Hello everyone!
I discovered Fairphone 7 months ago, I really wanted to buy one but I also wanted to use my old mobile phone till its very end. That end has finally come, and it’s been one year since Fairphone3 has been released. Should I wait till the release of Fairphone4 by using second-hand phones or one year is not a big deal?
Thank you all in advance!
The Fairphone 4 will very likely not come until at least 2022, probably more to 23-24-ish.
However there is an ongoing discussion about whether it is more sustainable to buy a “normal” second hand phone or a new Fairphone. Both sides of the argument have fair points (I honestly don’t know which side to pick, although I slightly favour the second-hand-normal-phone-side), it’s up to you to decide which one you go for 
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Hi there,
I bought a refurbished Fairphone 2, which I run under Lineage OS, from the last batch, i.e in June 2019, four years after the release of the FP2, and I’m intending to keep it as long as possible. Perhaps it won’t be as quick as other phones and will lag a little bit, but as I’m not a heavy user, my phone is doing perfectly its job (except from the few bugs I have, but they should be solvable, but I don’t think they’'re related to the phone’s age, rather seems to be factory defects).
So apart if you want very good performance, buying a Fairphone 3 one year after its release isn’t a big deal, you should be able to keep it for at least 4 years if everything’s ok.
A second-hand Fairphone 
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Please also bear in mind that Fairphone was originally founded to serve the fairtrade idea, i.e. to focus on improving the working conditions of people who retrieve raw materials and those who assemble the phone. While buying second hand phones certainly does sustainability a service, Fairphone also wants to be able to keep pursuing its original primary purpose – and that inevitably requires new revenue for Fairphone.
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If I understood well the original question, I think it wasn’t whether to buy a Fairphone or a second-hand phone, more whether he should wait for the FP4 since the FP3 is getting old, and meanwhile use a second-hand one. @lollo am I correct?
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I think it depends on what is more important for the respective user:
- Save the environment by not buying a new phone, but a second-hand one. (It could be a Fairphone, too.) Or,
- Improve conditions of workers at the manufacturer site by buying a new Fairphone.
If you buy a second-hand phone, you save the environment, but do not support improving work conditions. If you buy a new Fairphone, you support improving work conditions, but do not save the environment.
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Exactly! By judging the points of both schools of thought (and by adding some of my personal observations) I had chosen to buy a new Fairphone rather than a second-hand phone, but honestly I hadn’t thought about buying a second-hand Fairphone 
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You should have a look at the #market:sell category. Sometimes people sell barely used FP3s because they return to iPhone…
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Watch out though. A friend of mine got scammed by someone on this very forum who also told the “I’m going back to an iPhone” story. Ask for the IMEI number and a picture of the phone with a current date on it (or better e.g. a recent newspaper, even though this is super chiché) and, most importantly, NEVER use a payment service that doesn’t refund the money in case of fraud.
My friend paid via bank transfer and I’ve been telling him multiple times to call his freaking bank to report it (after all he could report him to the police because the sellers IBAN is connected to his name and address), but I don’t know if he did.
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You might want to wait just a litte more than one week to see what Fairphone will announce on next thursday (they have been dropping very vague hints only so far: Here and here and here).
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That makes me angry for multiple reasons…
Hi, you should buy a Fairphone 3.
You have to think differently. If you use multiple secondhand mobile phones for the rest of you life, you will never care for the people or the planet. You have already used your current phone to the end(good job), so now Fairphone is the only way to contribute. If you keep buying secondhand, you will support the old world.
To your question on Fairphone 3 is one year old(not a big deal). That is not long in the Fairphone world. Minimum support is 5 years. You should buy with a mindset of 5+ years, with the ability of repairs and software updates.
FP3 is a capable and solid phone, and a possible FP4 is many years ahead.
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There are other reasons for people to buy used non-Fairphones as well. There will be “no phone to rule us all…”
I have had to make the same decision when the FP2 was out for some time. Then I decided to go for the second hand phone. (It died a couple of months after FP3 was released, so I am now the owner of a FP3). But times change, and I would advise now to still go for FP3. Fairphone has proven to support the FP2 for a very long time. And the market has changed. Where you first wanted to buy a quite new model because of the rapid development of storage space or battery duration, now all phones work quite well for a normal phone user. So having the newest features is only important for a tech fanatic or heavy user. Even if the technology of the FP3 is not the newest anymore, it will still be good enough for normal use. And I personally expect that it will take a couple of years more for FP4 to be available. They are probably first going to extend the longevity of the FP3 by releasing upgrades, just as they have done for the FP2.
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FP3s (FP1 formfactor) incomming.
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