem to connect my phone to a computer to download anything stored in its memory.
What do you suggest? Can I find someone local to me who could go through this switch with me? Or do I trade for a refurbished FP6 with android OS and wait for big tech to collapse. 
I have to do something soon as it’s really starting to affect usability (I’m having to restart several times a day.
Any advice gratefully appreciated. 