Love the idea but it's so hard to sell it to friends/family

I just love the idea of the fairphone, ordered the first one prerelease, now after having had a bit of a sidetrack with another brand i’m back with my FP2.

but damn it’s hard to sell the idea to collegues or friends. Especially because I just cannot be positive about the performance of both my devices.
the first one died after 1 year, with a blown up battery
the second one is 1 week old, and suffers from different problems which I would have expected to be resolved long time ago. I can’t find a release date but I see blog posts stating FP2 in stock in may 2016 so these child diseases i’m suffering from should have been cleaned up long time ago.

my phone reboots nearly every day
just had such a reboot half an hour ago. with only 14% left of battery it came back after the reboot with that same 14%, only to die 30 seconds later … I litterally saw the counter going down, 14 13 12… 3, 2, 1 Powering off.
not to talk about the fact that half the time i want to pick it up it does not respond to powering on through the button on the side. Oh i know something is happening behind the black screen, but i have to do weird stuff with it to get the black screen to show me the content.

This does not sound like a phone being in released over a year ago. this sounds like a phone released too soon and not tested enough.

don’t get me wrong, I would buy a FP3, or a second generation fp2 if that even exists, but I do urge you guys to make em more stable because even though I’m sold to the cause, the devices in my hand just don’t sell themselves to my friends / family and other peers.

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Does your new phone have the slim case? Your failure description sounds like the power button is somehow stuck. Do you have the same problem when you take off the case?

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With some slim cases it necessary to swith the powerbutton and the camerabutton, see also
slim case reboot and button issues

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This is a community forum. Please direct such messages to Fairphone Support.

I recommend second hand Samsung Galaxy S3/4/5 phones to people that are sceptical about the reliability of the FP2 or simply don’t want to afford it. The reason is that those phones also have LineageOS support, which gives them at least Android 7, and probably 8+ in the future.

There’s a trick with putting the battery more firm, described here:

The problem with the screen staying blank could be related to proximity sensor? Not sure.

How old is your battery?

Which OS version do you run?

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As for alternatives that might be worth a different thread. And I suppose theres already threads about this as well. Its a bit of a loaded subject as well. I don’t want to tell people who like the idea of Fairphone to go for something else :confused:

Since you’re Dutch I can recommend Tweakers.net: Schone Androids voor weinig geld Goedkope telefoons zonder zware skins for obtaining a relatively cheap/budget phone (~200 EUR segment). I got my gf one of these until the FP3 comes out which we’ll likely both pre-order. I offered her to pick my FP2 instead of the one I bought for her (then I’d get the new one). She picked the budget phone instead (at my suggestion).

Near stock Android (like Fairphone), easily one day battery life (at least ~3k mAh vs 2,4k mAh though not replaceable), 3 GB RAM, fingerprint reader, NFC, Android 7.1.2 with regular patches (currently patch level september 2017; so no KRACK fix yet).

I really hope the FP3 will be a budget phone. Of course it will be more expensive than the budget phones but these are such a bang for the buck. It’d allow for volume as well. A phone which costs 530 EUR is just very expensive, too high priced, and therefore elitist. People then expect flagship build quality and performance. With a cheaper phone, you can go for volume instead. Although maybe the company cannot deal with that.

A second hand phone is also a good option. It has a + for environment (though shipment might be meh), a - for security since you run a rooted device owned by someone you don’t know. I’m not sure I’d go for a Samsung or SGS either (though I was able to replace battery in my SGS3). The SGS3 doesn’t have LTE btw so that means you use 3G which puts more stress on the battery. Stefan wasn’t kidding about how affordable a secondhand one is. Check eBay for example. You could also buy a new Chinese knockoff like Xiaomi or whatever. They’re very bad on the environment list though, and its shady to avoid paying sales tax.

Except for FP2 all of the above devices are made through child labor as well.

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Bas from Fairphone always has been saying that the fairest phone is the one that you already own. I’m adding: The second fairest phone is a phone someone else has already owned.

If I flash LineageOS (LOS) I can even decide to not root it at all. And if I do the phone is owned by me. LOS would also give me the latest security patches (October 2017 atm). I would never recommend a second hand phone with Samsung stock OS, with their heavy modifications. :unamused:

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Do you mean you don’t have to root any phone if you install LOS?

If I understand correctly what @Roboe says, no:

There are no such things as child diseases. If your device doesn’t work as expected either there is an error that you can fix or you got a faulty device and should contact support to get it replaced.

Apart from the tips you already got check out the following topic for the full list of workarounds and solutions:

Also check out the blackscreenguide.

I had a faulty phone like you and now I have a refurbished FP2 after the first one died. The refurbished phone works great, not a single reboot or other problems. So I recommend that you return that broken phone to get a replacement.

But I think that there are too many of those broken phones because I have seen many similar comments in this forum. And that’s why I would NEVER recommend this phone to anybody. (But for obvious reasons I would not recommend any other phone as well, just keep your old phone until it becomes unusable)

Yeah because most of the people that don’t have any problems never write on this forum. :slight_smile:

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Your comment is pointless because the number of posts about broken phones cannot be reduced by other posts.

I offen post in this forum and my used FP2 is working flawlessly so far. However, I bought it quite cheap because the owner before had serious problems.

Still, at the moment I am a bit selective who I recommend or pitch the FP2 to. One reason is the high price in relation to the Android 7+ problem, another is the high number of reports with issues here. I think there still is a very large market for the FP2 and I know at least two technology and socialy interested people I would try to convince. And I myself am so happy that i gave my other phone away.

People not concerned with social or ecological issues or who simply need a 100% reliable phone are not amongst those I recommend the FP2 to at the moment. I believe in open communication and also in the right timing: Most people I know a very sympathetic with the FP2 and it’s ideas. But I also don’t know how many would give the Fairphone a second chance if they are not happy at first. So I am still waiting for the support issue to be solved and an updated model. However, Fairphone does so much of the right things, I believe its only a matter if time until I can wholeheartedly recommend the future FP3 or 4 to everyone.

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Thank you for reminding me. :wink: Nevertheless they can be put into relation with the silent majority.

I haven’t been on the forum for a very long time. As I’m perfectly happy with my Fairphone 2 since the day of it’s arrival and I haven’t had any major issues with it, I don’t log in to reply as there’s nothing to tell. Everythings going fine, nothing to tell, keep moving on. I expect the same thing to happen to everyone who has a Fairphone 2 they’re using without problems. They enjoy it in daily life but there’s no reason to access the forum as there’s no questions to be asked or complaints to be mentioned. But now I’m posting this, just to balance the view that the FP2 is a problem with lots of problems. It’s not like that for those users without the need to post here.

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