Leaving a movement

[explit]

Well to live or not to live with the problems of the Fairphone is the personal decision of each user.
I’m Computer and Mobile Phone Technician and work a lot with different mobile phones.
They all have bugs and problems.
Fairphone 2 has more bugs than the average 08/15 Android smartphone. Thats true.

But: Fairphone is a small company and for their size and age they delivered a wonderfull product: Fairphone 2. Fairphone 1 was from the technical point of view a disaster - but it was already a fair phone. Fairphone 2 made a lot of things better - Its not only fair, its also sexy from the technical side.

But with all respect!

If you buy a Smartphone from a small company which has a very limited financial and personal resources - you will get a phone with a lot of small problems.
Fairphone is not Apple or Samsung which have Thousands of developers to fix the bugs.

Fairphone 2 will have bugs. If you can live with this bugs - join the movement and lets make the FP2 better together. WIth every software update it will be better and better.

If you need an Smartphone which is working without problems out of the box - buy an iPhone, but not complain about being Apple’s slave…

Buy a Samsung Galaxy - but not complain about the Phone is not fair and made not under fair conditions.

Its a long way, and we just started. I made my decision - i can live with the Fairphone 2 bugs. And i hope, that i can also doing something for the whole community, making FP2 better…

[Spielmops]

My phone is OK - at least the hardware. But it never worked as promised or expected.

• When I bought it, the bluetooth connection to my headset was faulty
• Some time later with an update bluetooth worked like a charm, but USB-otg was gone
• Two updates later USB-otg was available again, but the “initial-darkness-problem-after-unlocking” had arrived.
• And now with the last update the darkness-bug is still there, but a crashing filemanager has been added - although in this forum existed warnings about the crashing Amaze.

And all that is not because I have rooted the phone - the changes happened after I had reworked the FP2.

What about Fairphone-support: “Hi, we regret this behaviour, please update your phone …” and so on. Nothing else for month …

Besides that: I have been rude in this forum and before the douwe-automat kicks me, I leave on my own. I can not understand, why it is this easy, to mark users as rude and get beaten. In other forums the discussion about critical words is discussed open.

Bye, Spielmops

[Douwe]

@Spielmops

I have been rude in this forum and before the douwe-automat kicks me, I leave on my own. I can not understand, why it is this easy, to mark users as rude and get beaten. In other forums the discussion about critical words is discussed open.

Hey @Spielmops, I am sorry to hear you’re leaving. I value you and your contributions. Please note that the Discourse forum software allows anyone to flag posts they deem inappropriate, and that, if enough people do this, a post is hidden and the mods get a message to review the post. You maybe got an automated message that was send in my name (the douwe-automat… good find ) to tell you something like this happened.

But this does not necessarily reflect my or the other mods opinions about your posts. I hope we can resolve this and that you decide to remain the respected community member you are now. Also thank you for the feedback about our support team. I’ll forward it to them.

Best
Douwe

[Stefan]

@explit

Fairphone 2 will have bugs. If you can live with this bugs - join the movement and lets make the FP2 better together. WIth every software update it will be better and better.

If you need an Smartphone which is working without problems out of the box - buy an iPhone, but not complain about being Apple’s slave…

Buy a Samsung Galaxy - but not complain about the Phone is not fair and made not under fair conditions.

Even better: Buy a used smartphone!

[freibadschwimmer]

@explit

If you need an Smartphone which is working without problems out of the box - buy an iPhone,

… but don’t expect it to last beyond warranty: A Design Defect Is Breaking a Ton of iPhone 6 Pluses | iFixit News

@explit

Buy a Samsung Galaxy

… but don’t expect it to not blow up, or to being allowed to take it with you onto an airplane

[Elipsus]

If fairphone made something that was supposed to blow up, it would fail due to a software bug!

[Spielmops]

@Spielmops

Two updates later USB-otg was available again, but the “initial-darkness-problem-after-unlocking” had arrived.
And now with the last update the darkness-bug is still there, …

Update:
Support@fairphone wrote:

As was already mentioned to problem is on the known bugs list. Because it is on this list it will be looked into, but at this moment I do not know the priority and as such also not when it will be fixed.
As it is mainly a cosmetic problem it doesn’t have the highest priority, for example compared with the bug that resulted in many customers to have random reboots.

Cosmetic problem is easy to say, if you work in an office all day, but I work mostly outside and thus I can not use adaptive brightness, because I do not see anything after tap on “power”.

And: how long does this bug exist? Several month! With no solution …

This behaviour was “invented” with the update of the OS to 1.6.x and one would think it should be easy to solve this bug: see what has been changed within this update in case of brightness and change it back …

Since start of this year I have mobile data enabled and now I get random reboots (3 times a week) …

I want my money back or at least the money for the second phone that I bought for work.

[avav]

Hello, I just want to tell you that I have my FP2 one year now and I still don’t like it. Since November 16 sudden reboots increase again, the proximity sensor is callibrated several times but doesn’t work just yet, the slim-case is loose, the rubber of the slim case is peeling of, the connectivity (bluetooth and mobile) is poor (WiFi works good) and the SIM-Card slot is getting looser and looser. Its a mess! Since the price is more than 500 EUR I will have to use it one more year but then I will be happy to destroy it and buy a new and better smartphone. I don’t believe that the FP-idea is environmentally sustainable. Sincerely, yours Andreas

[chrisse]

@avav

then I will be happy to destroy it and buy a new and better smartphone. I don’t believe that the FP-idea is environmentally sustainable

Hi,
I understand that you can be angry and disappointed, but I guess that you once believed in FP’s sustainability and that it was important to you. Instead of destroying your phone, it could be a good idea to sell it or give it away as a sign of respect for the workers and for environmental concerns. It’s FP you’re angry at, not the entire planet!
I really hope that it will get better for you. Maybe Android 6 will resolve some of your issues!

[jochem]

i’m kinda glad i’m not the only one feeling this way.

i’ve had my FP2 for a year now, to the week. in this year i just sent support a message asking for help for the third time. this is the second time the problem renders it into a shiny brick, making it impossible to communicate. something i use mine a lot for, as an entrepeneur.

now i understand i bought an experimental phone from a small company led by an artist not a businessman. i also appreciate that it’s quite the first world problem. there’s people dying of war and famine and my white butt is sitting here complaining about not being able to answer a call or answer a signal-message.

still, it’s hard to be enthousiastic about a product that has so many bugs. there’s the reboots (have gotten better, but are still there), there’s apps closing down or freezing, there’s all kinds of other software stuff, but there’s also the hardware stuff. i got mine with a broken camera module, had to replace the bottom module a couple months ago, and now i get a screen full of snowy noise 9 out of 10 times i want to use it.

now, there’s support. but come on, it took em 2 months at first to even answer my e-mail, while it was a common problem. i get that there’s a backlog, but this was just screwed up.

an important part of the fairphone idea is that we, as users, talk about it with people around me. i do that, but i’m afraid it’s not the advertisement they want.

now. i hope this problem gets fixed soon. meanwhile i’ll try to get my old phone back from a friend who borrowed it while waiting for hís FP2 to get fixed.
i just hope FP will get it’s game together, and starts using better quality stuff that doesn’t break down constantly.

[Stefan]

If you need a fast reply, you should call them in the business hours.

[jochem]

@Stefan: ha. ha.
bizarrely, i got a reply to my support request already! a standard reply full of questions i anwered in my initial e-mail, but a reply nonetheless!

[PhilippR]

Hello everybody!

Some of might have the same problem as me and maybe tried to solve it with the support and/or on community spare parts market.

My FPU1 display is broken and there are no spare parts and there will be no in future.

I felt more than disappointed about that fact and wrote to fairphone again.

You can see below what they answerd:

---

Philipp Reitza February 06, 2017 11:03
Hey Fairphone-Team,

I write this as answer to your mail about my requsr Request #155869.

My FP1U Dispaly is broken but spare parts are sold out and if i get you right, there won´t be any new one.
Your tip was to take a look into community where I can found marketplace for spareparts.

Ok, i,ve been there. Have you been there, too? There you can find many, many people from al over europe with same problem like me: broken display.
What you can´t find there is a spare part display!
I was willing to even pay 180€ for a used dispaly, but there was some other guy willing to pay even more.

My question is, is that what you think of being fair?

All the people who bought FP1 and FP1U made this movement as great as it is now.
We gave you the money to build up this movement and we belived in your or better to say in our goals.
Cause i belive in reducing waste, fairtradet and fairproduced products with ability to last long lifetime.
You told, Fairphone would exactly do this!

Of course, I understand that you can´t archieve all of your/our goals within few month or years and I understand, that you can´t do this with your first product, like FP1 und FP1U.

But I don´t understand, why you let down all the people who believed in your/our goals, who supported you and trust your vision!

I liked my FP1U very much and enjoy working with it. I never thought about getting an other phone for all the time i used it and woulden´t think about for the future.
But hey, every god damn Iphone user gets´s spare part dispaly for his four years old phone! Maybe you better think about!

If it´s to difficult to produce spare parts for the FP1and FP1U than why you don´t make an offer to us?
An offer like getting FP2 for lower price or getting a reward for sending back our FP1 and FP1U to you, so they can be used as spare parts, too?

More then little disapointed greetings from Dortmund

Philipp

---

But they refuse to send me more than an autoresponse mail for 8 days, so I wrote again…

---

Avatar
Philipp Reitza Yesterday at 15:28
Ok, dear Fairphone-Team.

This is all I get?

One autoresponse mail and then silence?

I really expected a little more interest in your customers problems…

I think I will wait another two days, maybe your able to write an answer to me…

No greetings this time, I am angry!!!

Philipp

---

And hey, Fairphone managed to answer me within a few hours…

---

Avatar
George Today at 14:16
Dear Philipp,

I am really sorry and I do understand your frustration.
I wish I could offer you a solution , however I am unable to.
I can reassure you that your criticism will be taken under serious consideration, and
we will not repeat our mistakes in our Fairphone 2.
I am afraid there is nothing more we can do for your Fairphone 1 and your understanding is highly appreciated.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for anything further you may require.

Kind regards,

George
☆ Fairphone || Buy a phone, join a movement!
✆ 09:30-17:30 CET under +31 20 788 4400

---

I don´t know what you think, but i feel ver very disappointed with this reply.

Am I alone with this thought?

[Stefan]

@PhilippR

All the people who bought FP1 and FP1U made this movement as great as it is now.

#makeFairphoneGreatAgain

@PhilippR This is a community forum, we are not Fairphone’s “Wailing Wall” here.

[tobi-wan-kenobi]

@PhilippR I understand why the reply, and the whole message exchange, frustrate you. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people that buy a FP invest more than just money, you invest enthusiasm and, to a degree, passion. You want to support a movement, an idea.

And what you describe, of course, invokes the feeling like you’re being let down by that idea.

On the other hand, I think it’s important to try and take a step back. My FP is now close to 4 years old, I think. If it were anything but a FP and it broke now, I’d probably buy a new phone without batting an eyelash. But expectations for a FP simply are higher.

But hey, every god damn Iphone user gets´s spare part dispaly for his four years old phone!

True, but it’s much easier to provide that level of support if you sell millions of phones, and if you build a whole business ecosystem around repair.

At the same time, we should probably realize that what Fairphone is doing is a pretty ambitious project. And clearly, you can’t get everything right on the first try. I think it’s only fair to assume that it is very easy to underestimate how difficult it is to provide spare parts for years. Also, finding suppliers that offer that kind of service level is probably something that sounds easier than it is.

When I look at the specs of the FP2, what I see are a lot of lessons learned the hard way. Of course, I also look at the FP2 and think “gosh, why isn’t that what my FP1 is like?”, but I tell myself that part of the “fairphone experience” is traveling this journey and seeing (and contributing to) how the product develops.

Of course, that’s not something that dissolves your - justified - frustration, but in my mind, the situation is a lot more complex than just Fairphone letting the users down. Personally, I think Fairphone would let down their users primarily when they either stopped trying to improve, or if they tried to just make easy money, and they are a far cry away from both of these things, if you ask me

Having said that, your suggestion of sending back a Fairphone in exchange for a small refund or a price reduction for a FP2 is something I personally think would be a good idea (if anyone from Fairphone read until here )

Sorry for the long read, just wanted to get that off my chest

[Stefan]

There actually has been a buyback programme.

[Douwe]

@tobi-wan-kenobi

Having said that, your suggestion of sending back a Fairphone in exchange for a small refund or a price reduction for a FP2 is something I personally think would be a good idea (if anyone from Fairphone read until here )

At Fairphone we are very aware of this issue and feel a strong need to come up with solutions. As you mention in your post already, the preferred solutions are the most difficult ones. It has become next to impossible to source certain parts for the Fairphone 1. Most of the companies supplying the parts for the spare parts (you’re still with me?) simply stop making them after a while. It is not easy to find a new supplier of a spare part that has reached end of life, especially if you are only looking for a few thousand of them.

Your idea of exchanging Fairphone 1’s is one of the many ideas that are currently being looked in to somehow compensate Fairphone 1 owners. There are no details yet, but I want you to know that we know this hurts many of or consumers and we are seriously looking what could be ways to soften the pain.

[TobiasF]

@Stefan

There actually has been a buyback programme.

But I only heard about buy-back offers for FP1 which were still in warranty. I have not heard of a buy-back offer for a FP1 outside the warranty. (If Fairphone doesn’t want to have your FP1, you can disassemble it and sell the parts in our marketplace.)

[Stefan]

Oh yeah that was the catch… I remember…

I think by now (February 2017) there are no FP1s in warranty anymore.

[jeni]

i have just received my super duper FP2 in the buy back scheme. and very happy indeed.