šŸ“Š POLL: How satisfied or unsatisfied are you with your FP3 or FP3+?

Simple vote after a bit over one year since the launch of the Fairphone 3:

How satisfied or unsatisfied are you with your FP3 or FP3+ ?

  • very satisfied
  • satisfied
  • neutral
  • unsatisfied
  • very unsatisfied

0 voters

If you have an FP4, feel free to vote here:
How satisfied or unsatisfied are you with your FP4?

7 Likes

The calling Bug is a bummer, and i hope this will be fixed soon, but apart from that im very satisfied. (Using the Fp3 since January)

2 Likes

I had been very satisfied with my FP3+ for the first couple of weeks, but since then it has become a source of enormous frustration.

First, the standard camera app failed and lost several days worth of photos and video.

So I installed Open Camera, and that seemed to work much better for about a week, and now that has also failed. Curiously, most of the photos I took using that app are still available through the Google Photos app.

I removed Open Camera and tried to reinstall it, but I get a message that there is ā€œinsufficient storageā€ to download the app.

When I try to use File Manager to find the image files, I cannot even see the SD card, and when I try to take screenshots I also get ā€œCanā€™t save screenshot due to limited storage spaceā€ā€¦

This makes me think that the FP3+ has, for some unidentified reason, decided to no longer read from or write to the SD card.

Iā€™m very annoyed and frustrated at spending almost ā‚¬500 on this device for it to be so unfinished. If this problem cannot be fixed, Iā€™ll be sending it back for a refund.

I might as well spend ā‚¬500 on an unethical phone from a big-name manufacturer and offset the financing of armed conflict in Central Africa by sending a ā‚¬50 donation to a humanitarian group.

Did you configure your SD card as internal memory? Unfortunately this is possible on a FP3 but seems to lead to lot of problems (like the ones you describe).
Please configure it as ā€œportable storageā€.

6 Likes

Yes, Volker, I did configure the card to be used as internal memory. My previous phone did not offer this possibility and had quite limited internal memory; as a result I quickly ran out of space and could not install new apps. For the first year or two after buying that phone, I was able to move an installed app to the memory card, but then this possibility disappeared.

So with the FP3+ I chose to use the card as internal memory in order to avoid this problem.

I did not suspect that this would cause a really annoying problem.

1 Like

I completely understand your ideas and I really hope this issue will be fixed soon (by either no longer allowing SD card as internal memory or by fixing the problems which often seem to happen currently with SD card as internal memory).
Anyway for now Iā€™d strongly recommend you to change the SD card usage type to external.

2 Likes

I chose neutral because after hours with the support, contacts are still vanishing. Also the display is the same as with the Samsung M20 (my mom got it last year), very hard to understand, somehow not functioning good. On top of that I thought the FP3 would be as ā€œopenā€ as the FP2.
But we still canā€™t have a Google free OS and we still need a cover that would be of any help when the phone falls onto hard ground. And: Fairphone gives ā€œmaybeā€ 5 or more years of updates. That is by far not enough.
As my 6 year old Samsung S5 also got Android 10 (LOS, not from Samsung, of course) and functions like a charm with it, I donā€™t think I will recommend a Fairphone to anyone again. The FP3 is closed up as far as they could, bound to Google, destroying any fun :cry:
The support is the same as if it was any big company, not really helping.
Sadly, I canā€™t program and I canā€™t paint in 3D. You would need both skills to be completely satisfied with a FP3. Besides the issue with the display, of courseā€¦
And after all, it even isnā€™t MY FP3 (Iā€™m really satisfied with my S5) - but if the owner doesnā€™t speak English, he is totally lost.

Thereā€™s /e/ OS and LOS for FP3 too.

Well, I wouldnā€™t generalize that. Iā€™ve talked to various users not speaking English which managed to use their FP3.

2 Likes

Hi, as I use the same SD card for 2 years in my S5, starting with LOS 14 until now with LOS 17, your problem seems to be FP3 related - if you already tried a new SD card.
We also had this issue with Huawei Phones (why we donā€™t buy Huawei anymore).

@Volker:
Normally it is intended to expand the internal space with the SD card. I also know this problem with full internal space, I started with the first Galaxy Mini.
And for me, there couldnā€™t be anything better than the SD card where I could move my apps (I think this wasnā€™t possible in 2011). Especially on my S5 with only 16GB internal, half of it being used up by LOS and the most important apps.

Issues we only had with this stupid P8 lite and of course the FP3. On the FP3, getting a new high quality card solved the issue for us.

I looked every now an then for an open OS for FP3. Until now I couldnā€™t find anything not in an unsafe state. The owner has to have a phone after all.
Better a phone that deletes (or not saves) contacts than no phone at all.

And yes, if you donā€™t have any issues or donā€™t use the phone for calling more than a few contacts, you wonā€™t need the English language.
But if you have a special issue (not only the FP3), you are totally lost without English.
What do you think how I found this forum? It was not while looking for pages with only ā€œ.deā€

I am very pleased, the phone works well has never let me down. It has to be said this was my second phone, the first one I received was just plain dead, fp replaced it without any quibbles.
I do have issues with the OS. This is my first Android phone, I had iPhones and Black Berries before. I couldnā€™t believe how much data was sent back home, it still worries me.

2 Likes

I have selected neutral, but really wanted to say ā€œunsatisfiedā€. I root for Fairphone since its beginning, and finally managed to justify spending this kind of money on a phone due to software support & philosophy. Now I am left with an expensive phone that has random reboots and random silent calls. I have already gone through a factory reset once, with the attached pain of resetting all my bank and MFA applications, and the issue only got worse. I understand issues are always going to be there, but we are not at the bleeding edge of technology (android 11 is here), and support, on top of having 5 days SLA, has reached out saying ā€œeh, COVID-19, itā€™s gonna take longerā€, which honestly sounded as a trite excuse for a tech company even 3 months ago, let alone now.

2 Likes

Well, that can be true, but it must not.
SD-cards can fail as well as phones. To my knowledge, such cards normally even fail quite more often than on-board memory. And when a SD-card is used as internal storage, one can not just change it for another card, since that card is integrated in the system itself, being structured to fit into the memory administration. A new card that is inserted will lack that structural information and most likely will make the whole phone fail.
Being able to move apps to the SD-card and making apps use the SD-card for storing data is something different.
When the SD-card is used as internal storage, it is no longer visible as SC-card and it is decided by the OS where data will be stored. For the user there is no information what part of the internal storage is made up by the SD-card.

The TLD is not really whatā€™s important .
You could post your troubles in this ā€œ.comā€-forum using another language.
German, French, Spanish and Dutch have been used and in every case I remember such requests for help were answered in the respective language.

3 Likes

Thanks for your insight into this problemā€¦ Your answer prompted me to search around for more information, and I found a helpful article here:

From reading around the subject (the article above plus a few others and posts in fora), I strongly suspect that this is a problem with Android, not with the Fairphone, so Iā€™ll publicly retract my somewhat stern criticism of the device and company.

So, thinking back at the conditions under which I saw the problem, I strongly suspect that I can provoke itā€¦ Iā€™ll give it a try when Iā€™ve done a backup of everything that is on the card, in perhaps a week or two.

The article I cited above states that when the SD card is configured as an extension to the phoneā€™s built-in memory, the data on the card are encrypted and cannot be read by a different device.

So when I connected the phone to my computer with the USB cable, the computer tries to mount the SD card as an external drive, and this fails because of the encryption. Then either the computer modifies the data (or metadata) on the card, rendering the card unreadable by the phone.

3 Likes

Itā€™s possible but I actually doubt it because I think the internal memory (including the SD card) is correctly decrypted when being mounted through the device. Still, itā€™s a possibilityā€¦

2 Likes

I 've only just got around to this poll and selected ā€˜unsatisfiedā€™ but to qualify this it is due to poor call volume, echo and battery charging.

I am however very happy to be involved with people who express a caring attitude even if they are a bit inept at consumer production :slight_smile:

EDIT 1. In fact if they werenā€™t a little inept I would wonder if they are really people at all :slight_smile:

1 Like

I love it!
Truly love this!!!
:heart:


I guess, they do their very best.

5 Likes

Still have my FP3, it would be my main phone if 1. Bluetooth audio was stable. 2. CPU was faster and 3. It used an OLED screen, Iā€™ve not used an LCD screen phone since the HTC One in 2013.

1 Like

I am using the FP3+ as my main phone and bluetooth audio is stable now in my case (changed since a software update).

I agree that the CPU is slower than expected. I donā€™t play games on the phone and I donā€™t need a very fast CPU. But when scrolling websites or pictures or doing other simple things, it is clearly visible that the CPU is not very snappy.

Which is remarkable: Even my old phone with Snapdragon 801 (from 2014!) feels faster.
Also the Snapdragon 660 (from 2017) used in the Nokia 7 plus is more snappy.

The Snapdragon 632 used in the FP3(+) should really feel faster. Maybe they are throttling the CPU to make the battery lasting longer? I guess the hardware could be faster, but it is limited somehow by the software.

True. In fact the FP3+ is my first smartphone ever with just an LCD screen. Even the first Samsung Galaxy S (11 years ago) had an OLED.
Slowly I am getting used to the LCD. But it would be great to be able to remove the LCD screen by an OLED. I would be happy to pay for this upgrade. Thatā€™s what a modular phone could provide.

But generally speaking: I would be satisfied with the hardware of the FP3+. I can accept the slower CPU. The LCD screen is not very nice, but ok.
My main criticism and reason why I am not satisfied is the software with its bugs and problems (mentioned in other threads). Fairphone still has the chance to fix it and to satisfy us customers.

1 Like

Iā€™m convinced it became better after I did a factory reset on my Momentum 2 earbuds. But what happens on those is if thereā€™s a drop out it creates this weird effect where the two buds create a strange stereo effect. It was pretty annoying, I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts while dog walking, so the audio performance has to be perfect. I expect it is more of a software thing. However it was totally stable in the house, which makes me wonder if external factors made it worse? walking past peopleā€™s homes and their wifi being stronger in signal?

Itā€™s party screen refresh rate too of course. a 90Hz refresh screen is silky smooth. But FP3 isnā€™t even comparable to my Moto Z2 Force from 2017. Iā€™m not so interested in games or 3D performance. More the smoothness of operation. Itā€™s not terrible, but the makers of Fairphone would be better off looking at Mediatek processors as a way to get powerful processors. It seems as if they are easier to obtain for smaller phone brands. Some of their latest processors are getting very fast too.

The FP3 screen looks pretty detailed. I think LCD can provide slightly clearer images due to OLED needing pentile pixel layout (some of the colours burn out faster). But where LCD loses is in the dark, just no getting around that LCD glow.

I installed Lineage for MicroG and found that pretty good. Didnā€™t see any real bugs, but Iā€™m not that demanding :slight_smile:

1 Like