Honestly considering replacing my FP2 - 2nd Best Alternative?

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.

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When have you began to experience those issues? Year after? Two? Or less? You might want to change battery. This is just me but I don’t use front camera, somehow we have lived without videocalls.
FP3 is also known to have mic troubles, but those are intermittent, nor it means other brands have no mic problems.
If I were you I would try to sort out your phone with a new battery and mic module.

Or alternatively, you can try a 2nd hand iphone as the 2nd best option, they have a long software support about 4-5-6 years, iphone7 for example will be supported until 2022 that’s 6 years, it also has decent repair score on ifixit.

If money is not a huge problem you can jump on fp3, by trading in your fp2 you will get a discount if I understand correctly.

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Perhaps you could ask a fairphoneangel to help you repairing your phone -> https://forum.fairphone.com/t/the-fairphone-angels-program-local-support-by-community-members/33058 ?

Hi there!

When you consider switching from FP2 to FP3, here is a discussion about the pros and cons started yesterday: Should I replace my current FP2 with the FP3?

If you opt for a pre-owned phone I think you should consider software support. Almost all Android phones get software support for just 3 years or less starting from the day the device was first sold.

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This all sounds wearily familiar. What did you do in the end?
In addition to everything you describe, mine has gone mad in the last 3 days, suddenly bombarding me with incessant voicemail notifications when there are no messages, deleting wallpaper, and adding an unwanted Apps drag-in button to my home screen. Aaaargh!

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I can honestly say I understand how you feel. I just posted this: Weird behaviour, FP2

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