Hi everyone.
I share this with a heavy heart. A heavy heart because, like us all on here, I totally buy into Fairphone’s ethos, drive and message.
The phone I had before my current FP2 was an Iphone 5c and I held onto it for years, Eventually, it developed a glitch where it would delete most of my texts and any other form of message letter by letter. Still I persevered, determined not to buy a new phone or get tied to a new contract.
When I happened upon Fairphone, I thought I’d struck gold - a passionate leftie and advocate for the environment all my life finally a phone was available that matched my worldview.
Yet, after my experience with the iphone as you can imagine I wasn’t in the mood for any problems to occur.
Fast forward to the present day. My FP2, as much as I love it for what it stands for, has a good few issues. Firstly, the camera’s rarely work. I recently sent off for a replacement module, which took a long time to arrange. After replacing, the front camera still does not work. The phone’s battery life is terrible - I often have to charge 2-3 times a day, and that’s just to run a few social media apps and upkeep normal messaging etc. The mic hasn’t worked for a good 2 months or so now, making phonecalls impossible. I’ve had to rush to connect the phone to a bluetooth headset each time a call comes through - still persevering with faults lie before! I also have a replacement module for this too - however didn’t have a screwdriver small enough, meaning I’ve ruined the threads for the screws trying to use bigger tools and so I can’t replace this myself.
The phone also often lags and gets very hot - so hot I often have to place it down somewhere to cool - this is usually after surfing the web or using apps for over 30 mins ish.
What should I do next? Buy a new phone? If so, what is the 2nd best alternative? Try to get the FP2 model I have fixed somehow? It makes me feel terrible that these factors are getting in my way of enjoying my FP2 - but not being able to make calls, and constantly worrying about battery life during use is meaning it’s hard to use my phone in the way I need for work etc.