Love/hate relationship with my Fairphone 4

like the others have said, GCam mod makes a difference in photo quality, especially with Night Sight. it’s a shame it can’t use higher megapixel mode, or switch to the wide angle camera though. I hope the FP team will make those available for third party apps in the future.

regarding the lack of notification LED… I’ve expressed my disappointment more than once already. I’m getting used to it, but it’s still quite incovenient.

while an always on display would be a good alternative to the much missed notification LED, OLED screens have that nasty thing going on for them that’s called burn-in. it can’t be completely mitigated due to the very nature of how OLED screens work, and the more you use your screen, the more noticeable it would get. not ideal for a phone that’s supposed to be used for 5 or more years.
a bit off topic, but my pie in the sky dream is for them to release a higher refresh rate LCD panel as a FP4+ upgrade, even if it’s only 90 Hz.

Not with today’s standards. iPhone’s ship OLED devices now as well since they became more durable (5+ years).

I only know 4 people with a Pixel. But the Pixel isn’t sold in The Netherlands. I hope I’ll see more people with a Fairphone soon. The company where I work is thinking of offering the Fairphone next to the standard iPhone they provide.

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it might be less noticeable, but the very nature of OLED displays is that they built with organic components (which O in the name stands for), that degrade over time. it might be less noticeable than it used to be a while ago, but it’s still an issue. and something tells me that Fairphone wouldn’t bring Apple-grade hardware to their devices anyway.

Maybe, I think the LCD displays the Fairphone 4 now has are better than the LCD displays on a iPhone 8. So I think it’s not impossible the Fairphone 5 will have an OLED. OLEDs are more energy efficient. So when taking battery wear into the equation, maybe the zero sum benefit is the same. My Pixel screen is still very good by the way after 3 years. No burn-in at all.

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A Pixel 6 is in a different ballpark (its Google’s flagship model, a high-end smartphone), but I’m going through a similar path. My wife’s Pixel 3a is going to get no longer supported and she wants a high quality camera but she also cares about sustainability, so we ordered a FP4 to see if the camera is good enough for her (the other parts other hardware aren’t a concern, in fact the 256 GB storage plus microSD option is a big plus from 64 GB storage). If that doesn’t work out I’ll take the phone instead, sell my Fairphone 3, and she’ll go for a Pixel series. The FP4 won’t arrive any time soon though.

I would’ve very much appreciated an OLED 120 Hz (I have a work smartphone with OLED 120 Hz, its a big difference), while I don’t give a rat about 5G (gonna take a year till 3.5 GHz is even auctioned here in NL). But it is what it is, as Max would say :wink:

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During the lessons I taught at university, I have met at least 6 french speakers with a Fairphone : FP2 and FP3.

Statistically, you have most chance to find a French speaker here since this phone is sold only in EU.

The use of the different Android versions in the world now proves users can leave without updates very well because they are not power users as you are.

That’s strongly biased, of course – people not having issues are not necessarily following this forum, and if they are, they are not reporting having no issues all the time.

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It’s true that many of the people who come to this forum do so because they have a problem. That’s the case with all forums of this type. So let’s not forget the vast majority who don’t join the forum. Whether that’s because they don’t have problems is certainly debatable, but I think likely for most of them, or else they find solutions here without having to sign up and ask a question.

And there are quite a few I suppose, who have never had a significant problem but who join the forum because they are interested in the product and what it stands for. I’m one of them.

I hereby happily report having no significant issues all the time. :smiley:

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