Sadface: I don't think I'm buying another Fairphone

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I’m extremely sad to have reached the decision not to buy another Fairphone. I feel like I’m the ideal target audience for this brand. I had the FP2 for a few years, and happily replaced the battery and upgraded the camera. My wife was rocking an old Motorola, and when it died I decided to buy 2x FP3s. The FP2 was converted into an audiobook player for my mother in law, and it’s still alive. I bragged about the Fairphone’s repairability to anyone that would listen to me (and I’m sure I’ve bored a lot of people who had zero interest in it). And I’m a certified tree-hugger (vegetarian, no-fly, no car etc).

So why is the FP3 my last fairphone? And why am I posting here?

Well to answer the 2nd bit first, I want to know if there’s anyone else who feels this. I’m overall disappointed with the phone industry’s design choices recently. While I don’t think I’ll be getting another Fairphone (simply by looking at the design trends from FP3 > FP4 > FP5) I’m honestly finding it extremely difficult to get any device that I actually want.

OK, but why not another Fairphone? Two reasons:

  1. Performance
  2. THE FP5 IS HUUUUGE. If you look at the sizes of each edition of the FP it’s only going in one direction: BIGGER, HEAVIER and IMPOSSIBLE TO USE ONE-HANDED.

#1 has become important to me in a way that I didn’t think it would. I don’t use my phone for gaming or heavy-duty AI / number crunching etc. It’s just a comms device. WhatsApp, Slack, a bit of browsing. But Android 13 absolutely destroyed the performance of the FP3, and broke a bunch of stuff like fingerprint auth. While it has gotten a little better (after factory reset, format SD card, only install essential apps, and about 4 successive updates) it’s still nowhere near as good as it was on Android 12. So while I’m still rocking a 10 year old Macbook Pro (running linux) and have a bunch of extremely low-powered computers around the house doing home automation, multimedia etc, I can’t rely on a reasonably recent phone to perform if an Android update can destroy its perfomance. Honestly, even taking a photo on this phone is such a horrendously laggy experience. The fact that the very latest Fairphone, the FP5, rocks a sub-par chip upon release doesn’t give me hope. Android 14 might be fine on the FP5, but what about a forced Android 15 upgrade?

There isn’t much more to say about #2 (size issue), except that it’s sad that we’ve lost the range of phone sizes that were available 5+ years ago. There used to be choice. But all the manufacturers have phased out small phones, including the last holdouts, Apple and Asus. I already don’t like the size of the FP3 - it’s barely usable one-handed - but I draw the line at the FP5. Just look at the weight/size increases:

189g → 212g
158 x 71 → 161.6 x 75.8

That’s a hard no. So after reading hundreds of reviews, tech specs and doing a lot of soul searching, I’ve decided that I’m either getting an Asus Zenfone 10 or a Sony Xperia 5 v, and hoping that performance and battery hold out. The IP68 ratings gives me hope that they won’t die stupidly, like the phone I had pre FP2, which got a little wet and vibrated itself to death in front of me. The Sony is a little larger but has SD card and USB 3.2 DisplayPort. Apple can sod off completely, tbh.

In my opinion the usable lifespan of the FP3 is now over. In fact I’ve held onto it for at least a year of hating it. Its performance hasn’t lasted long enough for me to care about spare parts or OS upgrades. Can anyone do anything about this? Who knows. I know that Fairphone are already fighting a tough battle to produce a modern phone that is repairable and ethical. Going completely against the industry and doing that in a small form-factor with a decent CPU is likely impossible. But ultimately I don’t want an enormous phone and I don’t really believe that an older CPU will survive the next forced OS upgrade.

Discuss?

[edits: lots of typos]

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Even though it might not be an option for you, but I can encourage everyone who is unhappy with the FP3 performance to try out a custom ROM. I personnally use DivestOS for more than a year now (currently on A13 as well) and I have no complaints about performance at all. Overall, it is a great experience for me. But that might be very subjective.
Concerning size: I feel your pain. I am happy with the size of the FP3, but that is max for me as well. Hopefully mine will live for many more years, so I don’t have to make that choice.

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I’m a big Fairphone enthusiast and the main argument I have when I “sell it” to people is that “it’s good for 99% of the population. As long as you’re not a heavy gamer, it gets the job done”. And I have to concede that this argument is less and less true for the Fairphone 3 in 2024. The freezes/lags are starting to be very annoying and taking a photo is now a challenge. There’s a 1 to 5 seconds delay between the moment you press the button and the actual photo, it’s blurry, etc…

But I’m still very invested in the company’s philosophy and values so I’ll buy the Fairphone 5 next month. They changed the type of device to a more “premium” one with a better processor and camera so I really hope things will be better in 5 years compared to my 5 year old FP3. They also chose a specific processor to ensure updates will be easier in a few years.

The size and weight are OK for me but I understand your feeling.

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Common misconception. Fairphone isn’t about environmental impact, it’s about “Fair Trade”, i.e. making sure any humans involved get their fair share of the money you spent. They don’t pretend caring about the rest.

That been said, I’m with you, although for different reasons. While I agree with the general idea of “Fair Trade” (and am buying such products whenever possible), and while I still consider my FP4 as a nice, although bug-riddled phone, I have lost faith in Fairphone as a company.
During those two years I’m watching them, they’ve been constantly sending all the wrong signals, on all levels. I don’t want to go into details here, but they clearly are not a company I want to do business with. :man_shrugging:

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That being said, what company would be better? Maybe Fairphone isn’t perfect but in my opinion, the rest of the phone industry is by far worse.

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The environmental aspect exists for me: I would prefer to keep the same phone for a few years and only replace the battery or whatever gets broken. Manufacturing, distribution and waste management have huge environmental costs.

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That’s a different, and almost philosophical question… :grin:
First of all you’d need to start with defining the criterion of “perfection” you’d use, and I’m pretty sure everyone has his/her own short list of what’s important to them and what isn’t.
Which explains why everyone has a different opinion. Some things are more important to some that to others. :man_shrugging:

Back to this case, in my very own and personal opinion, Fairphone is not a company I want to do business with anymore. Just that: Not trustworthy enough as a business partner in this very specific “electronic appliances seller” - client relation. Now I agree there might be worse, but I wouldn’t do business with those either, so it’s quite irrelevant, isn’t it.

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Agree 100%. But this isn’t the Fairphone marketing target, Fair Trade is.
It just so happens that their phones are (hardware-wise) more sustainable than the glued-together use-and-discard phones of other manufacturers. (This was the reason I bought mine.)

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I beg to disagree, for me FP stands for sustainability and fair trade, also climate change, limiting electronic waste and cutting carbon footprint. Workers rights and conflict free resources are also essential.

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All those topics are covered in their annual impact report and their marketing. So yes, I agree that all of those needs to be taken into account when reviewing what’s working and what’s not with Fairphone.

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As a FP4 owner I have to agree that it is quite annoying to have a brick on my pocket at all times.

The thing keeping me from buying another Fairphone is the abysmal software support. I wish the FP6 improved in that regard, but seeing how they casually remove features without saying a word about it on the FP5 I’m not getting my hopes up.

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Wasn’t there some kind of mode to use your smartphone in one hand? Which made screen in effect smaller? Might’ve been an option in Developer settings.

There’s a quite loud group of people who claim they want a smaller smartphone. But in other communities, their efforts are not rewarded with traction. Consider for example one of the largest smartphone brands in the world: Apple, with iPhone brand. They quit with it after iPhone 12 Mini because of low demand.

Apps like WhatsApp and Slack with large data can be quite demanding. You also have to remember FP3 was a mid-range smartphone from 2019 or so, yet you’re talking about Android 13 and Android 14. You want a more lightweight OS. Look into pmOS or something like that.

As for the weight of the smartphone. If you do a couple of workouts twice a week your muscles will not even notice the more heavier smartphone anymore. They just deal with it.

So while I’m still rocking a 10 year old Macbook Pro (running linux)

Well, ‘Linux’ doesn’t tell us much, nor does MBP. Is it a 13" or 15"? The difference is quite large.

Also, 10 year old, so from 2014. But the Intel CPUs barely got much improvement from 2013-2021 or so. It wasn’t Moore’s tik tok anymore but more tok tok tok.

Laptop market is also more mature. You got updates for your MBP for about 6-7 years. Which might seem a lot for 2014-2021 (as that is when I went for this ARM based MBP), but for smartphones 6-7 years only recently is getting to the standard. Because lets face it: the smartphone market is less mature than the laptop market, and it suffers more from size effectiveness.

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Just for the records, there was an iPhone 13 mini too and there is still the iPhone SE.
But sure, Apple goes for bigger phones too, they sell better.

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Unfortunately, I have to agree with most things that are said here. I’m also tempted to not continue with Fair phone when my FP4 fails due to the bad SW experience. I had good experience with a Sony Xeperia X (changed the charging port and no issue, can unlock boot loader, tried sailfish os there, LineageOS also a buggy mess)[and still my backup phone 6 years later].

Just regarding the trend on the phone size. I think for most people the phone becomes their only IT device. If you have to read documents, do paper work on your phone and spend hours on it, you want an as large screen as possible while keeping it somewhat portable.

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Yeah, my bad. They started with iPhone 12 Mini and ended with iPhone 13 Mini.

iPhone SE was small, iPhone SE 2 and 3 are based on iPhone 8 design and size, with 3 containing the hardware of iPhone 13. iPhone SE 4 is not out yet, CAD renders show a size of it being based on iPhone 14: [Exclusive] Apple iPhone SE 4 CAD renders suggest new design, similar to iPhone 14

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Phone sizes are a question of personal taste, and there is no chance we might ever agree on it: Some like them bigger, some smaller, period.

Now phone manufacturers (not only Fairphone) will try to focus on what sells better. Making a smaller version costs as much as making a completely new model (it actually is a completely new hardware), so they must be sure they will sell enough of them. Also, people buying the smaller version won’t buy the standard (bigger) version, so it’s a lose-lose situation.: Same sales, twice the cost… Apple could afford it because they sell billions, Fairphone most likely not. :man_shrugging:

(Now I don’t say that because I’m rather happy with the actual size. I still would say it if the situation was reversed, and I was hopelessly pining for a non-existent bigger model.)

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It’s a standard A13 feature. You’ll find it in System->Gestures->One-handed mode. It pulls the screen halfway down so that you can easily reach the top half of the display still with one hand.

Also, the default Google keyboard allows a floating mode or a one-handed mode where you can make the keyboard smaller so that your thumb reaches all keys. But it’s not really practical for me. I’d much rather have the standard 12-button keyboard of old phones :smiley:

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This helps a bit, but with smaller hands the size of the phone itself makes it very akward to use with one hand. Hard to describe but when securely holding a bigger phone in one hand its edge is so close to my thumb that it gets uncomfortable to touch the screen with the thumb at all. Kind of as if the lowest joint of the thumb is removed from the equation. And, judging by glove sizes, I actually have large-ish hands for a woman.

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I hope by the time my FP5 stops working I will find a better phone company to buy from. The software and especially the communication about it has been absolutely attrocious for a while now. Sure, other companies probably aren’t better about this, but at least they don’t pretend to care about their existing users experience :woman_shrugging:
I will eventually try a custom ROM, maybe that will help.

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Yeah this is where I’m at at the moment. I will probably try CalyxOS one day. I’ve been carrying my cards with me in my wallet for once rather than use Google Wallet and it works surprisingly well for me.

Probably getting a credit card with a wrist bracelet that you can pay with one day. That should solve the issue entirely.

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