An optical zoom would be very tricky to have on a smartphone. And fragile.
But you can always (try to) use binoculars with your phone, like I’ve done with this picture:
Another picture without binoculars but with the digital zoom was like this:
This is why I’ve chosen to buy the new modules: it was very tricky and I don’t carry binoculars with me very often!
That’s a good question. @formerFP.Com.Manager will the FP3 also use more recycled plastics and fair materials or will you continue to produce them as before?
My guess would be, that the FP3 is a kind of “sale” product.
They have a certain amount of stock and keep selling this. This would go for the old modules as well (though they can be offering refurbished ones pretty soon).
Since they do not announce it “as long as stock lasts”, they most likely have stocked phones for a few months (?) to come; especially since sales numbers for the FP3 will decrease on behalf of the FP3+.
I can’t imagine Fairphone having two different production lines, since this would most likely raise the costs for both phones.
And - even more important maybe - continuing to produce phones that are less sustainable than possible, would be another contradiction to the core-ethics I would attribute to Fairphone.
The plastic is mainly external. In fact, the great improvement on the proportion of recycled plastic used comes from the new back of the phone. It always was tricky to add more recycled plastic in the transparent one of the FP3 
The complete shell of the FP3+ seems to contain more recycable plastic. It’s the reason why the whole (!) phone is black now with now more translucent parts.
Over here Paule found a GCam port for the Samsung Galaxy S10 lite which seems to use the same sensor. So, I guess there’s hope…
Told you so, it’s not been long
Shall we expect some improvements of the current FP3 photo performances , with the original cameras in combination with the upcoming Android 10 Update?
Gonna buy both Modules, but im a littlebit sad that they dont offer something in return for the old modules, I mean why should I not keep them? If I send them and the Camera dies, Ive got a backup, without it, I have to purchase another module.
Or you just stick with your old modules until you really need new ones. 
Because reusing/recycling is the ethical and sustainable thing to do?
From the ethical point of view, that Fairphone stands for (at least the way I see it):
They offer an initial discount of 25 Euro (i.e. 26.3%) for buying both modules as a bundle. That’s even cheaper than a bundle of the old modules, which comes at 79.9 Euro.
In my opinion that’s quite a lot! And I doubt very much, that there is more room financially without loosing money.
Plus: Tempting users even more to exchange the cameray by buying back the old modules would somehow send the message: “We want to sell the new stuff at all costs. You have to be dumb not to switch to the new version.”
And that - in my opinion - is totally the contrary to what Fairphone stands for.
To be hones, I’m a bit ambivalent already regarding the discount; but that is the way marketing works. And if it gets more people attracted to Fairphone, it’s fine by me.
Same here.
I would’ve loved they would’ve released the new modules later, in the same time than FP4 to encourage FP3 users to keep their phone longer rather than buying a FP4 for example next year, if it were to be released then.
It would’ve been a way to use the “old” camera modules longer, enough to justify a change.
It was too early for an FP4. And seeing the trouble they had dealing with different projects (I’m talking about the security patches, as @BertG pointed out), an FP4 was out of the question for me.
If they design a new mainboard with new CPU und GPU, more RAM and more internal storage and with 5G support, which is compatible to FP 3, that is, you just have to change the mainboards, then I think you could sell the phone with the new SOC as FP4, but I doubt that many users would buy the new SOC, as long as the software support is the same. The current specs of FP3 are good enough for most people not playing sophisticated games.
I am really surprised that this so-called “fair and ethic” phone enter in this game of high MP. Form me 48MP is absolutely useless, will generate heavy files, use more processor, more memory, etc.
I understand Fairphone company from the comercial point of view, but from the ethical one I think it’s a step back.
Hold on. You need to know what is the noise free/optical zoom range. Big megapixels is not a substitute for optical zoom, not in the slightest.
Judge for yourself: FP3+ gsm-arena review
Technically the 48Mpx will be converted to 12Mpx so no uselessly heavy files. But it will allow you to zoom more without resolution loss. And being a larger camera, it should be better in low-light.
OK @Antoine, you are right. I understand that in fact the result is a 12MP photo only. Well, each pixel has only 1 color only. This color was build with 4 pixel initialy but it’s still a 12MP photo.
As each real pixel size is smaller (0.8 micron), it will take much less light. The quality of pictures in low light depends on the size of the sensor and it’s quality. This is why Nikon D6 ($6000!) has only 21MP and a huge sensor. The surface of the D6 sensor is 864mm2, FP3+ is about 28mm2. The result is that one D6 pixel surface is 70 bigger than FP3+. This is why D6 is good in low light.
When I compare photos taken with FP3 12MP and Nikon D200 12MP (13 years old) I can see why big sensors will keep the advantage for long. I believe that improving quality of sensor , its size and the “lens” will be a good choice rather than jump into high computer processing.
I want to buy the back module, but I’m going to wait until I get reassured that it works with /e/.
And the old one is already amazing in low light when using the ported google camera app, so imagine how good the new could be.
