Well, actually the Ubuntu LTS is 5 years, and those are free. But if you really really don’t want to upgrade, you can pay for an additional 5 years of “Extended Security Maintenance”.
The FP5 is not officially announced but we saw images of it and benchmarks this week so it is getting closer and closer from a release.
You can expect it before the end of the year 
But the problem with some (maybe rare) apps is, that they insist to have a biometrical unlock function.
I can live with all of the downgrades by Google when it comes to the UI, but why in the world did they decide to merge the mobile data and the WiFi option in the toolbar? I don’t even.
(Talking about A12 now, not A13. Haven’t used A13 yet)
It‘s just the same in Android 13.
Hi there,
I’m reading through the forums here for he first time as my current phone is nearing 6 years is and I’d really like to purchase a sustainable phone.
Throughout this thread I think that there are a lot of assumptions in this line of thinking:
For me personally, I’d really like to be able to buy a sustainable device that is based on modern tech and likely to have supported software and hardware for a decade. Something that seems more likely in the case of FP5 than For FP4 as the clock on end of support will have started more recently.
As someone from a country that isn’t officially sold you by Fair Phone (New Zealand) there are already some additional steps and therefore friction on purchase decision that needs to be overcome for me to buy a fair phone.
Surely the best way to motivate more people towards sustainable choices is to not make them have to choose between sustainable and the features / long life expectancy of a piece of technology.
There’s some interesting thinking / discourse regarding the best way to align incentives with better outcomes for our species as a whole grouped into “game ~B”. Possibly a tangent but interesting none the less…
In closing, I’m exactly the potential customer who’s looking for an onramp into Fair Phone but I’m reluctant to start with a phone that’s two years old when I’m shelling out the $s. Hearing here for the first time that a FP5 is on the cards is great news…
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I don’t think the main critique is against FP releasing new phones. Of course they should sell better and better phones over the years.
I think the issue is that in many ways the FP4 is a terrible device. Even years after release, the camera is poor, updates are slow, release day bugs are still present, etc.
The most important bug in terms of users suffering from it is the terrible audio quality during calls. I’m happy that has been acknowledged at least.
The most important bug from an environmental perspective is the bootloader bug. The fact that the phone can still be bricked, requiring shipping to the Netherlands, almost two years after release is weird to me.
And with all these problems they release the FP5.
Yeah, I can imagine that would be extremely frustrating. Something I intend to read up on after reading this thread…
This seems like a different aspect of debate to the part that I couldn’t help but respond to.
One would hope that introducing new product and rectifying existing issues aren’t mutually exclusive!
Both seem important to achieve from both a business & sustainability perspective to me. 
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For potential new FP users buying a phone that was released almost 2 years ago and still has issues doesn’t seem very tempting. For longterm use i.e. sustainability buying a more recent hardware plus the potential support time span is.
No one is forcing current users to upgrade their phones. The question remains if the support for the current phones will keep up to prevent users from buying another phone before the mainboard dies.
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Unfortunately hardware updates are almost impossible (they are already quite challenging on the much bigger and spacious computers), so all you can hope for is a decade of software updates, and especially security patches (having the latest fad in icon shapes and the latest poop emoji is rather vain and pointless, isn’t it).
So, either you plan on using that phone for the full decade, and hardware-wise it will be an old, ridiculously outdated jalopy for most of its lifespan, or you will bin it in a couple years and buy a new one, in which case that decade-long support is just an empty gadget you’ll never need or make use of.
My point is, long lifespan and “latest tech” is incompatible. Unless it’s a totally modular device like the desktop PCs are (were), where you have an endless supply of compatible spare parts, and can keep your computer upgraded almost forever, at some point nothing being left of the original configuration.
Both me and my SO bought a framework, and of course time will tell whether they live up to it, but this is exactly the model I had hoped Fairphone would be able to offer: when you buy into a particular model you get the latest internal hardware. Updates are released as separate modules that you can choose to get if you absolutely need them, instead of replacing the entire laptop. This is how you combine long lifespan and latest tech. Not to mention that everything in the framework is open. They even provide STL files and wiring diagrams so those so inclined can build and adapt their own modules and parts.
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Just a note to keep more on topic and further talk about the Framework is better suited to
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Sadly, I’ve read something almost identical in the ShiftPhone forum.
I’ve got the feeling all “good” startups get slowly corrupted by the force of capitalism in the marked around them. 
I mean “the customers want new and fast phones with fill something shiny here” is a notion which probably has an impact on most companies at some point of their development.
And I would really hope they would overcome this temptation by focussing more on the “upgrade” point, instead of following the periodical exchange (better specs only with a complete new phone) policy.
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in my opinion you need to tap the best cpu/soc and components in general (still with sane mind) when you try to go for a long term supported hardware. you cant just opt for middle class everything and then even drop features on the go when you switch android levels etc (fingerprint). top notch hardware will last and satisfy longer for the average joe even after five or seven? years or more into the game. also you cant just delay android levels and steps, you ought to deliver software updates immediately and you need to take part early in the android beta and RC games and offer android kind of immediately. whats the use of offering an outdate android version jump after n years into the life cycle just right before you actually drop the whole phone as a product all together. just odd.
please do tell, how much must a fairphone5 (and later versions) need to cost that you guys really allocate sufficient (LOTS!) of funds to your software team just as well.
i have written it before but i will write it again, now that we have sufficiently? long-term funded all the miners, the diggers, the cheap laborers, and all kinds of folks… please use our funds and payments now just the same and drop huge amounts on a decent software team. seriously. you need to come to senses with this madness of never having an up to date software level not even on your flagship phone revision.
but then again i feel equally bad for the fairphone3/± people etc.
if you’d truly wanted to have a fairphone like lasting forever you’d need to go for a replacable SOC module of some kind, or at least aim high and try to come to terms with really offering lot of replacement modules, upgrades with features and all. and bring in decent people who can support your SOC of choice for a really long time properly.
do it now. thanks.
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Indeed. After all al companies are there to make money, and sooner or later the bean counters take over: It’s the “coming of age” of a company (“no more silly games or unproductive ideals, all what matters now is profit”).
Unfortunately bean counters always assume there is an infinite market out there waiting for them to tap it, so for them it doesn’t really matter if you disappoint/annoy/anger some people, “there are plenty fish in the sea”.
They don’t realize those fish communicate, and your reputation is the most precious asset any company has… But then again, bean counters never think beyond their yearly bonuses…
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Won’t happen. If they make more money than expected, they’ll launch the Fairphone tablet™…
“Diversification” it is called, and they clearly stepped in that path by releasing the headphones, so expect more (more or less related) products besides the phones, which will become the quaint, half-forgotten and decidedly uncool core business.
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Uh-oh. I for one would never buy a battery (of all things!) on EBay, the mother lode of scams and counterfeit items.
I do not fancy waking up one night in a blazing inferno!.. 
Even original batteries from serious and reputable brands (Apple, Samsung) tend occasionally to go ballistic, so imagine some cheap, fly-by-night copy.
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That strongly depends. This seller has 3rd party batteries for many, many electric devices which are long forgotten by their original producers, is based in Germany, has its own webshop (so you can skip Ebay and buy directly). I have a few of them in use for many years already and in case anything wouldn’t meet my expectations I could even cycle to their headquarters I know that you’ll tell me that I can only do that if I didn’t suffer any injury from their products before, but I have some confidence that a company selling batteries at that scale would have issues if they failed more often than the original ones.
Having said that I agree that with things like batteries one should be careful and have a look at who the seller is exactly.
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