I’d like to conduct a survey of as many FP2 users on this forum as possible, so we can understand how widespead and/or significant the slowdown issues have become. Please respond even if you haven’t been experiencing any of this!
Question 1: What OS and major version does your FP2 use?
Please also provide the version number, e.g: ‘Android 9, 12.34.5-rel.1’.
Question 2: How slow is your FP2 compared to when you bought it?
A) No noticable slowdown
B) Slightly slower than when I bought it, e.g: entering PIN to unlock phone has a delay, typing with the keyboard sometimes does nothing before many characters appear at once
C) Slow, e.g: one or two apps high-performance apps become unresponsive sometimes
D) Extremely slow, e.g: many apps repeatedly freeze, including low-performance apps or the GUI interface
Question 3: How much does the slowness impact you?
A) Not at all
B) It doesn’t bother me that much
C) It’s annoying
D) It’s very annoying
I dont use it any longer as daily drive since end of 2021 , however until that point it was not much slower in my eyes (also I think its difficult to remember how it was 5 years ago). Overall I guess its hard to compare, as long as the setup and use is not completely identical. Also what always helped was a factory reset, to just get rid from time to time of all unused, unnecessary stuff. Also installtion issues can for sure also cause different issus (for me e.g. the Upgrade to A10, resolved charging issues on the FP2 and I would now assume the issue was caused, because I tested a lot with installation of several OSes and maybe somehow something went wrong, without really noticing during the installation process).
I had LOS 18.1 with Pico Gapps installed, no google account in use, Playstore disabled and Aurora Store in use instead. I really doubt that freezes or slowliness can be lead back to the OS itself
Sometimes I had some reboots but I also had weeks without any reboot. I have not had reboots the first 1-2 years and then irrespective of the OS installed.
From time to time it froze (surely more often than 5 years ago), but it could just be fixed in that moment, by presing the power button to turn of the screen and wait 1-2 sec (otherwise the freeze could have led to a reboot). That actually did not bother me too much
Have used my FP2 as primary phone for >6y until Feb '22 with (at the end) Android 11, /e/OS 0.21.
Since then I only use it as “special purpose phone” (Teams, Outlook, Intune) with FPOS (Android 10; 22.02.0-rel.0)
B) Slightly slower: with /e/OS it was just mainly slow during the first about 60 seconds when disabling flight mode in the morning. I think the reason were too many apps updating/syncing their data at the same time (and unsufficient RAM size for all those data updating apps running at this same moment). With FPOS the said “special purpose apps” start slowly. Probably because they’re to large for the phone’s RAM.
FP OS 21.12.0-rel.1, Android 9
(Daily driver; never did a factory reset even though that would probably be a good idea by now.)
Not sure where my FP2 is on your scale of being slower:
No delay when typing and the like, but one app freezing more often than not; I think since updating to Android 9 (which led to various kinds of glitches in any case, including apps closing or stopping, but generally not freezing.)
The freezing app is IMDb – medium-performance??
Come to think of it, I didn’t even try a fresh install. Would that solve the issue, the answer would be:
A) Not at all (as far as I can tell – as Yvonne said, it’s difficult to compare with over five years ago).
[EDIT] Actually, overall, I’d say:
B) Slightly slower, in particular since upgrade to Android 9.
Occasionally, some apps, and, even more rarely, GUI, become unresponsive. Less frequent than in the weeks following the update though; apparently I got so used to it (incl. pressing the power button to get out of it) that I didn’t think of it last night. [edit]
Question 2: D) It varies over time, but typing and entering the PIN usually has a delay, occasionally the Android UI crashes and other apps as well. Sometimes the phone is entirely unresponsive for several minutes. I do not really use high performance apps, but many apps are fairly slow by now. Worst of all are firefox and google maps. I just recently did a factory reset and it did not seem to help much.
Question 3: C) It’s definitely annoying, the simple act of googling something becomes a bit of a hassle. I have some more problems with my FP2 though, I guess what’s really annoying me is the combination of all problems (slow response, random reboots, primary microphone losing contact unless I press on the right spot on the display, SD slot no longer working, I often have to reboot in order to get a 4G connection).
The heavy slowdown is probably partly due to the internal memory being very full. I have only around 2GB free space since the SD slot does not work and therefore all my music, pictures etc. are on the internal memory.
@Ant0kneeguy May I ask what your own answers to the questions would be?
Question 2: D) The phone is not slow when everything works, e.g. sometimes I can surf on the Internet quite fast and switch between apps fast, but many apps freeze, including settings to check the OS version…
Question 3: C) I tend not to be bothered, but it can be very annoying when trying to take pictures or trying to find information on my phone (email, message etc.) for someone else.
I think that my FP2 got slower after the update to Android9. Now with Android 10 I think it has got a little bit faster.
So I would choose the answer B.
Sometimes ist freezes, when many tasks work in the background, when many new messages come in. But that takes some seconds.
Very good ist the screenshot function in the power switch menu! That works always!
Q1: LineageOS 18.1, Android 11, one of the latest weekly builds
Q2: B
Q3: B
Doing the usual stuff that I did with the phone when it was new isn’t a problem nowadays, either. I’m more annoyed by apps like MS Teams that I use for work from time to time and which is extremely resource-hungry. And I’m annoyed by things that have been bad from the beginning on (battery lifetime, slightly bad mobile reception, no VoWifi and such things). But since most of these things don’t bother me simultaneously I can accept them for now - nevertheless I’m looking forward to having a better Fairphone sometime in the (far?) future.
Q4. A) My phone has loads of free space. B) Will have to try this next! C) I’ve done factory resets, but doing that every couple of months gets old fast. D) I’d never considered this, will be trying after B)! E)
I’ve found that certain apps cause more slowdown than others, and uninstalling them helps
Turning off animations in the developer settings causes a marked improvement
Am currently trialing a new OS to see if that helps
Q1 - Android 11 | /e/OS 1.2 (just updating to 1.3 but answers based on experience with 1.2)
Q2 - In general: A, but when using processor-intensive apps like OSMAnd I sometimes observe “freezes” which are quickly resolved by locking the phone with the power button and then returning to the app.
Q3 - B
Q4 -
A: Yes, regularly, I don’t store much, about 20 GB free right now.
B: No SD on this device.
C: Clean install of /e/ in January.
D: idem.
E: None seem necessary.
As so often, “it depends”, … in this case, on what you need from your phone. To my mind the FP2 is still fine for standard tasks such as: e-mail, web browsing, audio streaming, diary, tasks, normal office functions, basic photography, common communications like phone, SMS, Signal or WhatsApp.
When using apps or websites that require more processing power, such as for mapping, video processing, I still find it provides sufficient service, but I’m not in the habit of using a lot of processor-hungry apps. Zoom I find functions OK but drains the battery fast and can cause reboots.
