Hi all. I have a Fairphone 3, just reached it’s 5 year anniversary. But the battery has suddenly swollen to the extent that I can only just put the rear case on. And even when it has 50-60% in it it, it suddenly decides to shut down claiming it has no power left. This seems like a dangerous fault. Anyone else experienced this?
Also, anyone know if Fairphone 6 is due any time soon?
Hello, a swollen battery is a safety hazard and cannot be used. I am afraid you need to get a new battery as soon as possible.
There are rumours about FP6 released in the second half or the last quarter of this year but nothing confirmed yet
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Here’s Fairphone’s spare part shop:
Bloating of a battery is something that is probably hard to avoid the older it gets and the heavier it has been used. If you buy a new battery, you can easily check it from time to time for early signs: Place it flat on a really flat surface and try to make it spin. If it’s easy to get it spinning, that’s a clear early sign for bloating.
By the way, here’s a topic appreciating holding on to a Fairphone for a long time: My FP3: 5 years and counting
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I’ve seen a swollen battery on my FP3 when it was just less than 3 years. I changed it immediately as this is definitively the thing to do.
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Thankfully my new battery arrived today, so the problem is at least fixed. But I’m still intrigued as to why it happened. Is it simply just age/use? It was quite a sudden deterioration.
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Yes, new battery thankfully arrived today so all is well. Would be nice to know more about FP6, only because my FP3 is creaking in many ways, not just battery. Struggling with some modern apps and memory almost full. But reluctant to get an ageing FP5 at this point.
I understand.
But my FP5 is still very snappy and reliable and with the current price drop and the promised 6 years of support I would say it’s a strong contender.
still, there are also useful threads on bringing back the old spirit of FP3, I will link some below but generally what people seem to recommend is:
- Factory reset
- Emptying the storage/getting a SD card and formatting it as external storage
- Deleting the unused apps
- Switching to a custom ROM
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Best article I could find of that
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Thanks!
I would also add the one linked by yours
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Thank you all for the helpful responses. I think, as far as I can tell, that it’s simply the case that after 5 years of use, the battery was no longer in a good place. And according to most of the helpful links people have posted, this is not unusual. It may also partially result from the charging port on the bottom module of the phone recently starting to deteriorate, meaning it was much harder to get a good connection for charging. When I did get a good connection, I would often leave the phone charging for much longer than usual. But often the connection would slip slightly so it woudl either stop charging or only charge very slowly, all of which may have impacted on the health of an already old battery. New battery in and all is well. But I’m still eyeing an FP6 when it comes out. As well as the extra storage, what I’d really like is a much better camera.
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The impact report just published mentions FP glad about recurring customers, transferring from FP3 to FP5 for example. So I would also suggest eyeing any potential customer campaign tailored directly at FP3 customers.