I can understand the ‘make it smaller’ group. The phones are getting ridicously big. I’m still using my 8" tablet as e-reader and I’m surely missing my 5.5" phone.
I switched to the Samsung A13 (6.6") after my Nokia 6.1 (5.5") got some issues with GPS. I just checked the specs and apart from memory (128/6 vs 64/4) and camera (50MP vs 18) 5 years advancement made the phone only a lot bigger and… slower (Loads of bloatware, as there is no Lineage for the A13 and only 32 bit OS).
For me, at the moment, the fp6 is due to it’s size and long support, the only option, when I want to buy a new phone. Alas, budget is a challenge now, so to be honest, I’m thinking of dusting off my Nokia and using it again as phone.
For some strange reason I think that a phone is primarily for communicating on the go, which, in my case, requires you to be able to hold it.
At least the FP(gen6) is getting release in the USA (according to FAQ’s).
The chip is (imho) not “already old”. It was released Q3/24. I think it is hard for FP to get a newer chip in general and given that they want an extended time of support from Qualcomm it is even more difficult to get a chip that was release just yesterday.
Not sure what is going wrong with your phone/battery. But I have just ordered my first replacement battery for my 3 year old FP4. And my “old” batter is not even dead yet, its just a little degraded and does not perform good in very cold or hot environments.
I think most of the phones on the market doesn’t have a battery that holds for more than 1.5 days of normal usage.
FP4 “desktop mode” is just a mirroring of Android (if you use stock android) and I don’t consider it as useful at all. Maybe if we ever get A16, i will consider using REAL desktop mode more often (as I already have a docking station for homeoffice at home).
I used Samsung DeX a few times back then when they introduced it. I have to admit that this was a premium feature that was ahead of its time. If something like this comes with A16, it will certainly be used by a few people. But as it was written before, the mainstream users will (probably) not use it at all.
That looks pretty slick and halfway on the path to a real desktop experience.
Barring yourself from this and its future by buying an USB 2 phone is quite a holdpack and probably a huge regret of future me.
IMHO there should be a prominent warning on the store page that the FP6 does not support USB 3, it’s a clear antifeature customers should be made aware of or we’ll see tons of surprised users in the future that would take these features for granted and wonder why they won’t work. That’s some explaining I won’t want to do.
Given the very few interactions on this desktop mode topic for previous FP versions, I doubt this. I still think the majority does not care at all and will never notice.
I think its just a gimmick. I also was thinking this would be a hold back for a lot. But this sticks to the idea behind fairphone. Just the thing putting in the phone you really need.
The reason why we need a USB-C port is to charge and to maybe transfer data. You don’t always need the high end technics just to keep something working.
I’m using a Oneplus 11 for 2 years now, he is still rocking solid and doesn’t have USB-C 3.x and I really don’t miss it! Really a lot of people will not miss it if you behind the idea of fairphone itself.
In my eyes the processor could be a bigger hold back then USB-C 2.0
I understand that FP6 doesn’t have dp alt mode, and I do understand ehy. Wish it were there, but if that sacrifice is what got all the other goodies into FP6 then that’s fine by me.
…that being said, if someone wanted to try and make FP6 have DP Alt-mode by designing a USB ’ port module, does the phone’s motherboard and interconnect cable have the necessary data “lanes” to somehow implement support?
I know Apple’s base iPhones also only have usb-c 2.0, but they went out of their way to implement DisplayPort. If I were so inclined to do the same, what would I need to do so, in terms of info on the device itself, firmware, code, means of production, etc?
I really want FP6, but I am part of that atypical user group that uses the displayport functionality of their phones. Is this something that can even be done, in terms of connections and custom fab?
Maybe there’s a way to add such lanes, such as through any cablesmaybe add a small co-processor to jack the feed of the display and pipe that to usb-c displayport pins of a new usb-c module?
I mean, custom fab PCBs have really come a far way, but I don’t really know what else needs to be accounted for.
To be clear, I’m not expecting or asking Fairphone to do this, but maybe we in the community could?
No, that won’t work either. You cannot work on the existing PCB (due to missing space and things like all USB-lanes must be of equal length) and making an own PCB is also out of the question, since we are surely talking about multilayers and SMD parts.
I looked through the spare parts section and there are no mother board. But there could/should be, I think, adding the “USB 3.0 feature”. The USB-C port it self is a spare. I want to enjoy this capability of tuning the phone into a desktop with Android 16, the thought of it is powerful. The current OTA (On the Go) makes it possible to connect keyboards and mice (althoug bluetooth might be more appropriate). Is it possible to do this wireless perhaps?
Are here any people who already tried cast to screen with a Google Chromecast and watching a video on e.g. Firefox (asking here especially about experiences with apps that don’t support cast to Chromecast natively as it’s very different in quality from my experience)? Chromecast should have very little latency and also the quality should be rather good.
It’s a hardware issue. Display out (actually it’s called displayport alt mode) via usb-c requires hardware support, both on the soc as well as the port itself and the connections in between.
Both the FP4 and FP5 have it. The FP6 has a soc that does support it, but apparently they didn’t add the required connections to the mainboard and support to the buttom module. So there is also no way a future upgrade or a custom module could add usb-c 3 with dp alt mode.
There is an alternative called displaylink over USB. This is somewhat of a software thing, but it’s not widely supported, very limited in bandwidth, resolution, and refresh rate. And it requires a special displaylink dock, so a usb-c to hdmi cable doesn’t cut it. It’s quite bad actually.
you need to buy and carry with you yet another device
you need software support in application running on the phone
much higher latency and lower quality of image
it’s not plug&play, you need to configure both ends
In another word, you have phone capable to process and feed with high quality image any “dumb” monitor, but there are missing some cheap parts, so you need to spend even more bucks for additional “smart” device and struggle with some technical limitations of this particular technology. For me it sounds like loose-loose solution.
I’d simply like to know how the experience is e.g. with the 29€ Chromecast that can be mounted on any TV (in my use case at least I’d let it simply there so no need to carry anything around anywhere). Use case is only to stream from the phone to my TV.
Maybe if we ever get A16, i will consider using REAL desktop mode more often (as I already have a docking station for homeoffice at home).