As a rather clumsy individual, I accidentally dropped my FP 2 several times. By far the worst was when I was biking, the phone fell out of my jacket, hit the concrete, and a car drove over it with its wheels.
I fully expected the phone to be broken into pieces but…only the rear case and battery popped out. So 3 pieces in total to pick up. No visible damage and I had it back running in a minute.
This happened every time so far (knock on wood).
Now my question: Based on my understanding that the FP3 is less modular than its predecessor, would it be fair to assume that the likelihood of it breaking when falling down is higher than with the FP2?
I think it’s difficult to say. It makes some intuitive sense that a phone that can more easily come apart nondestructively can better survive the type of treatment you describe - but then, maybe a glued-together, solid, unfair phone would hold up better by not coming apart at all. I owned a Sony Xperia Z1 for seven years, and it took many a tumble without ever falling apart or breaking. My FP2, on the other hand, has needed a bit of a talking-to with a screwdriver every now and again, fall or no fall.
So what that means for the FP3, who knows. In a sense it’s more modular than the FP2, containing more separate modules, but it is more securely put together.
Purely anecdotally, from having used both phones, I’d say the FP3 will hold together better. It feels stronger, less creaky and bendy than my beloved FP2.
Any volunteers for driving over their FP3, for science?
I think it depends on if the FP3 (or FP3+) is protected by a bumper or protective case. Without any of these, I think it will not take shocks as well as the FP2 with its integrated slim case that seems to absorb a bit of the impact of a drop (or at least the slim case was designed to do that).
Thanks, the linked post describes quite well what I experienced:
by the design, the case splits open and the parts separate at impact, dissipating a lot of the energy in the fall. Think of legacy stick phones that we had in times past, they would explode in a large number of parts at impact, and then you put them all together and they worked fine. During the last validation test sets of the slim case, we had to drop the test units a large number of times from a significant height before the phone refused to boot up.
Indeed, this story did resemble my experience with the classic Nokia 3310. Dropped it very often. Breaks into 3 pieces (4 sometimes), put it back together and it’s alive again. Still use it for outdoor adventures sometimes.
Well, I managed to crack my FP2 with a firm grab after some annoying phonecall I had. I cracked the display and thought it would all be done by replacing that one. Unfortunately the force went through to the base casing and or module, and bent it away from the 3x10 Pin connector. It still operates with paper putting pressure on that connector through the cover (just like the one recommended to make sure the battery pins are in place). Needed ~3years to backtrack that (hey, android 9 you totally bring phones back to life) and I didn’t regret buying a FP3 in meantime. That one actually fell 3m from a balkony without any cover on a mixture of wodden chair+concrete. So while the corners are now kinda scratchy, it totally survived that one. Would love to be able to remove those scratches though
Let me just bring this mother of all Fairphone durability stories to the attention of all the newbies and younglings in our community: