I decided to abandon FP5. The main reason for me to buy it, was the possibility to replace the battery as this is usually my main problem with any aging smartphone. I was never bothered about the camera which I hardly use, and I have not many apps installed. The ones I have do require a lot of power.
I ended up to believe that FP5 is not the right product for me for the following reasons:
The batteries lasts hardly a day, even when almost not used; since I need the phone a lot for travelling (and I refuse to have to take with me extra weight such as power banks and charging equipment for a day trip).
Charging the phone over night, just to discover in the morning that there is only 50 to 60% power left is an issue. Means, I start my trip with only half the battery power.
I “enjoy” regularly that a frozen phone. In this situation, I cannot select an app or do an immediately required follow up call. Did not happen once, but on average I’d estimate once a day. Although rebooting is fast, this is still not satisfactory to me when my agenda is busy.
I almost cannot use it in my car, as for some reason it often fails to connect over Bluetooth.
(other issues were minor, such as needs to configure and a specific migration issue on Whatsapp).
Thus so long to FP5. Was a nice experience, am a huge fan of being able to repair my devices, but I need it to to work properly for daily usage.
I also have BS battery on my FP4. I’ve also largely stopped using it because of this. Luckily I have a work device that I can use as my own, but unfortunately it’s an Iphone. Bleh.
I agree with you that in general Fairphone phones are not suited to be your (long) travel companion. My FP5 also hardly lasts a full day. But what you describe in particular really sounds unusual and may entitle you to a full refund or at least a new device… just saying.
That sounds like you have either a bad charger or a faulty charging cable. I have “Quickcharge 3” charger and they charge my device in under 3h… With the same charger or cable you’ll propably get the same problem with your next phone…
Do you have some apps which consume more power than other apps? Check battery usage in settings, some apps are poorly designed.
But after all, you made your decision, I can understand, that a daily driver smartphone has to be reliable. Think about selling or donating your “old” FP5 to repair angels, so that the phone is not dying lonely in your drawer…
If you’re serious about getting another phone I’ll gladly pay for shipping for your FP5 so I can use its parts in my FP Heaven. Feel free to pm me.
That said, FP5 is perfectly usable for me and I always charge overnight, and my phone is invariably at 100% in the morning. It would have to be to get me through the day.
Have you considered there may be dirt in the USB port? You can easily pick it out with a flattened bamboo or wooden toothpick. Flatten it with a sharp paring knife so it fits easily in the USB port.
Just curious. Were you aware of extended batteries option. I may be old, but when laptops had removable batteries a while ago. One can usually get a bigger battery that lasts longer in most cases. I wonder if their is a version of this where it has more capacity for FP5. Its usually sold as a third party like Raiovac (might of misspelled the name) brand here. I know they did at one time offer the same thing for the GBA and DS line of handheld consoles for their removable batteries as well. So yeah i think this can be possible with this as well. Usually one can look up the model of the battery to see if it’s possible with more milliamps capacity. Just some wisdom from the old days long since passed.
Sounds like you have a bug somewhere, either in software or in hardware. If I were you I’d contact support or plain simply created a claim for a fix/replacement.
For me the battery lasts easily two days, but I have also installed Calyx OS and don’t have google services, which would otherwise use a lot more energy. But even with Fairphone OS you should still be able to get a day of moderate use.
I will give a bit more input on the charging issue. I have in my home a central place where the entire family charges its devices. We usually use the same cable and it allows two devices to be charged simultaneously. For power savings reason, this will switch off after two hours of charging. A tablet we have charges fully within three hours. Any phone we charge, is fully charged within these two hours. The only time we face issues with this is while charging a tablet. I noticed that this system does not allow to charge the tablet and a second device.
I have furthermore read online, that generally speaking consumers do not seem happy with the battery life. My previous smartphone was put to charge on average every 3 to 4 days (even up to 6 days in the first months of owning that phone). Charging point was the same.