Thoughts on the Linus Tech Tips Review?

Well… As a FP5 owner here goes my feedback over the points addressed in the video (copy-paste from my own comment in YT):

2:06 No Wireless Charging → Just plug a cable, it works well…
2:18 Nano SIM, Micro SD slot placement → How often do you swap cards? The 256GB are also more than enough for most.
2:38 Fine screen, yellow tint → I have the blue light protective glass since I got it, I notice something odd with the colors, I dismissed it as being the screen protector doing something…
2:46 Large Bezels → I think 65mm is the widest a phone should be, so yes…
2:55 Thick boy → Don’t really care but they could have slammed a thicker battery are removed the camera hump.
3:11 Heavy boy → Don’t really care… as long as it doesn’t dig an hole through the pants’ pockets…
4:07 Performance → Can’t complain, CPU side is around my old Snapdragon 855 phone, GPU side is a bit weaker.
4:58 Battery → It is sure a hungry boy, Camera, GPS and Celular data will drain it way too fast. With my usage it barely lasts a single day. It also heats up fairly quickly (but the battery stays pretty cold).
5:16 Uncommon SoC → It is indeed an odd one, one thing that was missed and bit niche is the ability to output to an USB-C display or dock.
5:38 Hardware Long Term Support → Assuming the company doesn’t go under, it is sure promising…
5:43 Kryo 670 CPU → 780G/778G/778G+ family, so a mid tier not that old mobile CPU…
5:58 Fingerprint sensor tactile feedback → I use the TPU cover, in my case the problem is that the sensor is in such a deep hole that you can barely touch it.
6:06 Weak vibration → Never noticed, but I guess being heavy doesn’t help…
6:16 Minimum ring volume → Not a problem for me, but can understand how annoying it can be, however you can change the ringtone with a file with the volume edited to your liking, a hassle yes, but easily workable…
7:12 Back button switcheroo → I chuckled, bloatware aside, I hate samsung phones for this reason, still a strange omission since many phones allow it be customizable.
7:14 Unmovable Google Search → Google being google…
7:35 Long press in app drawer doesn’t show uninstall and other software gimmicks → While I don’t see a problem with most of the stuff shown, there are quite a few annoying bugs, although some might be from android itself and not FP bad integrations…
8:08 Buggy behaviour - Worst being audio problems… → No audio issues, but I think that FP5 supports USB-C to 3.5mm dongles without a DAC, so there might be an issue with the sensing. The only annoying bug I have encountered is the recent apps screen bugging out and requiring a restart to restore its function.
8:53 Screen brightness → Have to agree that is among the worst implementations of auto backlight adjustment, just cover the light sensor or disable auto-dimming…
9:28 Camera → Meh, it works, it works fine in low light, not amazing, but it takes the shots (I own a mirrorless)
10:05 Running apps notification thingy → Didn’t know this was a thing.
10:15 Repairability → My old phone had some ‘issues’ where repairability would be great…
11:17 “Fair” phone → Yep, it is overpriced for what it provides…
11:23 Needs are extremely basic → Not really, it is capable of doing more than most phones due to the open software, in the future it might have some great custom ROMs for the tinkerers, and you can actually use the phone as a laptop…
11:30 SoC replacemente module → If only Framework did mobile phones …

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I watched the review of Linus before.
I agree with everyone here that it’s a little off topic. But it might be his personal frustration. If I understood correctly he used it for a month in personal usage and if you are used to a flagship phone the Fairphone doesn’t compare very well.
Is it usable yes no questions asked. Does it work great and has cutting edge technology with absolutely polished integration no.
Since Linus is a tech enthusiast and is used to high end tier phones, I think he has a very biased opinion.

Especially in third party apps like Signal Threema or Telegramm i have had audio issues.

For me The Fairphone is a very usable device it does everything I need. Even though i gleam at my GF new Samsung Galaxy S24 every now and then with slight tech jealousy. However, if you bring it down to reality we do the same in both phones and mostly all use cases are covered well and with the Fairphone4 I have supported the fair sourcing of materials.

For her we choose the S24 for camera performance, since we have important life events coming and we wanted to document that at our hands length with very good images.

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Same here, my FP3 is still like new and sufficient for all my needs. And my FP2 is on my stationary bike for the occasional YouTube video… :joy:

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It is beyond me why a review from Linus Tech Tips can be taken serious after this and this happened. So why even lend a prototype? In my opinion, it was an unwise decision to let Linus Tech Tips review the FP5. His channel mostly focuses on excessive consumerism he even admits himself.

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His video on the FP4 wasn’t as negative. So I think FP marketing was (arguably naively) hopeful.

Apart from that, as the old saying goes, there is no such thing as negative publicity. Is this a case of distinctively helpful publicity? Not at all of course, but it’ll surely drive some people to either buy a phone nonetheless out of belief in the mission, or point them to Fairphone’s reply video, which (although a bit childish in my opinion) seems to have convinced people of the phone, going from the comments.

The fact that the brand name has spread alone is a win for Fairphone (“brand awareness” in marketing speak).

I’ve never taken LTT seriously, and after all the scandals that have surfaced I wonder why anybody would. This guy is completely clueless, he is a known shill and fan boy, his “reviews” are extremely biased (and probably compensated for). He is just a :clown_face: with a :movie_camera:.

Seriously, couldn’t care less about what he has to say about FP.

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