And the answer is… 7 months. Sadly, time is up, I’ve had enough. I am now looking for my replacement, probably a used SGS4 which comes with all the features missing from Fairphone. Not sure how I find a new owner for a disappointing FP.
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@LittleWhorle
Sorry to hear. Would you like to tell us what has been the reason to leave the Fairphone? And, btw., there are sometimes people looking for second hand fair phones here, so feel free to sell it via the forum.
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Hi Ben,
I’ve been meaning to do this, I am so keen on the principles of Fairphone and so want to the project to succeed, so here are my reasons. I do often get asked about the phone, it’s great to say why it’s good and what the point is, but disappointing that I can’t actually recommend it to anyone who might actually be in the market for a phone.
Most critically the screen touch sensitivity and screen response is poor. All the issues below annoy me, but this is the one that actively irritates me every day and the one I can’t put up with any longer.
Screen resolution is poor. It’s not an issue for phone functions, but the more you want to use for internet/email the more it irritates.
OS version was out of date when phone released. It was a disappointing step backwards in functionality and useability from the Cyangenmod 10 running on my SGS2 at the time. This has not improved.
Lack of OS updates has been discussed extensively. I hoped for a while SW updates to catch up with where my SGS2 was, until it became clear that this would never happen. It is good to read that security updates will still be released, though it’s clear it’s not happening as quickly as it needs to.
Camera quality is generally disappointing.
I’m currently suffering the issue with the OS upgrade download fails, repeats and fails.
The 1.6 OS upgrade disaster shouldn’t have happened. Regular users shouldn’t have to take to the forums just to fix a failed OTA upgrade and get their phone working again.
The newer Launcher was a PITA. (Personally I solved this one with Apex, an improvement on the initial and replacement FP launchers, but especially the latest).
The keyboard feels far too cramped, I manage to miss-type on it often enough that even with all the benefits of autocorrect and predict it bothers me more than it did on previous phones. I can’t judge if this related to the above issues, or personal. I’d not long moved from a similar 4 inch screen and it was a positive choice I was happy with to chose the Fairphone with a 4" screen.
The soft Home button means that I hit that frequently when typing, a problem that do not have with any of the other phones, in fact I don’t remember it being an issue on the Atrix which also has a soft home. This one not a fault and I presume it reduces build complexity and cost so I can understand that, but it’s not a design I’m happy with.
Speed - the lack of it.
GPS accuracy makes tracking apps useless and SatNav frequently has location issues. I can see a long, contradictory and confusing thread about this which suggests that some third party app might solve it. This is far from satisfactory for an issue that doesn’t occur on other android phones.
Case fit is poor and holes are too small for either headphones or usb connectors to fit easily, frequently at all.
There is no screen protector available, so my screen now has a couple of scratches.
Messaging app is missing features such as delayed send and cancel.
On the other hand, I do like:
Overall size
Battery life, better than any phone I’ve had before, even the Atrix which was the best available for a long time, but the SGS3 does match it, (can get 7 days on standby!) even with the stock ROM, so not a USP.
As a reference, my previous phones as comparison, with screen size, nothing high end so far:
HTC Hero 3.5 inch.
Motorola Atrix 4.0 inch.
Samsung Galaxy S2. 4.3 inch.
Samsung Galaxy S3. 4.8 inch. (current work phone, so daily comparison with FP, for better or worse…)
Next Phone, most likely:
Samsung Galaxy S4. 5.0 inch.
It’s always going to be a used phone with good cyanogen support and a replaceable battery.
If FP2 can tick this I’ll give it some serious consideration.
Best wishes.
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Hi @LittleWhorle,
thanks for your - quite extensive - list. I agree on a lot of you points, i see them as critical as well. I am glad Fairphone took the required actions for FP2 by a) choosing a processor from well known high-quality supplier (Qualcomm), b) be more involved in design processes, c) switching the manufacturer for final assembly (the current FP1 has so much small problems here and there that i start to question the manufacturers capabilities). I guess that leads to higher quality components and a better crafted device. I am excited to see what the FP2 will look like.
Points i disagree to are “lack of speed”, the keyboard (which is the standard Google Android Keyboard) and camera quality which is fine for me.
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Hi Ben,
This week I have switched back to my SGS2, now with CM11. It definitely proved the keyboard issue for me… the FP screen is narrower, producing the cramped keyboard.
I am not sure the reason why the FP keyboard insists on using the multi option suggestions, there seems no way to turn that off and it’s another related annoyance that doesn’t run an any other phone. Turning off suggestions entirely seems to be the only solution, which is more than necessary as suggestions/corrections are very useful. I should perhaps switch to swiftkey, if I kept using the phone.
Why does it end prematurely? What makes the Fairphone unusuable for you? The fact that it doesn’t run Android 4.4 or 5.0 itself doesn’t really mean that much. The phone still does what I want it to do. The only crippling thing right now is the lack of Bluetooth LE support, so if that’s what you really need then fair enough, but even security reasons concerns aren’t deal breakers right now, especially not considering the fact that the Fairphone has received a slew of security updates already.
Does this go for previous smartphones as well? How many OS updates did those devices receive?
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Speed is an issue? I think the phone feels pretty smooth.
As for the GPS, yes, this is pretty tiring. Sometimes it works fine, other times it works really poorly. TTFF is never the problem, but the device has a really hard time actually pinpointing your location most of the time.
I have a TomTom in my car so I don’t have to depend on my phone’s navigation and I have a separate GPS watch (which I owned before my phone) so I don’t use my phone for tracking my progress when I go out running either, but it’s still annoying that I can’t rely on my phone for navigation.
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As I said severaal times before: no updates = security issues (no, not right now, I never said that, but prematurely).
I have no previous smartphones. My previous dumbphone lasted 10 years or so, so I was never tempted to by a smartphone before.
But my tablet was updated from 4.2.2 to 4.4, so that’s fair enough 
I am note quite sure what you mean by that. If you do not install Google Apps, Fairphone uses the original Android keyboard as supplied with AOSP 4.2.2. If you do install Google Apps the Fairphone will still use the Google Keyboard, based on Android Keyboard with additional capabilities. There is nothing special about that. Anyways, as you can install every other keyboard from the Play Store, i think that is a minor issue.
Hi,
I must admit I was resilient to answer, because don’t want to be polemic, but there are some statements that don’t mean anything and seem to be only pretentious:
Compared to what? Do you think you could be able to see more pixels if resolution was 4K on a 4" screen? I don’t think you could use a CAD program or Photoshop on your phone even if the display was 5" large…
Jellybean installation base is nowadays at 18% so one out of 5 phones still has an “out of date version”
Like most of Android phones in low-mid price range…My old Nokia 900 was fantastic and I think it could still beat more costing hi end famous phones…
This is not an issue, there is simply a confusing message, will be solved soon with new OS version
I feel very comfortable with OS behavior, unless for “speed” you mean if you throw the phone by hands it will travel a bit slow 
(just joking!)
I think you should complain with standards designers… 
2 days after receiving my phone on August 2014 I found this shop on Google, I still have my screen protector and it fits perfectly on the display
I do agree if you look at the most up-to-date hardware and software maybe this project does not fulfill your expectations
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And no, just because one out of five use 4.2.2 doesn’t mean it is secure to use this outdated an unsupported android version. It is a big security issue. The Webview security issues alone are so extensive you won’t think about how easy they are to exploit.
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I don’t think anyone in this forum says 4.2.2 is secure only because one out of five devices use it, but it seems many of them who states Fairphone is “unfair” because the FP1* phones can’t be “upgraded” to 4.4 don’t have/want to read the mission of Fairphone and don’t understand the efforts of this little company compared to bigger actors like Samsung and HTC.
It was repeated until saturation the problem is due to unavailability of source code from Mediatek, and the choice of a Mediatek chip is due to an existing hardware design because Fairphone didn’t have the capability of designing a totally new phone in its early stage, but it seems easier to say “you’re unfair” 
So maybe Samsung, HTC or LG are more fair and I suggest to people who need the new shining 5.x.x android version (which for sure is more secure, faster and lighter) to buy one of their phones
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…or wait a bit for the new Fairphone
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I think this carefully prepared (and illustrated!) quotation of ‘cognitive dissonnance’ is extraordinarily humoristic.
It comes from people having bought a phone in full knowledge of which OS they got, then suddenly complaining about the OS not being eternally improved (for free, and also adding new features as we are to it), then inventing reasons for this update, like a future lack of security.
Yes indeed, this behavior is a perfect example of cognitive dissonnance 
P. S. those that really would be concerned with security, please consider installing AFWall+ , and spend some minutes scratching all outbound connections that don’t please you. You decide app per app. I’d say it solves 99.9% of any potential issues…
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Can we please stop now? I said it in another thread, I say it again: this leads nowhere.
:sigh:
We are all stuck with JellyBean, and whether JB cause acne or not: it’s not going to be another way. We can stop arguing, especially amongst ourselves.
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It was you who said:
What was your intention saying this?
I am not talking of shining android versions. I could live perfectly fine with JB 4.2.2 if it would be possible to fix the security flaws.
I would like to quote the Fairphone website from January2014:
“Lasting Value - As a social smartphone developer, we’re building a stable, high-performance phone that lets you get the most out of your device – now and for years to come.”
This was just one lie false promise out of others.
Let us wait and see if the people at Fairphone are able to learn from their mistakes and put as much effort in development and support as they do put in marketing.
I would be very happy to see such an evolution. Until now I am not able to see any progress in this direction. As participant in the “beta program” I have to observe the same poor communication behaviour as usual.
If not, a better solution might be to buy a working and long supported phone and make a donation to some NGO fighting for better social and working conditions in countries where our electronic gadgets are produced. This is what I recommend to people at present if being asked if they should buy a Fairphone.
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I don’t understand what you mean. I’ve never seen a Fairphone ad anywhere.
Please tell the Fairphone team where they go wrong in your opinion, so they can evaluate their communications and improve on them. The company is only 2 years old, so they still have to learn a lot (and your feedback helps them).
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I was not in the knowledge and could not have been in the knowledge that Fairphone will not be able to supply os updates for at least 2 years. They claimed the phone would be “open” and everybody would be free to install whatever os he or she likes.
I looks like you do not understand the existing security problems. Not a bit.
You cannot beat the webview issues with AFWall. Please read the background information available all over the net to get at least a small picture of what impact they have.
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I am talking about the guerrilla marketing on social media and so on.
Many others tried this already the last 12 months without noticeable (at least for me) success.
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Exactly.
And hence this is my biggest (and to be fair almost my only) disappointment. But one that fully contradicts my reasons to buy a fair phone.
Even stronger: I fully expected the OS to be kept up-to-date.
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