I’ve never had a foldable phone so I wouldn’t know. But are they really that good or comfortable to use? Do you think the smartphone industry will develop towards foldable phones?
In relation the particular specs you ask, some seem reasonable and achievable, others I don’t know (like double USB-C port or 4?! sim-card slots. In particular with SIM cards, I think the industry is transitioning towards eSIMs but I am not sure if that would help your expectations or not.
It is illegal to sell a phone in France with an FM radio. So European phones usually have such functionality disabled. Also, the FM radio usually used the headphone cable and having no 3.5mm jack prevents that.
I could like a very modular design, built for custom setups and modular upgrades.
So that one might be able to choose between “more cameras”, “more sensors”, “more memory”, “more connectivity (more hardware interfaces)”, “more battery capacity”, and so on.
Maybe even some optional modules for hackers, like “gimme some IO modules! (maybe even with analogue Ins and Outs)”
Including a modular main board, so that it even might be possible to exchange and upgrade internal RAM and CPU/GPU and other chipset stuff.
Two swappable ports, a la Framework. To choose between any combination of USB-C (with and without screw locking), magnetic charger and headphone jack.
Seriously? What politician decided that?
An FM radio is only a receiver. What problem were they pretending to solve?
Yes it is true. They were trying to end the use of FM radios and replace with DAB so they can sell off the FM frequency spectrum.
Here’s a small drawing:
It could also go in between the battery and display, the display doesn’t need to be nearly as thick as in the drawing
Ideas for expansion cards that phone users might find useful:
Perhaps the new battery can be reused in the next generation if it has sufficient capacity now and future hardware is more energy-efficient. Or you might be interested in further developing the existing hardware, like Framework. Perhaps the new design is ready for it.
Currently the FP is 9mm thick. If you add further 7mm, you are at at least 16mm, while one of the biggest concrns for users is thickness.
So no, this would never work out.
There is no Ara phone and we won’t see that in the near future.
Obviously you wouldn’t add that on top of the current Fairphone! It’d be designed so that the only extra thickness would be the screen and/or battery on either side of the expansion cards while trying to keep it at or under 12 mm (as 90 % of phones launched after 2020 are >=12 mm thick I think it’s a good metric to use while not restricting thickness too much and allowing some room to figure out an implementation)
Says who? Give me a thicker phone any day, easier to hold, especially with a rounded back. Then you have plenty of room for bigger battery, 3.5mm jack. This obsession with thin phones, laptops is counter productive.
Of course it is and personally I think even 20mm would work, but we are not the majority. The majority wants a phone as thin as a piece of paper, because Apple told us, that thinner is better.
I wonder if there is a research what is the extra thickness phone cameras take in a phone. I wonder how much extra battery and the required extra space for USB 3+ speed type-C ports would we get. I find it weird a manufacturer is allowed to advert a phone is 4mm thick when with the camera it is 10mm thick etc.
And essentially it is a key idea of whqt direction Fairphone will take in the future. Will they focus on niche applications or go mainstream and more available and accessable to everyone. Which would mean multiple phone models and tiers or a totally modular build where most parts would fit different frames etc. Phonebloks already envisioned this 10+ years ago!
I also wonder what can Fairphone do to even more be more ethical with their tech and the only thing I can come up with is consulting, or being bought by a big manufacturer. I don’t see a modular phone becoming possible with the current resources fairphone has without the assistance of a big manufacturer.
I sincerely hope a next future Fairphone has better upgradeable components.
Fairphone isn’t Apple. People who want Apple can buy Apple.
Fairphone is already different with the repairability angle. Even having a memory card slot is rare these days.
Anyway, not saying make a bulky phone. But actually have different sized battery cases. The Moto mods system was really neat, I long for that on some other device.
But it isn’t only Apple. Apple advertised it, but almost every manufacturer adopted it, since almost every customer wanted it.
Faitphone saif that one of the biggest concerns of people was FP4/FP5s thickness. So they reduced this. They are a small company that cannot narrow down their customer base even further with design decisions that are only accepted by a few people.
They try to go a repairable way, but this does not mean that they do not have to please the majority at the same time. This is the awful reality.
People adopt what Apple does because they assume that’s what people want. Ultimately when you have zero choice you just buy it anyway.
People did not want the removal of the 3.5mm jack, removal of repairability, removal of SD card slot, removal of replaceable batteries. Businesses made those choices and you had no alternative but to buy it. The smartphone market is dominated by Apple and Samsung and both of these are more or less the same in what they offer.
Apple bought Beats, and decided they could sell more of the wireless Beats headphones if they removed the headphone jack.
Other companies copied Apple because they wanted to get in on the wireless headphone sales.
It’s harder to sell wireless headphones when the headphone jack exists.
Rather than including basic $2 earphones with the phone (which many people would even be fine with using), or hope people might buy your brand of earphones for $20-50, they sell you wireless headphones for $150-300.
Removable batteries and ease of repair make phones last longer, and therefore people are less likely to buy replacements as frequently.
They used water resistance as an excuse to stop giving people removable batteries, and to make phones difficult to disassemble/repair. “Oh, but we have to make it difficult to repair because it wouldn’t be water resistant otherwise”. But what if I don’t care whether it’s water resistant and would rather just have it easy to disassemble?
When everything is glued in rather than using screws, removing the glue is difficult, and so is re-gluing it back together.
Screws make it easier. And having the same size and type of screws for everything makes it even easier still. And so does not placing screws in spots that are difficult to physically fit a screwdriver because there are other parts in the way.
And Apple have never allowed you to use a MicroSD card, because then it wouldn’t be so easy to sell models with more storage for way higher than it cost to include that extra storage.
The official FAQ contains
Current data suggests wireless charging is less efficient than wired charging. Depending on further development of this technology, it could be something we consider in the future.
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9839096704913-How-to-charge-your-Fairphone-s-battery
But that is not the main benefit of wireless charging. Wireless charging is about accessibility. For example, elderly people who can’t bend down to reach a socket, or for whom the task of pluging in the phone is a struggle. Also people with ADHD for whom wireless charging, a dedicated charging location in the house, can reduce mental load. It simplifies the task of charging too, instead of putting the phone down and then plugging both sides of the cable in, it is only putting it down. For people who have problems with fine motor skills for whatever reason I imagine wireless charging is essential.
I am going to be really rude but:
Even my 89 old father can plug in his phone charging cable while he needs another person to help putting up his hearing aid because he can not reach his ears. It is not that hard thing to do.
But also, my sony xperia phones had wireless charging with a nice station that i could put the phone on, which i only used a few times because i just always had issues with wireless charging.
Wops, phone is 1 cm off, no charging for you 
Also were way slower than a cable, that can do a 20 minute charge up to 50%. - plug it in, make a coffe, send a few emails and it charged up for an extra 8 hour.
Edit: “For example, elderly people who can’t bend down to reach a socket” be a smart person and use a long enough cable to be able to put the cable on a desk, like my father that keeps the cable next to the corded phone dock.
Moving from a premium smartphone to the FP6; I’ve really missed the more advanced haptics. Having just one kind of poor vibration is a shame, compared to the buzzes, ticks, and little nudges my previous phone made when interacting with the UI and keyboard.
I would have liked better speakers, though the ones that are in it are serviceable. I could argue for better cameras, but that (along with the processor) were sacrifices I was okay with making.
USB 2.0, though. Really? How many cents did that save. Meanwhile it’s costing me lots of extra time to transfer larger files.
Despite these complaints, I am happy with the overall experience thusfar. Wireless charging I don’t particularly care for.
