Update 1
I see a framerate/refresh rate bug that occasionally locks the framerate at a low value upon unlock. Fixing it requires a lock/unlock cycle.
Where do you plug in your headphones?
In a Qudelix 5K. Ever since phones got really thin and their jacks too fragile for heavy headphone plugs and cables like the ones on MDR-7506/ATH-M50 (mid 2010s), I embarked on a journey into high quality Bluetooth audio receivers. For many years now FiiO has made way better Bt amps than what’s available in most smartphones, even when most had headphone jacks. The Qudelix 5K is one of the best small format amps these days. On the wireless side, LDAC and AptX have eliminated Bt bandwidth as significant quality constraint. That said talking over such a setup has always been some form of bad.
Thanks, I hate it. One more set of batteries, one more flaky wireless link to troubleshoot. Please take all those fancy electronics, and put them inside the phone where they belong.
Fairphone does make wireless earbuds with replaceable batteries. That being said, does the Fairphone 6 not come with a 3.5mm jack? Sony still ships it’s Xperia series with both the jack and microsD slot, so that is certainly possible.
But they are still using Bluetooth right? That’s a hard nope, it must be my personal dark aura or something, but Bluetooth devices just refuse to work reliably for me. I just don’t want to deal with that anymore.
I really miss the good old jack port, not only does it just work, you can both charge your phone and listen to something at the same time as I do often in the evening. Having the charging port double as the headphone connector is such a step backwards.
I think it was around Bluetooth 5.0 that reliability issues stopped happening, I hear you, but things have improved
Can you tell that to my pair of AirPods Pros? The amount of times only one of the in-ears decides to connect to my phone or laptop is just plain infuriating. All those devices support Bluetooth 5.0, but reliable is not the word I’d use to describe my experience.
Same for stuff like file transfers between my phone and laptop, I’m sick of that generic “file transfer failed” message without any helpful hint as to what went wrong this time. A cable is reliable, Bluetooth is definitely not in my personal experience. Sorry.
There’s still enough space for a headphone jack in current phones. They are omitted as a cost cutting measure.
Latency is still worse than wired. For gaming its somewhat okay nowadays, for making music its not.
The cost is a tiny aspect. There is the space issue and the physical issue. Jacks are holes where dust and water come in, making it harder to make devices resistant and as durable as they can be.
Yeah I have to agree, the financial cost is tiny. The physical packaging cost is high. If you see how dense modern devices are, and how much space modern cameras take, you can see what the cost of taking the equivalent space of a 3.5mm jack is. Ingress is an additional valid engineering problem.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind devices that are a few mm thicker and therefore have less packaging constraints for jacks, bigger batteries, etc.
Jacks are holes where dust and water come in, making it harder to make devices resistant and as durable as they can be.
IDK, Samsung seemed to figure that out a decade ago with the S5 Active; it had a headphone jack and removable battery. Had one as my work phone for a bit, I even took a video dunking it in the sink for some remote coworkers. Good fun. Solid phone.
Chat GPT makes up everything it says. It’s just good at guessing and bullshitting. These are excuses, not reasons. There used to be waterproof phones with headphone jacks. Phones have become bigger since the headphone jack disappeared as well. So space isn’t really the reason.
What does ChatGPT have to do with this…? This is what FP themselves say https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-Jack-3-5mm
I have a FP3 with a jack, for reference. It doesn’t have an IP rating. FP4 has IP54, FP5/6 both have IP55. Also yes, phones have become bigger, but they have more stuff inside. More cameras, for example.
I mean, the jack is literally a hole in the chassis of the phone, while I cannot exclude the fact that someone managed to make a design with good IP rating, I can very easily see that it makes it much harder.
Yeah latency isn’t and likely cannot be music production grade.
Was the downgrade to USB-C 2.0 noticeable to you so far? As in, with the slower data transfer speed or lack of Display output?
It’s the main reason why I ended up going with a Pixel 9 pro instead of Fairphone 6 when getting a new phone a few months ago
I haven’t used my phone’s USB port for anything but charging for at least over a decade so I hadn’t even checked the port speed before or after buying.
Wait wtf. This kills transfer speeds to portable SSDs.
Lame-ass decision, welp, never considering a fairphone untill they start making better decisions.
This kills transfer speeds to portable SSDs.
How many people transfer files from a phone to a portable SSD? Not that many. That’s also probably why the feature was cut in the first place.
Fun Fact: The FP5 (predecessor) has USB3 but it’s effectively useless for file transfer as the internal storage has USB2 like speeds.
I do that regularly, with internal storage of 512 GB and higher, write speed to external devices is not unimportant at the very least.
Though with wifi 6 and higher you can get a decent throughput via ftp as well.
I mean, you’ll be able to upgrade the usb port later, but I get your issue.
What is the use-case for fast USB transfer to/from a smart phone?
Are you using your phone as a computing platform / data transfer device? Just honestly curious why this is a showstopper for you.
I back up my important images to an external SSD because I don’t want to rely on cloud backup, plus I shuffle around quite a few audiobooks, game roms and ebook collections from time to time. Having faster speeds with that does add up.
I also use Desktop mode quite a lot (my previous phone was a Moto G100 so it had Moto Ready For) and now that a universal Desktop mode is announced for Android 16 I would be quite annoyed if I couldn’t use it just due to hardware limitation. The current Desktop mode preview on GrapheneOS isn’t 100% functional yet either, but at least I know that I will get it working eventually 😄
I use my phone as my main computer.
In fact, most people don’t really have a desktop/laptop computer anymore, its just their one smartphone
Most people? Where do you live? Somewhere in the remote African hinterland? (No disrespect) I’m having a hard time thinking of someone I know who doesn’t have a computer.
Ethernet over USB, too
And even just regular file transfers. I got used to passing files over KDE Connect because fucking WiFi is faster than the USB 2.0 on my phone.
Unfortunately, only works with the “Share” or “Send to” rather than file browser which for some reason caps out at 5MB/s.
Are you gonna play the ‘That’s fair’ game? Meaning the first bad thing to happen to the phone you say that’s fair and leave it where it is forever just to buy a new phone to start over?
Super cool! I have a 5 and my partner is hoping to get a 6.
How’s it feel? I went from a pixel to the 5, and she’s going from a pixel 8 to the FP6. I’d say my biggest complaint is that the 5 is large and heavy.
Pretty good, similar to a Nexus 5 or a Z10. I’m coming from a Pixel as well, an 8 Pro, if I don’t find any showstopper that is. 😄 I actually like how big the 8 Pro is but I don’t mind the FP6 size.
Why switch from a Pixel 8? It’s still fairly new.
Good question, and it’s actually a 7 (I just didn’t pay enough attention). It’s like a ~1 year from now plan probably
my reporting process generates about 170’000 csv files, totalling 4.5GB. it takes about 10min to write them; which 9min 58 secondes longer than I need to compute them. Any suggestions ?
Don’t hit the filesystem at all if possible?
Use a more efficient format?
RAM disk?P.S end up using CompletionPort & OVERLAPPED file io
much better
Assuming that this is happening not because the destination write media is simply too slow, but because the process is unnecessarily fsync()ing writes to disk mid-process, maybe try:
$ sudo apt install eatmydata $ eatmydata <reporting-command> && sync
what is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
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Coconuts of course.
Naturally.
Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?
Fairphones.
food or nest building materials
He doesn’t even swallow. He spits.
Swallow, come!
African or European?
how do you know so much about swallows?
Do you use google maps in the browser?
Where are you? What OS?
Seconding this, im on a FP4 and in the US so… Some real product reviews would be appreciated.
Ontario, Canada. Ordered from Clove UK. Stock Fairphone OS.
What did it cost you including any shipping costs?
CAD $889 shipped. Then CAD $127 in duties to DHL. CAD $1015 total.
Thanks for the reply. I’m also in Canada, and yeah that’s a lot. I hope you love it!
What apps are pre-installed? Anything other than the stock Google stuff?
Minimum set of Google apps, Fairphone’s cam and “My Fairphone.” That’s about it.
Which provider? I’ve avoided FP because I wasn’t sure the big three would support
Freedom. The only band it lacks for their Torontario network is band 13. I decided to risk it because Freedom used to run the network without band 13 until a few years ago. So I reason the coverage without it should be similar to the before time. That means a bit of a downgrade in signal and probably battery, given that band 13 is lower power, longer range fequency. But then again the FP’s modem is Qualcomm so it may end up being more power efficient than the turd in my Pixel. So I decided to try it out.
Awesome, thx! I might have to try one out for my next phone cuz I love the ethos. Enjoy! 😊
Write another reply to my comment in a few weeks to ask how the real world testing on cellular has gone. I’ll get a notification and reply.
Can do, thx!!
Will you use a photo of a rabbit as background image?
No questions, but I’m so fucking pissed that Fairphone is on their 6th generation and still doesn’t offer them globally.
I have to replace my wife’s dying phone, and it kills me that I’ll end up buying some garbage, probably from Google, that will end up as garbage in a few years.
Please, bring these to Canada! 😭😭😭
It is insanely expensive to get network certification and pay for band licenses, and then build an antenna array that can cover it all well. Myriad of frequencies outside of dealing with mafioso policies.
Cell phones need to be the new landline. Just works. But that takes regulation and design patterns.
And towers. You live where I live, very low population density and thick forest make cell phones iffy at best. Many places I go have absolutely no cell service and probably never will. I will be dead before we get access to 5G here.
I will be dead before we get access to 5G here.
I have the opposite problem! 5G is being forced on us here (Ontario, Canada), and my mobile provider just closed of their 3g network, and are making 4g more expensive. I don’t need 5g. I don’t even need 4g, and to have to pay for it just sucks.
The US closed out 3G a few years ago. So 4G/LTE is the default now. When we had 3G, the reception was even worse. And 5G is supposed to be the thing. But even in the nearest big town, (Pop. 15,000), the 5G reception is very spotty. But at least my bill hasn’t gone up.
In any case, even my new Pixel 9a only shows one bar where I live. But at least I can send a text reliably now.
The US closed out 3G a few years ago.
Funny enough, was setting up a new phone and saw the option to enable 2g with an actual toggle! LOL
Opening up their market to another 400 million to multiple billion people would make those expenses worth while, though.
We need ethical, environmentally conscious, future proof options for smartphones in the Americas. 😫
I know Fairphone would probably be quite expensive even for the price it offers if it ever came to my country, but for the update cycle they offer and repairable build (looks at my broken screen of old Nokia), it actually makes sense. I don’t particularly need the highest end specs, I just need a mid ranger phone that’s sufficiently fluid and Fairphone fits the bill.
In fact, I was more intrigued by their earbuds. IIRC, they are the only one with a replaceable battery. For a set of wireless ones, that is a huge step. I don’t think their sound profile was/is as good as Sony’s or Sennheiser’s but the simple fact that they don’t have to end up as e waste makes them way more value for money in the long run.
I know Fairphone would probably be quite expensive even for the price it offers if it ever came to my country, but for the update cycle they offer and repairable build (looks at my broken screen of old Nokia), it actually makes sense.
This is why I got a Framework laptop, and why I wouldn’t mind getting a Fairphone. I’m tired of planned obsolescence, and the e-waste it needlessly creates.
Buddy, I’m in Torontario guy. Bought from Clove UK for 1016 Canadian peso final-final, after DHL blood sacrifice.
I bought my FairPhone from Clove too. It was easy and the phone works great here.
I don’t want to import, I want to purchase from an authorized local dealer with warranty and parts available in Canada.
Even clove says that you’ll need to send the phone back to the UK, at your expense, for any warranty related work. That’s not only incredibly time consuming and costly, but it would negate any environmental benefit of owning the phone!
I can’t imagine how expensive and delayed parts would be, again, missing the point of having a repairable phone.
The demand for at least North American consumers is there. I wish Fairphone would just do it already.
Murena is an official authorized seller of Fairphones, but they come with e/os (you can reinstall the original if you have a computer)
Edit: Damn its available for the US but not Canada.
Got it. Yeah it makes sense for the warranty. I assumed I could get parts in Canada though. I might have jumped the gun on this one. I thought iFixit sells them and they do but I can see their site says “Not sold in Canads” for a few parts I checked just now. Hmm.
E: It seems that Clove also sells parts. I see some FP4 and 5 parts. No FP6 parts yet.
I don’t think they’re handling their current scale well just in Europe, even. VoLTE works on a limited number of carriers even in Europe. e.g. only T-Mobile is recommended by FP in Poland, but it’s just one of the four large telcos. I wouldn’t expand if I was at that point. Plus, they’re busy with making their support less horrible (see post on their forum) for now.
edit: damn fp6 doesn’t support any Polish carrier, a step down from FP5 https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9779766652689-How-to-set-up-4G-and-Wi-Fi-Calling
That’s disappointing. They’ve been around for over a decade, and still have these “growing pains”?
Even phones from much smaller, more niche companies (i.e Pinephone) have had global availability and work on global bands.
This is just about VoLTE that’s used for higher bandwidth of voice calls (and HD Voice). Calling works normally, it’s just that they don’t have the “HD+” icon in the dialer, so they aren’t high quality voice calls). It doesn’t impact my life very much but it’s one of those things that are missing.
Hows the new minimal UI?
Meh. Just a limited launcher. I remapped the button to the flashlight.
Fair enough. I wondered if it would cause a difference in how people use the phone.
Can you map it to anything you want? Like, say, make the button turn on constant phone vibration. Asking for a friend.
Sadly no:
If you don’t care about Do Not Disturb, you could probably jank more functionality by making a different function trigger whenever DND comes on with Automate or Tasker…
Oh that’s sadly really limited. I would probably also set it to flashlight.
Preliminary battery testing results:
During this first discharge session, I’ve installed apps, transferred data, posted all my comments here, etc. All on WiFi.
How’s the camera. Compared to say samsung or iphone if you had any of those before.
Pretty decent actually. I’ll be doing more comparisons in the days and weeks to come, but for now it’s not a huge downgrade from my Pixel 8 Pro. So far some photos have come out better and some worse. There’s no comparison to the optical zoom the Pixel can do of course.
Is the software buggy? I did not like the Fairphone 5 mainly because of how buggy the Google Android version was… I had random reboots and freezes, framerate issues, UI elements that glitched or didn’t fit the screen properly. Hope they were able to fix that by now.
I too have the Gen 6, but i choose the e/OS version. Great phone so far.
I have a FP5 with android and haven’t had any major software issue (so far, over the last 1 to 1.5 years). In fact the only issue I noticed was that the 5G implementation was pretty bad at first, using up way to much battery
Well, Pixel 8 is no different to that. The hardware is great, with grapheneos its awesome. But god damn the cellular internet modem is awful. It heats up & drains the battery as well.
(With android) you can set it to prefer 4G/LTE which is enough tbh
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We’re not doing this again
I’m invoking the mirror clause immediately.
I was there as that unfolded. It was a beautiful thing, and made me love that place in the early days before The Donald and all the corpo-bullshit.
Same. The good old days.
You hold your right index finger to your right temple and blink both eyes.
Noobs. Bet he doesn’t even use Linux.
