No notification LED and no replaceable microphone in FP4

Discuss The Products
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So I reached to support and this is their answer. Unfortunately FP4 doesn’t come with a notification LED or a replaceable mic (unlike FP3). I hope this settles it. Not really a dealbreaker for me, but these features would be nice.

Dear Radomir,

My name is S… from the support team. I’ll be your case manager, nice to e-meet you :slight_smile:

Thank you for supporting Fairphone and for reaching out.

The microphones of the Fairphone 4 are integrated into the core module and are not a separate spare part. You can find all available spare parts here.

The Fairphone 4 does not have a notification LED.

Please feel free to reach out to me with any other questions you might have.

I wish you a lovely day, take care!

Best regards,

S…

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I have allowed myself to recategorize as there is not help needed or question raised

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Yeah, thanks, I wasn’t really sure about the correct category.

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4

Reg the mic: this was extremely vulnerable in the FP2 probably as it was located directly beside the USB Port, so a lot influence due to the USB cable. Not sure how often and what issues were noted for the FP3 but seems FP wants to protect it better. Fingers crossed this works else every broken mic will cause repair at the repair center…

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A possible concern as water ingress is protected by a membrane etc.
Replacing a core module for a mic failure is a concern, but we’ll see how it works out years later.

It’s good there is up to a 5 year warranty.

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And no OLED (and thus no always-on-display), what do they expect us then to use for notifications? Or will we need to check regularly if we got a message when the phone is on the table?

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That’s what I do anyway, what’s the problem with that? I only check for notifications, when I have time for it. So no interruption or disturbance, when I can’t use it.

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???

I’m sort of with @incanus mostly, but it is useful to have sound notification, but of course the deaf would like a visual option.

Some notifications do wake up the screen, so face up is fine in those instances.

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It’s a 2 step thing. Notify, which indeed wakes up my screen on my Pixel 3 with an always-on-display (AOD). But then you also need a persistent notification. Which used to be an LED, and nowadays it’s on an always-on-display. If you miss the notification, you don’t want to check your phone every time you couldn’t check. AOD is perfect for that. Also now I see on my phone, which is on my desk, that I have an email and a chat message in my notification array. These are silent, because I don’t want to hear a sound and vibration for every message. Just with one look I see that there is no reason to check my phone. That’s amazing. And really not that too much to ask in 2021.

I find this an interesting community. People cry havoc when there is no 3.5mm, but other things that are really not okay, are no issue at all :stuck_out_tongue:

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People crying about the loss of a jack are not necessarily the same, that accept a ‘loss’ of a notification LED :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.
Even with phones featuring an OLED screen I prefer to have the display dark all the time I don’t use it.

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I relayed the question about how persistent notifications are handled on the FP4 to Fairphone support. Notifications are used. It won’t be productive to develop the routine to check my phone for the sake of checking for notifications. Life is too short for that.

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Maybe I don’t understand how notifications work.

  • Does the notification LED stay on until the notification is acknowledged unlike screen notifications which disappear after a while ?
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I had to switch on the notification light first. But now it’s flashing much longer already, than the screen notification was displayed. Don’t know, whether it will stop flashing somewhen.

P.S.: Still flashing :slightly_smiling_face:.

P.P.S.: Even now it’s still flashing, I will stop it now as it seems to consume some energy too :smile: .

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Both should be persistent, until discarded or read.

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If by both you mean the LED and the screen, then surely you either have to have the phone face up in which case who needs the LED for notification.

And if face down then you have to turn the phone over to check so who needs the screen until I active it.

What am I missing if I don’t have the LED notification, apart from more battery drain?

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The screen needs more energy than the LED. So checking for notifications frequently, by activating the screen, after I was away from the phone, will consume more battery power, than the LED flashing after a message came in.

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I wonder when face down if the screen is activated :slight_smile: I would have thought only when the proximity sensor knows I’m looking at it.

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When face down, I can’t see the display, so I wonder, what you mean :confused:.

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Let me explain my experience with my Pixel 3, which is something really useful.

The always-on-display (AOD), shows which notifications have stacked. This uses an AMOLED display. Which uses less than 1% of battery per hour (I can see that in my battery stats). That’s doable, right?

It’s only on when the phone’s proximity sensor is not detecting something nearby, light sensor is not detecting light, or if the phone is on a steady flat surface.

In other words. if it’s not on in your pocket, it’s not on. When face down on a table (you can also enable do-not-disturb (DND) automatically in that case) the screen is off as well.

So that concludes to:
[x] No power drain
[x] Persistent notifications

However, when you have an IPS display, AOD is not an option. Without an LED, there are no persistent notifications either. Is this really not seen as an issue? :stuck_out_tongue:

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For me personally? Not at all. I decide when to look at my phone, not my phone.

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