As an FP4 owner, what is the point of getting an upgrade? I don’t use my smartphone beyond calls and texts and a Lemmy app and listening to music.
What can you do on a new phone that you can’t do on an old phone?
Honest question, I’m not being facetious.
I think Fairphone would say that they want you to keep using the FP4 forever, replacing individual parts as they fail. Their goal is the reduce waste in the smartphone industry, that’s why they make it so easy to maintain your device. Maybe eventually the main processor on your FP4 will be too slow to keep up with even those light apps. At that point, you come back to Fairphone and buy whatever the latest one is.
And as Sunshine said, continually releasing new generations of phones keeps them enticing to the vast majority of smartphone consumers that don’t already use a Fairphone. I’m literally looking at this new one and considering if that will be my next smartphone when my Pixel 7’s battery starts to turn. Seems like a pretty good deal to me, tbh. Might finally rip me from Google’s grasp.
FP4 will be too slow to keep up with even those light apps
That’s true however android is not very well optimized for older hardware. It would be cool to see fairphone become large enough that they can order better deals with cpu manufacturers in bulk to have more powerful chips while largely contributing to an efficient linux mobile distro.
A good OS would be a killer feature, but hard to implement.
i mean…they already have the versions with e/OS? Does that not fit that bill?
When considering new customers or those who, for example, have irreparably damaged their Fairphone, it’s important to recognize that selling a three-year-old device as new may not be appealing to them. Additionally, many people today rely on their phones as their primary computer and therefore require the performance necessary to handle a variety of tasks.
It’s great for people running at the end of their phone’s lifespan such as those with pixel 5as and iphone 8s.
I am not dissing the phone, if I was in the market it would be a no-brainer, I am just interested in what a new phone could give me and when should I plan to switch.
Perhaps at the end of software support, that’s how I do my upgrades.
Same. Unless it stops getting security updates or has been dropped to the bottom of the sea, I’m holding on to the phone I have.
I just replaced the battery in my pixel 7 and I’m asking myself the same. I use my phone for fewer tasks than you. Calls and messages only.
Nobody should feel a strong need to upgrade after only two generations. Same deal with most tech like GPUs and CPUs.
I use my phone a lot and my Pixel 7 is fine. The primary factors driving my last couple upgrades were battery degradation and software support. Neither should be a big problem with a Fairphone.
I’m also trying to decide whether to stick with the Pixel/GrapheneOS ecosystem or go for Fairphone.
How hard/expensive was it to replace your battery? I looked on iFixIt and it seemed a lot harder than my orevious phones.
I’m currently in a part of the world were labor is pretty cheap so it didn’t cost me much.
Android 16 is coming out with desktop mode soon. At that point I’ll have to pony up for a new one because my current device doesn’t support display port alt mode. And my laptop is on its last legs.
Can you lock the bootloader on Fairphone?
One of the reasons given as to why GrapheneOS is not available for the Fairphone is because the end user cannot lock the bootloader.
I might be confusing things, but I’m running calyx on a fair phone 4. Pretty sure that I locked the bootloader after install
TIL.
Heard for years that it wasn’t possible. Would love to hear that I’m wrong. https://forum.fairphone.com/t/relock-bootloader-step-by-step/98339/10
Lock or unlock?
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I’m glad there will be a us release :)
Murena is really cool!
this will likely be my next phone. I have a pixel 6a…
How long until Fairphone and Framework merge?
They do really go well together. It would be cool to see a partnership between them but still remain as separate companies.
The biggest issue that I read was that these phones weren’t getting security updates fast enough.
If they could figure that portion out and sell them to more countries, I would love to have a phone like this.
I am very interested in Fairphone, when my current phone inevitably breaks it’ll definitely be my on my short list. Also considering the pine phone pro.
It’s really cool to see the phone space opening back up with meaningfully differentiated options. Like foldables are starting to have a good selection, red magic has one with a fan for active cooling, and we’ve got phones with repairability and maintenance in mind.
I’m also curious to see if RISC-V processors start making any serious inroads in to phones. I know Qualcomm was talking about it a while ago, and there is some amount of support for android on it.
There is legitimately interesting things going on again, and it’s so annoying to have all the oxygen sucked out of the room by the current hype cycle.
