Should I purchase a Fairphone?

You can read about the Fairphones idea of fair conditions for workers: Working Conditions - Fairphone

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As far as I know Gigaset only assembles the components made in China, to call it made in German (quite a fake in my eyes). So how will that help and what is Gigaset doing for the workers in China by assembling in Germany? Production is still in China.

And just for India not much better, as Foxconn is the same company as in China

And such discussion are not about being better, but when you make false/inaccurate statements then why should it not possible to correct this?

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Hi and welcome. No surprise that I too would recommend you take a serious look at what Fairphones offer.
Latest high performance? No. But here are some things I appreciate about my FP2 :

  • No battery anxiety because it typically lasts all day and if not in 5 seconds I can swap the battery for a fully charged one. (Genuine spare bought from Fairphone for €10.)
  • No “What if I drop it?” anxiety because, well, routine damage is easy to fix. I have never seen a Fairphone user who puts up with a cracked screen.
  • No upgrade anxiety. I have a phone, it works, does everything I need, and it looks like it will keep doing that for years. Relaxing (and more environmentally sustainable) to step off the consumer conveyor belt.

Were my FP2 to die, the first phone I would currently consider as replacement would be an FP4. Guarantee to 2027 is quite a distinctive offer. But I’m hoping never to buy an FP4, because I hope not to be buying any time soon.

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Let’s be honest here, I came from a Pixel 3, used the Fairphone 4 for 1,5 months and it wasn’t a smooth ride. What you say about the battery and easy repairability is true. But I hadn’t such a buggy phone since I had a OnePlus One, where every update was a trade off between fixing some things while breaking other things. The recent FP4 software update also broke some new things again. Such as GPS. While existing issues are still not fixed.

If it was all true what you’re saying then yes, that would be amazing. But let’s not talk people into buying this phone with the wrong expectations. The phone can be great, but you have to value sustainability to a high degree to accept the shortcomings.

I hope they’ll fix everything soon, because my Pixel 3 has battery issues. I hope it can be a Fairphone 4. But they don’t make this choice easy…

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So how can you judge after such a short time of use? I would def confirm everything said by iantog.

There is not one truth and there might be problems. Still such can happen with every phone and my FP2 run smooth for years. Would it have met your needs? Most likely not. But still it would be true when I say it was running fine without issues.

1.5 months isn’t short, right? I also kept an eye out for how other Fairphones were received and what issues people experienced with it.

I think it’s fair to to just tell how things are instead of how we would like things be. Maybe in the future the FP4 will be less of a pain to use. But we’re not there yet, let’s stay honest here.

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Hi there. You’re welcome to your opinion and to describe your experience. The OP asked for views.
I hope you don’t mind if I push back that you suggest I am dishonest. I was clear that I was talking about FP2 (the only model I know) and that I discussed what I personally appreciate about it. That’s my opinion, based on my experience.

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I’m really not sure why you think your truth is the overall truth and why you can say others are not saying the truth. I say the truth when I say my FP2 worked without any major issues for years. We all know you love your Pixel and you are no FP fan, but that does not mean this is true for all of us.

It’s indeed hard to believe you had no problems. But it’s indeed unreasonable to speak on behalf of you. About that, I’m just as a straight shooter when it comes to Pixel devices. I’m enthousiastic about Fairphone. I just can’t stand the sugarcoating of the clear issues FP has.

Let’s be fair. So when someone asks if the phone worth it, don’t say things that aren’t true. Hopefully it will be as some describe. No issues at all, but we’re not there. I also don’t think we will get there since Pixels even have issues. But at least the basics such as GPS, microphone and camera should work in the midrange tier.

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Just to back @UPPERCASE here a little, my experience with FP4 so far hasn’t been flawless at all. There are numerous bugs that need to be addressed and the communication with the support team is a bit tedious. I even had to send the phone back to be replaced, which actually didn’t solve anything because the bugs were not hardware related. I want to love the phone, but at the moment I really can’t. I hope the majority of issues will be fixed soon, but there are serious problems and potential buyers need to be aware of them.

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I think that this forum and its posts give a good and honest overview of the FP4‘s strengths and weaknesses. One important point from my point of view is also, if one wants to stick to FPOS or wants to install a different OS, as some of the issues discussed in the forum are related to non-Android software choices.

I did not say Uppercase bad experience is not true however he stated other peoples good experience is not true and that he cannot decide. Still he is quite persistent in calling other people a liar ,unfair or sugarcoater just because being more positive as he is or having better experience then he had.

I also did not say there are no problems, but that I had no major issues neither with the FP2 for years nor with FP3 the past 1.5 months. I know others had issues with the FP2 and FP3, but again this can happen with all devices, you will always have happy and unhappy people, and people with good as well as bad experience.

As I said there is not one truth and it all depends on the use case of a person and their expectations and probably a bit luck.

So yes let’s be fair and accept that different people can have different experience and opinions and can share those here.

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I would hate my FP4 with original software, truly.
I did it really
But now with iode, I found the right ROM for my use case and I can live with it, start to love it again.

And yes, the camera is maximum midrange.
unfortunately, this cannot be glossed over

Well, you’re asking the Fairphone community, so of course we will almost all say yes because we wouldn’t be on the Fairphone forum if we didn’t like Fairphone :grin: I will also say yes, as long as you remember that a Fairphone and an iPhone are quite different systems.

Most importantly, Fairphone uses Android, and Apple uses iOS. These systems are quite different so you should be aware of the following:

  1. If you have never used Android before, you should make sure to put some times aside to learn how Android works, as it works very differently. I would strongly recommend sitting down with someone else who uses Android to learn the differences.
  2. iOS apps are not compatible with Android devices. I would recommend making a list of all the apps that are important to you and looking on Google Play if those apps also exist for Android.
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In support of those who have no problems which I imagine is 90% of users, given the small amount of forum users, who are not all complainees.

I have two FP3s for well over a year and one of them was dropped in the toilet and dried for three days.

Sure there was some hands free sounds issues and customer suppory may seem laggy or dire is some situations.

However I never recommend anything to anyone, I just tell them the truth which most often they don’t like. My experience is true although it may somtimes seem that of a freak.

Well I have two freakely good fairphones and that may be upsetting to someone who received a faulty one.

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I have both a iPhone & FP3plus, I love them both…
FP has a lot that IPhone don’t have…

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Hi welcome to the forum. Nice to hear an iphone owner happy with a Fairphone.

I’m saying there are reproducable issues with the FP4 that limit usability. Taking pictures in the living room are very blurry and depressing due to a bit of low light, voice messages are sent with a very low volume, video calls have annoying echos and these are not fixed for months. In fact new issues add up such as GPS that takes a long time to get a fix on location. These are issues everyone can reproduce. And these are issues that make life difficult.

So sure, there are some people that are not bothered by these issues. But let’s not pretend the phone will be as amazing as some people try to sell the phone to people. Let’s be fair to people when they ask these questions. And of course, maybe these issues will be fixed. Some other ussues have been fixed and Fairphone has said it will fix more. But that hasn’t happened yet.

Let’s give people all the info and let them decide. And let’s not sugarcoat it indeed, again, these are reproducable issues.

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Yes I think you should.
Fairphone allows as much as possible you to be independent. You can replace hardware and soft ware. Apple wants you to be a slave in their ecosystem.

No, I would not recommend it, go for the iphone SE instead. That’s a much better choice!

Apple is working on improving their ifixit scores too.

Or try an cheap android phone for every 1 or 2 years.