User guide for new users

Is there a guide somewhere for people who are new to smartphones?

This is my first smartphone; I have been waiting for an ethical smartphone for years

But fairphone appears to believe that all users are already conversant with smart phones, so the included user guide is very lacking and assumptive as are the online ones. I am trying to manually update my phone before i load it

however when connected via usb my computer is not recognising it

apparently i have to open my notification panel and select ‘mtp’ mode

cool… except i have no idea what my notification panel is, all i have are a series of menus/widgets/apps etc that appear to do whatever they want and are all in multiple places for reasons that are unknown to me

how do i get to my notification panel???

You can see notifications in the upper left corner of the black bar at the top.

To access the notification panel, swipe down from the top into the screen. The black bar will be enlarged to cover the whole screen. To dismiss it, swipe up from the bottom into the screen.

You can find some guides and tutorials on the Fairphone Support pages see the categories “Getting Started & Fairphone Basics” and “Using Your Faiphone”

You can download an actual user guide here

thank you, just a blank page when starting the phone for the first time (of course)
then heaps there, but after viewing… all gone
where is notification history and where is this supposed usb settings for ‘mtp’ mode. why would such a thing be in notifications instead of settings?

the downloadable user guide is the same as the one that came packaged with the phone. its not exactly awesome.

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It is basic yes - the tutorials on the are better, but you may still find yourself wanting more. The community here are pretty awesome though so should be able to answer anything you need to know :smile:

good, so someone will be able to answer the question i asked earlier then

'apparently i have to open my notification panel and select ‘mtp’ mode. where exactly is this???
i have a ‘data connection’ icon, but it does nothing and the guide falls a long way short of even directing someone to that.

right now i am trying to work out how to uninstal all of the bloatware as well as google + etc that installed themselves in the background

i waited a long time for this phone and had to get it shipped form the netherlands to sweden and then to australia because fairphone refuses to ship outside of europe

i am still waiting to be impressed, hopefully that will come in time

It turns out that the genuine fairphone cover is an issue (it gets in the way of connection)
and that the socket itself may be a touch sensitive (no idea why micro usb was the choice) faulty as the red light keeps coming on and the battery gauge shows charging, then a few seconds later the red light goes off

without the cover on i now have a connection and am able to see the usb settings via notifications. but surely these settings are accessible in settings somewhere as well?

but at least now i can connect to my pc

Yes, the cover’s narrow openings both for the micro USB and the phone plug can give you trouble. There are slim USB plugs that fit properly (FP’s own charger is one example, I have a cable from Exibel that fits perfectly). If your plug is to wide you could trim it slightly with a sharp hobby knife.

Not to my knowledge. But surely it’s easy enough to access them by swiping down as Chris_R described above?

Plug your usb-cable in the pc.
Plug your usb-cable in the phone. Immediately you will see a line on top of the phone “USB Charge only” and this message disappears again.
Now swipe the phone from top to bottom and the message “USB Charge only” will appear again.
Tab on “USB Charge only”.
In the next screen option four “Charge only” has a blue dot on the right.
Tap on the second option "Media device (MTP)

Hopefully this helps you more.

nope. the issue was that it was not actually connecting due to the genuine fairphone cover getting in the way. the cut out for the micro usb input is too small, it stops the plug from connecting properly.

so… not connected = no notification
which of course means it is not easy at all
swipe down all you like if that happens, all you will see is other notifications or a blank black screen

USB settings should be accessible via phone settings with or without a usb connection being made.

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yes, I hacked the cover up with a razor blade to allow sufficient clearance to allow a standard micro usb plug to work

The problem is that an instruction booklet or beginner’s guide can explain the bare basics, but once you get beyond that, there’s so much to explain that it falls well beyond the scope of a beginner’s guide. Also, a beginner’s guide is usually written from the starting point of a properly functioning phone. If your phone doesn’t function properly, then a beginner’s guide is rarely of good help. That’s the point where this forum comes in :slight_smile:

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