I bought a used Fairphone 5 from Amazon returns for cheap. It’s bricked because of the faulty Android 15 update that reportedly killed devices with broken fingerprint sensors. Now it’s permanently stuck on the boot animation.
I tried the multiple reboot trick. Nothing.
I tried flashing back Android 14. Nothing.
Apparently the hidden fastboot oem allow-flashing command was conveniently removed in Android 15. Great move.
For some reason, i can’t even buy a fingerprint sensor separately. Instead, they want you to ship the entire device across Europe to their exclusive “Cordon” service center just to replace a part that probably costs a few cents and takes 10 minutes to swap. So much for “repairability.”
And the best part? They won’t provide the Qualcomm EDL firehose file either — the very file that would allow users to unbrick their own devices by reinstalling the firmware. Only their monopoly service center has access to it. So if your phone is bricked because of their update, your only “option” is to send it to them and pay.
Do you realize how absurd that is? Shipping a whole device across Europe — wasting time, money, and energy — for something that could be fixed by me at home in 2 seconds if they simply provided the necessary file?
I don’t even care that the fingerprint sensor doesn’t work. I just want to use the phone.
“We fixed it in a new update, sorry. Oh, the update killed your phone? Unlucky :D”
Everything software-related that Fairphone touches feels half-assed, and when something goes wrong, users are left with zero real options to fix it themselves.
So much for sustainability. So much for right to repair.
All I’m asking for is access to a file that would let me fix my own device.