Startin with a Fairphone 2 in 2017

Hello everybody,

i received my used FP2 today, reset it to the Fairphone OS 17.06 and set it up with my Google Account. I thought about doing a Fairphone review experiment, using the device for one month. What are you interested in? What should I test? What impressions are important for you? Any specific app?

I bought the device with a broken microphone module, so while i order a new one, i cant test call quality.

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Do you have a QI wireless charger? Then you could ask @jayy for one of these. :slight_smile:

I really like the idea of building an own Qi charging add-on/mod. But I do not own a charger and do not see the benefit of wireless charging for me.

Here’s a few thinks I noticed in the first two days, a proper review is coming.

  • Fairphone 2 is really snappy. While having actually lower specs, using the phone feels more responsive. I think this due to Fairphone using stock Android.
  • Multitasking is great. Due to the OS taking roughly halve of the RAM compared to my Xperia, apps in background don’t get closed as aggressive as on the Xperia, which has 2GB as well.
  • I miss some Android Features of Android 7 already. Sony has good software support. In the Xperia, I had Android 7.1.1 with the June Security update. Marshmallow is a little less polished.
  • I like the bigger screen.
  • The phone feels nice!
  • Having Google Apps preinstalled make the first use so much more comfortable! Even did an OTA to the beta looking for fixes for the bugs below, which worked flawlessly! Good job!

But:

  • The camera quality is really low. Pictures are washed out and noise compared to the Xperia.
  • I affected by several bugs, some quite serious, which I did not expect:
    • Calls are way to loud. Like crazy loud.
    • I cannot exit DnD mode.
    • Yesterday, while watching a movie, the phone simply shot of after like 8minutes. The battery was at 30% when i started.
    • I cannot use the phone while charging, wheter with one of my two chargers that work perfectly with other phones, not at the PC. The latter is a deal breaker when developing apps, which I do.
    • The microphone is broken, which I knew when I bought it used, but I just learned that this is a common defect.

Except for the battery think, all of these bugs have been reported in the forums and or bug tracker months ago, which left me a bit dissatisfied.

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LineageOS 14.1 (based on Android 7) for the Fairphone 2 might be your friend. It’s not completely without quirks yet, but it runs reasonably well, and if you have bugs anyway … perhaps it even solves something.

Yes, chargers seem to be a sensitive issue unfortunately, the community has a list:

Thank you, I will consider that in the future. Currently, part of my experiment and review is to use the official Fairphone OS.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Fairphone 2 unusable while charging

What camera app do you use? Does it make a difference?

I compared camera apps on FP Open OS (not on LineageOS so far), and pictures made with OpenCamera were a lot better than those made with the default camera app.

I don’t have this problem with my FP2, it works well while charging connected to the PC or a charger. But it seems to depend on the charger and USB cable.

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I will try different cameras. Other recommendations besides OpenCamera?

Today, Android Oreo was announced. It will not be on devices, besides a few from Google, before the end of 2017. However, since I switched from an Android Nougat Smartphone to an Android Marshmallow Smartphone, I think I take the opportunity to share what functionality I miss.

  1. Better Quick Settings and Notifications – This my sound like a small thing, but the various bits of fine tuning Google did in Nougat really make the Quick Settings and Notifications better and more comfortable
  2. Split screen – Not something i use everyday, but when I do, it’s really really useful. Like for adding events to my calendar from a website or adding notes related to a chat. On my Android 7 device, I just split the screen between browser and calendar and quickly enter the dates. Even more useful when coordinating in group chats. I notice this less the the Notifications, but I miss it even more. I several times tried to invoke the split screen before noticing it was not there.

What functionality of Nougat do you miss on your FP2?

Isn’t there Xposed and Gravity Box for those kind of tweeks? :wink: And I do think that LineageOS has had these features for a long time (when it was still called CyanogenMod). Just saying that a rooted phone has its advantages. :wink:

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