If it helps, these are the points FP have written in their 2023 annual report:
I’m finding the performance of my FP4 with /e/OS to be very good.
I also hated the FP3 with Android in the end. Fairphone really should promote the free software and privacy-enhanced OSes like /e/ some more - not only do they have more choice in apps and no inbuilt surveillance, performance is much better.
So right now, I’m actually really appreciating my FP4.
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I got an FP5 this year and it is not certain I will get another FP after that. I knew it would not be perfect and I still FP5 is a great work given how few there are sold.
I see FP as a way to show politicians in the EU that it is possible to make a useable phone that lives up to the requirements of an FP. They can actually require that all phones should do this.
What killed it for me is, that FP removed the always on display with Android 14 and only gave a corporate BS reason. I use it a lot and can manage that it is a bit power hungry. For that reason I researched a lot before I bought my most expensive phone by far: The FP5. So when it is supposed to last for 8 years and they remove an important feature after less than 6 month without a good reason removes a lot of my trust in the company.
Perhaps they have a good reason but are just too corporate or bad at communication. But a relationship with bad communication is not good either.
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Just for the records: /e/OS also is Android.
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Yes, of course. Only it’s built from Android Open Source Project and doesn’t have all the surveillance etc. in Google Apps, it doesn’t have Google Play Store, etc. As a result, it’s not only more privacy-friendly but also seems to perform much better.
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I started with FP5, the size is really concerning for me as well. I usually do rock climbing and I can hardly operate my phone with one hand. I can barely hold it especially if my hands are shaking. Before FP5 I had a galaxy S8, with perfect size, rounded everywhere. It was a lot safer to take photos with it.
But I knew the size when I bought it. The reason I still chose FP5, is because I saw them at FOSDEM talking about that everything is open source. And guess what, I can’t even allow 3rd party cameras to use the wide camera. When I tried I found a huge messy list of repositories without any documentation.
And what would I do with it? If I change the OS my banking app wouldn’t work. I thought this phone is different.
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You can use a GCam port
Correct me if I’m wrong but there’s a Camera2 API which would be the go to way for accessing cameras. I ran a Camera2 Probe app and it showed only 2 cameras. One for front, and one for Back.
I just tried for curiosity and indeed there’s a GCam port which can access the wide camera. (BigKaka 9.2). However, OpenCamera can’t see it. Where is the code responsible for Camera2 implementation? So I can add wide camera to it.
Sorry, I had a different impression. Fair enough.
FWIW, some virtual keyboards can be grown/shrinked. Also, rows can be customized. It may be worth getting one.
It is AOSP, not Android. Android is a Google trademark and OS. If you remove the proprietary Google bits, it is no longer Android. Android does use AOSP, as can other OSes. But they don’t need to include OpenGapps.
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A Fairphone 5 can be opened easily and repaired, but if you do climbing then perhaps a rugged smartphone is a better idea. There’s one available (probably terrible software support, given it is Chinese): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jellyphone/atom-world-s-smallest-4g-rugged-smartphone
That is a small and rugged smartphone. Perhaps there’s a market for that. Eric Migicovsky (founder of Pebble, Inc.) made a petition for a small smartphone to poll interest. There was a lot of interest, but it is easy to say I am interested vs. commitment / pre-order / order. Don’t know what it resulted into. Ah wait, the website is https://smallandroidphone.com/
Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices and a corresponding open source project led by Google. This site and the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository offer the information and source code needed to create custom variants of the Android OS,
LineageOS, an open-source Android distribution,
and
/e/OS is a “deGoogled” version of Android OS. It has an open-source Android OS core,
is LOS based.
So overall all are Andriod (without Android no open source project) with different amount of Google stuff included
The FP5 is big, but slightly thinner and perhaps also slightly less broad than the FP4. That small detail makes it much better to use with one hand than the FP4. I kind of got used to the size by now. But it’s sometimes challenging indeed. But it’s not impractical. The size does have many benefits as well. Such as a better readable screen while typing and better for multitasking. Also watching videos is great on this size.
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That’s the point: CLIENT RELATION
Hello Fairphone; Can you hear me?
You keep out of any discussion, no words of regret or understanding here in the forum, managed by you, nothing. That is so disappointing! It’s a trumpy behavior not to talk about critical things but proudly presenting new achievements.
If I handled my customers like this…
(FP5 - works nicely so far)
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I can understand a lot. What sold me was a repairable phone aspect. Seeing that almost every industry is making things less reliable is hurting the environment. Seeing landfills full of plastic that isnt recycled and people getting sick collecting e-waste material from old electronics. I can see the problem with modern throw away society. As of buggy hardware. I can’t believe others don’t remember Windows 95 or 98. I may love that system for its software, but it was a buggy mess. It tends to crash a lot. I can see the same with fairphone. This is the reason i still keep old hardware around. I do love playing classic games ike Carmen Sandiago, or math blaster. These alone are great games in their own right. It doesn’t matter if its educational and more than likely not going to ever see a re-release on newer devices. Just like classic gaming hardware. Most software will never be released on newer platforms. As long as the device works and have a working controller. You can see this last years and years. The gaming community is great at saving old hardware. Why can’t more be done to save old equipment from landfills to show future generations how far we have come. I may be a bit nostalgic based here. Just seeing many industries just embrace a thow away culture nowadays in order to make a profit. If we don’t do something to save the planet soon. This planet will more than likely end up like what happens in the Disney/Pixar film Wall-e. Its already getting difficult to even breathe today with all these wildfires filling the air with smoke. Leaving the house to buy food is a chore for someone with asthma. In the end is it worth it to give the device to someone who would use it. No matter the problems and bugs it may have. It seems like this thread ecos my problems with the industry. If it works. See if someone will take it off your hands. In fact donate it to goodwill or give it away for no cost. Someone may be happy with it. If it works. It doesn’t need thrown in some landfill in a far away land to be someone else’s problem. I do apologize for a long rant. But something needs to be done to save the planet for future generations to come. There is only a handful of corporations making repairable tech these days after all.
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This can be helpful, but in reality the phone itself is just to big for me to comfortably type with one hand, no matter how small the keyboard is. A bit hard to explain, but it kind of blocks the bottom joint of my thumb ((or maybe that is already part of my palm)?. It’s akward to touch the screen with my thumb at all. But oh well, phones are that size now.
For what it’s worth: Judging from glove size I have large hands for a woman, so not some outlier with tiny hands. 
Edit: Watching my partner with larger hands really showed how much hand size matters with these things. I can see that with his wider hands the phone is way more stable in his hand, because the hand will go higher up the back of the phone so the phone is not in danger of flipping and falling backwards. This means he can hold it with just his finger tips, which moves the phone further away from his thumb which gives him more movement. So he can reach way more of the screen than the actual size difference of our hands would suggest.
Well, they aren’t supposed to monitor the forum (even if sometimes they do).
Also there is the widespread corporate strategy of never admitting any wrongdoing: As long as it’s just random anonymous people claiming stuff, it’s just vague hearsay and rumors.
But if the company starts apologizing about that stuff, it becomes reality… Even in court companies agree to pay as long as they don’t have to admit any wrongdoing.
As a result, you’ll rarely hear companies apologizing.
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While I don’t dislike my FP4, it doesn’t exactly ring my bells either. It does the job it needs to do.
I’ll be making a point of hanging onto it through to 2027 so I get the full warranty and maximum worth from the original price. Yes I’m being bloody-minded about it.
If I was approaching a new phone from this year then I would be looking at the HMD Skyline because of it’s spec and iFixit repairability
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