It seems the FP2 FairphoneTwo Fairphone2 had all that good hardware, like an audio-jack and an FM-radio. Is it possible to customize the FP4 so as to add these to the FP4?
While the general answer is no, if you are really, really skilled and have a lot of dedication, it is probably possible.
After all, there is a guy who built an aux port into an iPhone 7 as well:
My guess is that the FM radio would be quite difficult. It would need hardware for the radio that I donât think is in the phone at all. It would also need an audio jack to use a headphone wire as an antenna, or would need a separate external, long antenna.
It seems like it might be possible to add a headphone jack in a less involved way, though it would still be quite challenging. The schematics are useful here. The phone does already have a DAC, and amp, for its speakers, and it has speakers on the top and bottom. There is speaker and amp connection information on pages 59 and 60. It might be easier to tie into these than on a iPhone 7, not just because the schematics are available, but because connection points would likely be easier: the top speaker, for example, actually has its own documented connector. Youâd need some way to switch from speaker to headphone based on plug presence, but that should be relatively simple. Getting a connection to the right microphone, to support a TRRS plug, would add to the challenge.
Youâd also need to find space for the jack. Itâs possible that things could be moved around at the bottom to make room for one; another option might be to sacrifice the wide-angle camera, move the normal camera, and have a jack at the top. Using a 2.5mm instead of 3.5mm jack might make things easier, but then youâd be back to something less common.
Personally, while I use wired headphones, I havenât found it too annoying to use an in-line USB-C-to-3.5mm connector, which I usually keep attached to my headphones. That the last phone I had with a 3.5mm jack had a poor amp, which gave quite a bit of background noise on my sensitive IEMs, has also made me happier with adapters, as I have more of a choice in them.
Iâm not sure if a similarly small FM radio adapter exists for USB-C, however.
Wow thanks, for such an extensive post. At the moment I am not gonna try it, and reading this did remind me that I ordered a USB sized FM radio long ago but never got it. So Iâm gonna check out where that is gone first. Might buy a Shâft phone later, at least thĂ©yâre not FMjack-stupid ÂŻâ \â _â (â ăâ )â _â /â ÂŻ Like the saying goes, Shifts happenâŠ
Well - they also remove the audio jack and FM radio with the latest model. Shiftphone 8 will no longer provide this.
This is why Iâm not getting that phone, but their most recent economy model, the Shift5m âŠ
Shift5me you mean? A huge audio jack statement then, the phone being from 2019 and all. Thatâll show them .
Edit: Still running Android 8.0/8.1 by the way (open the spoiler for manual installation there to see this detail) with apparently backported current security patches. Quite a valiant effort, but the end might be nigh ⊠after teasing a possible Android 12 upgrade last year there seems to be only tumbleweed now.
It has a Mediathek SOC and they once said Mediathek is so closed thats its nearly impossible to upgrade Android Versions⊠I doubt they will put any effort into this as they have the 6mq, Shift 8 coming, the âtabletâ , reparable monitor coming and so on.
The SHIFT5me uses a Mediatek SoC (MT6797X Helio X27). Because of this it is only Android 8 and it is very unlikely to get anything newer than this since Shift can not develop their own drivers for newer Android versions. In 2020 they said, that anything newer than Android 8 will not be provided and I am not aware of any update to this (sorry, German only):