Yes, that would theoretically be possible and actually almost can be for a very limited number of persons who seldomly lose or break parts.
In reality though, there is no single standard like QI for magnetic adapters and I have yet to find any vendor that sells one system with interchangeable parts for more than a few months at best.
Result: either you buy loads of spare parts in one single take or - every other year - you would run out of spares and have to switch to a new system that uses magnets which happen to be like 0,5mm wider than before or have differently placed pogo pins. Not feasibe at a scale of more than five users, roughly, and would leave quite a bit of waste, too.
In case of our company, for example, at the point where USB-C came up, there would have been a lot of magsafe cables from far ago MicroUSB times and all the shiny new ones that support USB-C now would not fit to them. As mentioned in my original post, we still use QI charging points that go back to like 2016 or so.
So your solution comes close and it has potential, but the lack of any standard sort of ruins it.
P.S.: I even suspect it would be impossible to get something long-term sustainable to market in this area, because when people realized it and started to buy that at large, Apple would sue the manufacturer to Alpha Centauri and back with their magsafe patents. What a great world to live in. Where mega-corps are allowed to own generic ideas.
Yeah, I agree that it should definitely get standardized. But I doubt that Apple could actually sue anyone. Theyāre not the only ones using magnetic connectors (Microsoft does it too with Surface laptops) and the lightning connector will hopefully go away in a few years thanks to EU.
I am glad for you, but on a company level we experienced different.
Before we introduced QI, we got like 4 to 6 devices a year (company of 25-30 ppl) with charging port problems. And as it is with current ānormalā phones, that mostly would mean replacing the whole phone. For us, this alone was worth the switch.
And I dare say it would be interesting to weigh the ecological footprint of at least 10-15 non-replaced phones at our company in the course of the last years against the loss of a few kWh of power through charging pointsā¦
As a side note, we intentionally install charging points with 5-10 watts transmission power at most. They donāt introduce any noticeable heat.
Well, and now, with the Fairphone having reached the point of real-life usability Iād really like to introduce them at our companyā¦ but since QI is now mandatory for us due to the history explained above, it wonāt make it on the list in the foreseeable future.
Yeaā¦ and guess what, Microsoft got patents on their connectors, too! If that aināt a reassuring enough environment for any new manufacturer to come to market with a system that could become standard, I donāt knowā¦ /s
I understand, but for a different company, maybe a special 5G frequency band is mandatory, or a special screen body ratio, or the position of the finger print sensor. The Fairphone is still a niche product and will never be able to fulfill everybodyās requirements.
Bit of a weird one, but I wonder could you produce a connector which is shaped to fold around the base of the 'phone so that the cable comes up behind the device, flush against its body. Iāve had a good number of connector failures, and itās obvious why: the connector sticks out like a sore thumb and is subject to a lot of stress in a pocket or bag. With a new mag-type connector you could even have the whole connector surface on the rear of the 'phone, but I donāt imagine FP can afford to create a new connector standard; Iām just thinking of something more like making cables with a U-shaped housing for their USB-C connector.
A Fairphone with an e-ink screen could be nice (dedicated model or choice at the time of purchase).
Some manufacturers offer such models but either it is incomplete or it is not available outside the country of origin (LightPhone, Hisense A3 ā A9, ā¦)
I rather have an OLED screen with a true dark mode (not gray tints). Thatās battery efficient, works well for eBooks, but also normal usage such as videos and smooth scrolling through websites. An eInk screen works best for static text.
What on earth are you talking about? Where did you find this information? Fairphone 4 has USB 3.0 / USB 3.2 Gen 1 (i.e., 5 Gbps speed). Even the product page specifies that it has USB 3.0 with OTG.
iOS is the same nightmare as google.
The next FP SoC should be RISC-V āopen hardwareā based. Means no Qualcomm NDAās and open for all Devās and OS.
All right, the camera. For photos I use my Leicaās.
As mentioned multiple times and while Iām aware of the problematic, Iād also like the Fairphone 5 to have an OLED screen with HDR and a high refresh rate (>=120Hz). I assume that the high refresh rate is feasible without OLED, in case the latter is not an option.
More importantly, Iād like to be able to choose from different types of displays. Some people discussed (colour) E Ink displays, but Iāll go a step further and throw stylus-compatible screen (similar to the stylus of the Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone series) into the thread. While Iām aware that this implies a new screen concept and further steps, I think this feature could be pleasing to some people.
As much as I would appreciate a stylus option (been a note1-10 user for >10yrs) I suspect that this would imply technical hurdles beyond mere screen exchangeability. Detecting and tracking a pen requires additional sensors and chips as well as firmware components.
So this one is probably not going to happen. Really nice thought, though
If that aināt a reassuring enough environment for any new manufacturer to come to market with a system that could become standard, I donāt knowā¦ /s
For photos I use my Leicaās.
