I guess it could even deserve a discussion itself, how does fairphone’s unique selling points hold up. The fairness for sure. But the repairability and long term support perhaps not so much, the mainstream players are making strides on that front, as others already said.
To me, its also just about the replacable battery at this point.
But just to say one real compliment. The fingerprint sensor.
I’m left-handed, so I press it with my index finger. It works GREAT for me. Never had such seamless fingerprint sensor on a phone. Literally faultless. For a lefty, that is
Ugh… They also piggy ride on black friday nowadays. When I became a FP customer, they used to shun these and instead do PR on how that’s lame and against their vision, so no FP discounts for you, use the device you have.
That was the Fairphone led by Eva Gouwens…
The new bossman obviously doesn’t care about damaging the fanbase in this process of ‘inceasing sales’.
I don’t think issues like this is typical for FairPhone only. I don’t know how many phones I’ve had since my first almost 30 years ago. Issues with Android in major updates are not uncommon. Getting vendor support has been impossible for most of the brands I’ve tried on small electronics in general. iPhone must be the most reliable phones I’ve had, but then you loose a lot of options instead.
I don’t share your experience here. I’ve been in contact with support twice. Once because of a bug, which got corrected after a while and once since I was able to damage my phone. They were slow to respond, but I don’t think any of this are unrunreasonable when I compare this to my previous experience with other brands.
Fully agree, but what is it worth if you have to bridge the looong time until support responds with whatever other phone? I have had one hardware issue in my Fairphone history so far and that was the FP2 back cover that was replaced quickly after I emphasized my ticket via a phone call (back in the good old days). But I’d be afraid of the moment when my phone gave up within the warranty period and I had to hope that some day I’d get a response from them. That plus how long obvious issues can be open is what keeps me from recommending FP without restrictions.
Personally I have never contacted the phone manufacturer to get support, ever. I intentionally buy my phones from a local store so that I won’t have to deal with the manufacturer. I’ve long wished to buy from the manufacturer though, especially one like Fairphone. Now I’m happy I didn’t.
Maybe a FP6 release is only a few months away. The FP5 price would be reduced, once it hits the shelves. In that case it would be part of the normal life cycle of a product, to first bundle it if possible.
Fairphones were already bundled several times with something else, a spare part voucher, a second battery or some headphones. So speculating that‘s now because the company is struggling, doesn’t make any sense.
And as always, the headphones are not in the basket automatically, but you can add them for free, if you really want them. This was discussed already, since the first bundling offer, because it doesn’t produce as much ewaste as if they are just thrown on every customer.
Yes Google and Samsung have stepped up their support . That’s all right and well but customers will be disappointed anyway as new features will be paywalled Galaxy Ai is only free until end of the year. If companies want to keep on selling their devices in the EU they don’t have much choice to go for replacement parts because this is becoming EU law.
Miquel (Head of Product Management) was asked about the CEO situation in an interview. He stated that Fairphone is doing very well. Although 2023 had been a difficult year, the current situation was great:
“Het gaat heel goed met Fairphone. Ja, 2023 was een lastig jaar, maar nu is het great.”
for those that the website refuses to work, here is an archive link that is readable without accepting all the cookies of this world: https://archive.ph/AGvHC
the article is dutch, but firefox can translate it to english.
if they are doing well, question is what is happening with the support department
