How should I convince someone of a phone with dated software and hardware?

I don’t want to bring you down, but you know that android 9 is out, how should we convince people that the FP project is valuable in view points other than charity if the hardware is outdated as much as the software??

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Neither the software nor the hardware are outdated.
Android is different than e.g. iOS: The newest version is only available (yet) to a handful of devices and older versions are still supported. The FP1 software is outdated as it can’t be upgraded beyond Android 4.2/4.4 and that is no longer supported.
Also FP2 software is in active development.
And just like the software the hardware is also still secure and doesn’t restrict you in any way.

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I wonder why you don’t want to see the truth. Probably you are not young enough to see that in comparison to young generation (which are indeed those who use phones the most) this phone is outdated both for software and for hardware. No-one of my friends would buy a FP2 now. Obviously. But OK let’s keep telling ourself that we are so grate and everything works perfectly fine. Good luck

People who need a new phone every year are not the target audience of Fairphone.

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fortunately you are not involved in the business decision of the company.

Simple. You obviously don’t convince them in view points other than the overall vision backing the product, so you get people for idealistic reasons … and an almost competitionless openness of the phone, so you get tinkerers and hobbyists.

Idealists are content with the phone just doing its job.
Bragging rights concerning OS version numbers and the SoC release date are kindergarten level, but have nothing to do with age or a generation … some people just grow out of that sooner, some later, and some never :slight_smile: .

Tinkerers and hobbyists are content with the phone just doing its job because compared to other phones they can control more easily what does happen on the phone and what doesn’t.

Just running after the latest marketing-induced fad is not a thing Fairphone are badly missing out on, it is a multi-level problem Fairphone identified as such and try to tackle by showing people that the industry could operate differently in practice, if people would buy into it.

Eventually, new hardware has to come, that much is certain … but not because there’s something newer out there already, but because every hardware has an EOL.

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i must disagree on this. It is like saying : if people are already convinced about the ‘‘project’’ or if people already do something to change the society then will buy fairphone. The other, whatever.

That’s not what I think is a good strategy to approach the problem, also because then, we won’t need fairphone to exist. I think fairphone should give a valid alternative especially to those who will never buy a fairphone just because is fair. That’s how you change things.

If we merely rely on idealists, sooner or later this company will fail cause we live in a capitalist word. We should aim for a greater public of people who don’t give a damn about child labour in Congo. If we get them, then we will save a lot more of children from child labor than we ever will just relying on a bunch of idealists…

Anyway generally speaking I know that what you guys are saying is the general view of this community, but I was hoping to hear an official or semi-official statement from the company, from @Monica.ciovica, maybe even from the new CEO…

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Fairphone’s approch is not to trick people who don’t care to buy a fair phone anyway, but to get people to care.

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obviously that’s not what I said. But I know that it’s hard to listen when you have different point of view

  1. Although the FP2 has quite “old” hardware and software, it is still perfectly usable for everyday use. The user interface is smooth and not stuttering, and you can still use your favourite apps as most app developers did not abandon Android 6 yet.
  2. Many people use even less powerful hardware and older software. My mother still uses her Android 4.2 phone with 512 MB RAM and 4 GB internal memory (which is painful today). Old Samsungs are a common sight, too.
  3. Porting the new Android versions to the FP2 hardware is hard work as the SoC vendor (Qualcomm) abandoned the hardware. Fairphone decided not to skip Android 7 as they found that porting Android 8 is much harder and more time-consuming than porting Android 7. After they successfully released and stabilized Android 7, they will look whether and how they can port Android 8.
  4. If you are anxious for Android 8, you can install a preliminary version of LineageOS 15.1.
  5. Updating the hardware is hard work, too. You have to look for a SoC which is not abandonded after a short time and which you can use with the auxiliary modules of the FP2, you have to develop the new main module around the SoC and have to test if all works fine.
  6. Updating the SoC means that you have to maintain software for two platforms, so it is advised to update the hardware as seldom as possible.
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Make that an official version of LineageOS 15.1 (since August 2018) :wink: .

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Is it stable enough for everyday use? If not, “preliminary” fits there.

Short answer: LineageOS is stable enough.

Long answer:
“Preliminary” implies some beta version, or that something different (supposedly better) is coming later on … which was the case as long as the Fairphone 2 port of 15.1 was in the testing phase and not ready for official builds by the LineageOS project.

For the port to become official, however, it had to meet certain criteria, two of which are …

" Device […] Stability - Nothing should crash. LineageOS has a reputation for stability and your port must be rock-solid.
Maintainer […] Continued support - […] LineageOS is not a “submit it and forget it” home. You need to be willing to continue maintaining the device by fixing bugs, applying security updates and eventually improving performance."

After a port becomes official, it gets updated every week with automatic nightly builds, and this is the real catch here.

Conceptually, automatic nightly builds of course can’t be considered as stable as Fairphone’s OSes with their official beta tester program.
But in the end in practice Fairphone’s OSes have bugs just as LineageOS does, and Fairphone as well as the LineageOS community do their best to fix them.
But the nightlies of LineageOS are just the way the LineageOS project operates, they are not a preliminary thing before something else comes along.

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I’d say it works much better than FP (Open) OS. Sure, you have to accept that issues caused by upgraded hardware take longer to fix. E.g. users with the new camera module still have to use a workaround to turn off the phone completely - normally it would just reboot. Other than that there are no issues and e.g. security updates always come regularly even if an upgrade is coming soon…

It’s worth to note that this particular bug is not a LineageOS thing, it currently is an Android newer than 6 thing on the Fairphone 2, as Fairphone’s Android 7 beta suffers from this, too.

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I have my doubts, that you will get an (semi)official answer on the phone.
There is a statement by Bas van Abel, if I recall it correctly, that FP right now is focusing on the FP2, as they have spent lots of money on the development and programming. Yet he sees the need to come up with a new phone, but he can not tell, when and what kind of phone it will be.

I agree with you insofar, that it will be hard to convince someone right now, to buy a new phone at more than 500,- Euro that runs Android 7 (someday soon :wink: ) and has hit the market more than 2 years ago. Most of the competitors from two years ago are by now discontinued and there are so many shiny new devices out there offering way higher specs than the FP2.
It really takes quite some idealism to buy into FP2 now.

Speaking for myself, the specs were always secondary, as - even up to now - my old Sony Ericsson from 2006 is working fine for making calls and receiving mails. And I switched to Fairphone only to make that project a success. My FP1 definitely still suits me fine.
But I am well aware - of course, that’s not how most people see it.

Still:
Fairphone can hardly adopt the fast paced model changes of the phone-industry without sacrificing it’s core values.
Regarding your understandable critics, this means, that a new FP model might attract idealists as well as those people that don’t care about kids in Africa, but like to follow the trend or the design. (Although I really have my doubts, that this kind of customer is willing to pay the higer price that comes with fairness and social responsibility.)
Once the phone is two years old, it might be attractive for idealists only again. But maybe or rather hopefully some of those non-idealists, having bought the phone while it was new, are convinced of the concept by then.

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Please don’t lose yourself in too detailed discussions about hard and software. If i red

I thought there was a bad decision making in terms of longevity. But it is what it is, deal with it!

The community (me included) is very tolerant with the “little issues” of fairphone, which are countless.
@demetrio pointed to a blind spot. That’s a gift @paulakreuzer . You should be grateful but you put him down. Take the feedback from the community and carry it to your decision makers!

I am an idealist. I am one of the first 17000 FP2 users. But after a little bit more then 2 years the phone is nonfunctional and i am not going to pay twice the price for worse hardware, outdated software and a really bad battery performance again.

Even idealism has an EOL!

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If fact, by choosing Qualcomm over Mediatek for the SoC, Fairphone gained a lot in terms of longevity between FP2 and FP1. Basically they already remedied the bad decision they did for the first model.

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To clarify: @paulakreuzer, same as the other community moderators, doesn’t work at Fairphone. We aren’t employees.

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It is very annoying that you (once again) moved my post to a new topic. The purpose of my post, that you DECIDED to overlook (because I clearly said it several times), was to have an answer from someone who work at FAIRPHONE. This is why I originally made my post below a post from the social media manager. I actually didn’t want suggestions on how to convince people to buy a Fairphone from the community.
Your work as moderators is definitely disrespectful.