Well, I am in the middle of attempting to resurrect my current phone, an FP3, as an eventual backup phone, I heard of the upcoming FP6 and, for some naive reason, I thought the new CEO’s intention to bring the price down to €400 would be for this model. Instead, it is even more expensive than the FP5 - indeed, a new FP6 is 64% of the price of the new laptop I have had to get here in SE, and I cannot really afford both.
I am not knocking the quality or feature loading, more the affordability, when my FP3 has not lasted as long as I had hoped.
I am a bit confused/disappointed about the continual new releases of non-compatible versions vs the longevity of older models though. But, I know the 10 year stable far trade phone is a process and a way off yet.
Given this, is the community’s opinion that the best value for money at the moment would be a FP5 - knowing it has only 6 years left of ‘mainline’ support - or the FP6?
My requirements:
*Primarily as a coms, web viewing, education and light work device - and as a security device given Sweden’s drift to mobile Bank ID over laptop.
*Has to work without the forced OS updates and their instabilities as experienced on the FP3
*Has to be able to be reasonably repaired without having to be without the phone for weeks.
*Ability to de-google without having to become a hacking guru.
Thoughts on FP6 from what I have seen so far:
*Development of the fair trade and eco elements is impressive.
*Price for a smartphone 67% of a midrange gaming laptop feels too high.
*Simplification button, hopefully a great idea and not a gimmick - and a snapshot of how arcanely complicated societal drift to ‘everything apps’ is, that this seems the simpler solution.
*Other than that, and support pushing further into the future, unclear on the relative improvement justifying the more expensive phone.
You’re comparing the discounted price of a 2 year old device to the launch price of a new device.
When the fairphone 5 was new in 2023, it cost €699 for the version with 8GB ram and 256GB storage. With 2 years of inflation, that’s equivalent to more like €720.
This Fairphone 6 is “only” €599, that’s much cheaper even if you disregard inflation.
It is worth pointing out that the Fairphone 4 had a launch price of €650, which would be more like €750 with 4 years of inflation. So the Fairphone 6 is cheaper than the previous two models, with specifications so much improved that it isn’t as badly beaten by “unfair” €200 devices as Fairphone’s previous models were, in an era when inflation is high. The Fairphone 6 is many things, but I don’t think “price gouging” is one of them.
If the Fairphone 6 was 2 years old and discounted by the same percentage as the Fairphone 5 currently is, it would only be €420, rather than the €499 the Fairphone 5 is right now.
That said, we can possibly expect further discounts on the Fairphone 5 in the near future, because it is now the previous model. It depends on how much stock they want to clear.
It is cheaper than the FP5 at release, so a step in the right direction, just not as cheap as I was expecting, given the CEO’s stated intention.
Sure, I was not accusing of price gouging…
The USB 2.0 thing has definitely given me food for thought. So I am mulling over a used FP5 being even more ethical than a new one - if it works!
Internet usage and denying security updates exclude each other, at least when acting responsibly towards other users and devices on the internet (keyword botnets).
And if you still want to skip the updates, banking Apps over time might force you to get to some update level they deem secure enough for their operation on your phone anyway.
Just wait until the midrange gaming laptop becomes more fairly produced.
Yes, this is definitely an odd choice. They can give their reasoning for this (cost as well as space in the phone were mentioned so far), but that doesn’t fit to their explicit touting of the Fairphone 5’s ability to utilise this not too long ago. It’s a definite plus for the Fairphone 5.
The nearest to the FP concept is probably framework, but only for some limited modularity that honestly looks more like fancy customisaton right now, and that nearly doubles the price. Without really starting on reduced footprint and fair trade.
It is odd, given that the implementation should not be a major challenge - unless there is some experience from the FP5 about this not working well, and/or a lack of confidence in whoever makes their USB ports…
The problem comes when an update to a new main number of android is forced on a platform that does not seem to support it in realty, leading to significant functional degradation such as the interface/system crash loop and minutes long bootup. That came after nearly getting a completely wiped phone on the upgrade and long before charging or battery drain problems…
Interesting data point from the main FP reseller in Sweden - ElGiganten. Here the FP6 iis retailing at only €30 up from the FP5, and in the outlet - for returned phones - the FP6 is actually cheaper. I suspect this is related to the USB issue…
But this is a genral problem with operating systems. It is the same for every phone brand using Android and it is also the same with iOS or Windows on computers. This can even happen with most of the Linux distributions, although it mostly is not that hard a performance hit.
Understood. I haven’t been in the world on non Fairphone for a while so have not experienced it, easy to forget it might be more general. However, I don’t see that much of normal phone users in general complaining after version pushes, but that might be because they change phone too often?
You can replace the screws with cross heads if you want, they’re not captive screws. But torx make a bit more sense given their size. I’m sure someone will find some thumbscrews that might work.
Wait what.
Just looked it up. No it’s not slower. But maaaan, I did not see how little extra the new soc gives. It’s just barely faster in benchmarks. I wonder if it feels faster in real world use.
Yeah, but the 40+ MP cameras usually use pixel binning combining 4 pixels to one, which then leaves you at about 12 MP. So, in the end there is almost no difference.
