German web news magazine “Golem - It News for Professionals” has published a very nice, 5 page article on the Fairphone 2. It is overwhelmingly positive, citing the modularity as a very good way to achieve a better lifespan and calling the price reasonable, while noting it could break point for undecided users.
They are content with the design and note the phone feels very completed. They also say the Hardware should be sufficient for the years to come, the only complaint that the 3GB RAM would possibly have been better. They note plastic of the protective cover/backside feels still a bit to soft.
They also say Fairphone plans to deliver a first batch of 15.000devices in November and seem confident that Fairphone will reach that goal.
Actually i often look at the shop counter and feel the article has given the Fairphone a small boost in sales. At currently 7.170devices sold, it is halfway to their goal to sell 15.000 by the end of september. I imagine the third and final prototype and the long awaited updates on software and cost breakdown could boost the sales again.
Very good article, indeed. Makes the FP2 look even more promising.
I’m also looking at the sales counter from time to time. I can imagine that the release of the source code will lead to increased sales, since this is the key to truly “owning” the device.
I guess that many people are still sceptical because this goal wasn’t reached with the FP1.
But I’m quite optimistic that this will improve with the FP2, that’s why I pre-ordered one!
“the release of the source code will lead to increased sales” … to the half dozen people in Europe who would know what to do with the source code!
I would imagine that for most people the maintainability / repairability and “fair tradey nature” are the compelling reasons to buy. Hopefully for a lot of people, in the long term, just that it’s a good mobile.
How many people do you think actually want to be in control of the code, and what will they do with that control? … just curious.
I think it is more about principle. It is the ability to do something with the code.
And i think you underestimate the number of people being able or willing to learn how to build Android distributions from scratch.
You are right that it is probably not so important at start, but will be increasingly get more important with the lifetime of the product so the community is able to maintain up-to-date CyanogenMod for example, in case Fairphone is unable or unwilling to provide such support.
By release of the source code I actually meant released as free software, I should have been more clear about that.
Free software means not only being able to look at the source code, but to be allowed to modify the software according to your needs. That doesn’t necessarily have to be by coding, but can also mean small changes to UI/skins or config files.
Last year I was given an used iPhone. I usually use free software at home, so I was kind of shocked how much iOS is locked down. It’s only possible to do things with an iPhone that Apple wants you to do, nothing else. If I had payed for it, I would have been really pissed (and Apple products are quite expensive).
So having a free software OS on the Fairphone 2 is an important issue for me.
And I know a lot of people that aren’t really tech-savvy, who are quite unhappy with the limited capabilities of their iPhones. They even accept the huge security risk and jailbreak their phones to make them more configurable.
So I think that quite a lot of people care about being able to customize their phone-OS, even if they don’t know anything about programming.
True (my estimate of 6 was tongue in cheek) … valid second point that a community of reprogrammers to keep it running beyond the end of Fairphone’s support itself would be a major factor
