It’s also tacit, but I assume it helps them to interface with a Dutch company. Did they get any financial incentive for it?
As mentioned in another comment. Universities already have in house it services. Being able to fix the phone right there with spare parts is likely very cost efficient.
My university, for example, is gradually removing all office phones (already voip) and replacing them with Teams voip as the only phone system for the university, encouraging personal phone use of Teams, but having computer-based use as the option for people who refuse. As they don't provide mobile phones, however, they can't require Microsoft Authenticator, and so at least officially will still give hardware keys on request (and fortunately still allow TOTP, even if they don't advertise it).
https://tweakers.net/nieuws/241846/surf-biedt-opensource-nex...
Many individual universities are also making decisions to reduce dependence on US tech, see e.g.:
https://rug.my-meeting.nl/Documenten/Keuzevrijheid-IT-oploss...
(Apologies for the Dutch links.)
It says "Do you require a (replacement) smartphone for your work at Radboud University?", so it's probably for a handful of board members and the like, not the actual faculty staff.
Would it more economical and sustainable to buy a second hand / reconditioned feature phone from Samsung?
You're doing great for everyone involved!
There has to be second hand users tough, otherwise the second hand devices that, for a reason or another, are not used to the end by their original buyer never get used again.
Also, your information is slightly out of date. It’s possible to do the replacement yourself if you want. Here’s an ifixit guide based on apples official repair guide - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+17+Battery+Replacement/1...
They are talking about this kind of battery replacement: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Fairphone+3+Battery+Replacement... . The "TV remote" battery replacement kind.
You can get something like a "Motorola Moto G86 5G" for less than 200$ and that comes with a 120 hz full hd screen, 8 gigs of ram, 5200 mAh battery and so on. Basically everything you could ever need unless you're deep into photography or gaming. Instead of ordering a battery at 40$ and replacing it, I might as well buy an entire new phone and get a minor upgrade on everything every few years.
Is there very visible success of Framework? How many people in your everyday live have you encountered with a Framework laptop?
I love there mission, but Framework from all the feedback from users online seems to still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience.
> a YC-backed attempt
If any successful attempt would be launched, there would be no reason for it to go through YC. In the mass consumer hardware market their little funding and the network they provide doesn't do much. I would strongly assume that a challenger would appear in a similar form as it did with framework with nrp.
That would product that I and countless others would be gladly willing to buy on the smartphone market.
I mostly focused on the "YC disruption" part in GPs question without considering whether there is actually an opening for a disruptor. I think Fairphone may already be filling that gap.
I'm really not sure what you are getting at.
A repairable powerful phone with replaceable battery and pathways to minor upgradability that you can trust not to fuck you over long-term. I.E. the closest equivalent of Framework to smartphones.
A company that captures most/the entire market is not what is being asked for. Only a financially viable company that provides value to people looking for a certain type of product. Framework is certainly that in its own domain. And something similar could be built for phones.
MacBooks tend to last a long time. I used my 2012 Macbook Air for 7-8 years easily. It's still working today. My M1 Pro 16" has had no issues at all for nearly 4 years. They’re extremely reliable (except butterfly era).
Personally, I don’t think Framework laptops are. I think they are only more environmentally if you upgrade your MacBook every year or every other year. I think this is extremely niche. Not only are you getting a laptop with much worse battery life, noise, heat, screen, build quality, you are also getting a significantly slower CPU and GPU. AMD and Intel chips simply can't keep up with Apple Silicon.
One thing important to take into account in the life of a device is what happens when it's thrown out.
A friend of mine works at an electronics recycling facility, and with regular desktop or laptop they're able to take them apart to scavenge some rare metals, separate inert materials like cases from dangerous ones like the battery.
That's much more costly for Apple products because of how they're integrated, so they end up not recycling much.
Which sucks, because that means even for recycling responsibly you're again tied to Apple.
the most reliable test of durability is prices in the second-hand market. Apple laptops hold their value very well.
Sure, you don't get meaningful hardware upgrades (apparently there were some small ones), and Fairphone are far from the only ones selling spare parts for their phones. But in terms of keeping old phones alive with authentic parts and easy to execute disassembly steps, they are pretty good
https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?categ...
The charging port wore out. I bought another one in 2023. They still sell that part today. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-3-bottom-module-37
In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015. First-party parts 10 years later, what a concept! https://shop.fairphone.com/spare-parts
I don't know your friend's scenario, but this was mine.
It's not an either-or, like "either buy first-party parts for a Fairphone OR buy a second-hand Samsung". You can buy a second-hand Fairphone too. It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
I also bought headphones from the same company, and while they're probably not the best for audio quality, it was great being able to repair them when the headband broke. Generally, I'm a very happy Fairphone customer.
Isn't that the same for every brand? I have a friend who worked in cybersecurity in a certain phone company and was getting very stressed whenever my phone, which happened to be from the same brand, was ringing :D
I guess one can change the default sound, isn't that the case with fairphones?
And I've been seated eating with people who had the same phones and I realized no, it must be their phone (although I feel a strong urge to check), because my ears are able to determine direction of a sound.
I'm also old and keep getting told I'm going deaf, so my question is, are people really not able to tell it's not their phone or are they just not thinking it through before checking.
Moto is the only big brand I ever consider for a phone, while Samsung has never been as much as a consideration. Moto has had, which is changing, a bit of freedom - enough to tweak it into resembling a pure android experience. Samsung is incorrigibly infested - and if they ever start giving phones to prisoners, they'll be Samsung.
My experience with the latest Moto I have is the AI assistant is an anti-pattern but the phone is nearly unusable for a lot of things without it.
I admire ignorance of smartphones and consider such as virtue. I obtained my first in 2018 after years of resistance. But driving a semi and not being the best with maps and logistics, I finally capitulated.
And back then, although cyanogenmod was gone, they weren't too bad. 2019 changed a lot, with autonomous, respawning, immutable "services" and things have digressed severely since. Hence my visiting this post for Fairphone.
So take pride in your purity. It only gets worse the more you know.
If the logic board breaks, you want to upgrade to the newest chip model you can get. Because third-party software becomes slower every year. If you want a phone to last as long as possible, thus getting the latest chip. For Fairphone it is more interesting, since they use a particular Snapdragon model range with longer driver support.
The elephant in the room is of-course software getting too slow and developer not optimizing their apps.
You can? They're happy to repair even 7+ year old phones, I'm sure there's a cutoff but I haven't heard of anyone running into it. Might depend on the country though. Unless you mean buying those parts separately but they don't even let you do that for new phones, so "years after they're released" doesn't matter then.
This is why phones should be modular so the parts that wear/break first are replaceable, and also why those parts should be available to you and third parties, not gatekept by the manufacturer. Repair companies can then stockpile parts themselves, instead of having to scavenge from dead phones, to repair your existing phone even when the manufacturer refuses.
You can still source an iPhone 4s screen+digitizer assembly on eBay for a reasonable price. There is, however, little practical value of it in everyday use.
From there I’ve swapped the battery, moved the logic board and home button to a new chassis, taken the camera module out and tried to clean it, had the screen+top chassis off. It’s not for everyone but it’s not technically complex with many specialist tools, it just needs a battery replacement kit, tiny screwdrivers, workspace, and patience.
I managed to have the curved screen in my 2017 Galaxy S8 replaced in 2023 or so. I don't recall there being an alternative manufacturer of those.
For flagships at least there seems to be a pool of new-old-stock parts.
> The charging port wore out.
Things are better now in my experience, but for a device made in 2019, this is pretty darn plausible.
That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things): - USB charger broke after getting mortar in it - Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen - Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!) - Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.
If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.
So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.
Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.
Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.
I personally don't think it's worth it to buy a Fair phone for the extremely low chance that a component breaks and you can't get it repaired.
I might be misreading you, but this comes across a little like "that one use case doesn't prove you need a fairphone so don't buy a fairphone".
I don't think most people are evaluating tech like that. Only a zealot is going to consider a fairphone as the only option, they probably are looking at a bunch of criteria and options.
There's no correct answer to "what phone should I buy?" in a way that could be proven / argued for. I think people here are just saying fairphones have great repairability.
If you're just considering repairability, a fairphone is almost certainly one of your best options. But like you point out, that doesn't mean all other options can't be repaired at all.
Well, also buying out-of-production new phones (i.e. 1 or 2 gen behind) it's saving phones to be e-waste without having been used even once. Although I guess that companies manage stocks also with this signal in mind, so a 2nd-hand is always better.
That's a fallacy. By buying second hand, you enable the second hand market (people get better prices for selling their first hand phones). There are users who always buy the latest iPhones (or other flagship device) and sell their previous one. In effect you, as a second hand buyer, use the devices in the second part of their full lifetime, the first buyer uses the device in the first part. The device is used the full duration of its usability, which is good, but it's not better than if the first buyer would use it for the full duration. Nothing is saved overall.
> Nothing is saved overall.
This might be the most ridiculous POV of the second-hand market I’ve ever read.
There’s definitely some people who are buying new phones purely because they are ok with eating the difference between the new phone’s cost price and the old one’s sale price. I’m certain that’s a tiny niche of the entire market. And there’s the even smaller niche that actually use their phone till its very last breath. On the other hand, there’s an immeasurably larger part of the new phone market, formed of people who just buy a new phone anyways when they feel like it and leave the old one in their drawer.
Source: User surveys and research I conducted in another life
This is not true. You're missing that, if there is no second-hand market, phones get an early, premature grave, meaning more e-waste.
Imagine there are 10 million people in the world and they all want a phone. 1 million neophiles only ever want the latest phone, released yearly. The other 9 million are luddites who are OK with a second-hand phone. All phones last exactly 10 years before failing, and never become obsolete or damaged.
No second-hand market allowed: 1.9m phones sold per year, 1.9m discarded.
Neophiles buy and discard 1m phones (into the dump with 9 years of life left). Luddites buy and discard 900,000 phones (they have no second-hand market to buy from, so they buy new phones, but they use them for full 10 years instead of just 1, so the 9 million only buy/discard 900,000 phones per year on average).
Second-hand market allowed: 1m phones sold per year, 1m discarded. 900,000 less!
Neophiles buy 1m new phones but sell their old phones to luddites, discarding none. Luddites then use them for 9 more years before discarding. There are 9 million luddites with 9 years of phone use meaning they need an average of 1m second-hand phones per year, which happens to be how many are on the market thanks to the neophiles.
* probably much more fiddly than a fairphone though
Which model? Was it the FP1? It sounds like your friend was extremely unlucky - FP2 is 11 years old & there's still (a limited subset of) parts for sale for it (display & camera). FP3 (7yo model) still has all the parts for sale.
That said - I'm critical of another aspect of device longevity: software support. I upgraded from my (still working) FP3 to the FP5 because apps I needed stopped working on the highest version of Android supported by FP3. That Android version is still officially supported by Fairphone & receiving security updates but without major version upgrades the app support can be problematic. Obviously that's ultiamtely the fault of bad app devs, but ultimately it's hard to overcome.
I use a FP3 too, but I am a little surprised
More like google's fault. They made a huge mess of completely different permission and behaviour changes between 11, 12, 13. At least since 14 they have stopped fucking around so much.
It is really much simpler for us to cut off all versions before 12, but it's unfeasible. So many devices still with 10/11. Now we cut off at 8.1, but will increase that every year starting next year as google mandates us an increase of minimum sdk version.
Garmin in particular makes it mandatory to use their app for SOME connected functionalities (while others work just fine on wifi or wifi tethering). They unsupported old version of android for the garmin connect app pretty fast (my mom's phone was incompatible within 4 years of its release) while they don't support you to connect older devices on newer phones and say they know it doesn't work.
As a user, I don't care whose fault it is.
I ditched both Google in favour of degooglized android on older Xiaomi and Pixel phones that support custom ROMs, and Garmin for any sport equipment.
My next phone will be a Fairphone if they make something with a smaller screen.
I don't know which app you're doing, but I would most likely permanently just not download it or find an open source alternative if it stopped working for me, as no app is essential. Pay attention to the user-base, in particular is your app is supposed to work with a web of users.
Context: Our apps are means to connect to our devices via BLE, are free and without ads (fuck ads, fuck all ads), no integrity checks. We don't publish the API but we know of a couple of clients that reverse engineered the protocol and made their own. Good for them. (one of them also came by the office to bring a friend and showed us his app that glued together the functionality of several modules from also our competitors. Cool!)
But given what we do our customers are complete normies, doing what google asks us is the path of least resistance, and gets us most audience.
Those who don't want to use the play store can find the APK in the usual sites, don't care.
If i made app for myself i would indeed distribute it differently.
For example, there are APIs that make feasible something that should be trivial (like autosizing a font based on size, the way it happens in iOS) but they are available from 8.0 so you cut out anything below that.
Or, we use BLE a lot and there are newer methods that makes our life easier but again are not available in older SDK versions
Within a year, the USB port wore out. Contacted the support as the phone was under warranty and was given two options: Order the replacement part online and get reimbursed for it. Or send the entire phone back, but it would get wiped clean.
I had some data that wasn't backed up and didn't want to loose, and because I couldn't charge it, I decided to go for the first option. It's supposed to be easily reparable, why go through the hassle of sending it back? Well the problem was that the part was unavailable on their store for months. I even looked at third party stores, that specific part couldn't be found anywhere in Europe. After three months of having a "repairable" paperweight on my desk, the part was finally available and I could change it (replacing it took seconds and I've done it while sitting at a café, gotta give credit to Fairphone for that).
Meanwhile, I see my friends with their iPhones getting them repaired within a few days or even the same day! Battery change, charging port replacement, screen change, etc. All could be easily and quickly done by a local repair shop.
In the end I realised it's not about how easy it is to repair your phone, it's about the availability of spare parts. iPhones, especially a few years ago, make it difficult to be repaired. Yet, they are the easiest to get repaired. Fairphone's spare parts are specific to their phones, and even specific to some models. Using generic parts or having some compatible across models would create more need for them = more parts available.
Actually, taking on used phones with unknown history means that you'll likely end up 'bottom-feeding' where each unit bought is cheap, but you'll need to exchange them often. This strategy is even harder for less-interested who can't say what's the EOL for a phone model.
Maybe my argument doesn't hold in richer societies where you are effectively subsidised by people who'd still exchange phones every 2 years making them better value.
I was also very surprised to learn this. Incompatible models are the opposite of modular parts. Fairphone apparently was happy to throw away 95%+ of the value of having "modular" parts.
But with the long-term support and access to spare parts (the university can stock them), this seems like a good move. Also happy for FairPhone that they are getting more traction.
For some definition of de-google, though. /e/OS is based on LineageOS which is based on AOSP which is developed by Google. And microg contacts the Google servers, doesn't it? My understanding is that it's just an open source implementation of the Play Services.
Insecure hardware with limited patches and updates, running insecure software with much patches skipped or delayed.
Most recent fairphone is based on Android 15, while 16 is available from mid-2025. Yes, that matters, releases is not only eyecandy, but also some security patches (ie: not many patches are back ported from 16).
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/244637136412...
Features: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
Historic security updates : https://web.archive.org/web/20241231003546/https://divestos....
So, I'd rather have second hand debloated midrange Motorola thank /e/, even less so on Fairphone.
As far as I know only Gigaset and HMD manufacture in Europe. And even those two only do final assembly in Europe, the components are still made in China.
Technically Fairphone could ship you a box of parts and have you assemble the phone yourself. Then it would be "Made in Europe" (or where-ever you live).
Perfect is the enemy of the good (it also took HMD a while to have a model that was manufactured in Europe).
Philips, ASML, Inventum and many other companies used "Made in Holland" on their products despite not being in the provinces of North and South Holland.
This no different from the fallacy of using Chrome and VSCode forks.
> without being tied to Google
That's a contradiction.
You must be thinking of the Google Play Services but these aren't required by GrapheneOS.
Now if GrapheneOS was its own thing without additional AOSP code updates.
Hence why these efforts should not rely on US institutions good will in first place.
Nobody said that, so you're arguing with the strawman.
The OS offering actual freedom is GNU/Linux.
8 out of the top 10 Android manufacturers are Chinese.
Google would just lose the ownership of Android to a Chinese consortium used by everybody else.
I wonder if you forgot that or you're too young to remember what kind of bizarre hell mobile development was at that time.
Heck, even early Android was really hard to develop for because CTS suite didn't cover enough and all of us spent hours upon hours (and many dollars) trying to reproduce and fix Samsung, Huawei, HTC and other bugs.
8 of the top 10 manufacturers are Chinese, the last two are Samsung (which definitely isn't going to side with Google) ... and Google themselves.
If Google doesn't publish AOSP anymore, Pixels will be the only phone with their software on it, Samsung might attempt something alone and the rest will pick up the development from a Chinese government consortium which will be the de-facto default mobile platform instead of the Google one.
Hopefully that can change, in the future
Every Android ROM is critically dependant on Googles work to actually develop and secure the OS.
Good move from a service perspective, repairs while you wait instead of backing up, transfer to new phone, sending the old one in for service, yada yada yada. Also great for Fairphone's growth to have a stable business partner.
I think what we really need is legislation to force all phone manufacturers to at least make the batteries and screens relatively easily replaceable. Maybe a cap on the replacement costs and a minimum support time would be a reasonable way to do that.
They did that to get longer software support from Qualcomm, but now they can get long support for Snapdragon chips.
We are slowly getting there, user removable/replaceable batteries are part of the following regulation (first link I've got)
https://www.brownejacobson.com/insights/compliance-obligatio...
The big caveat will be that some leeway is going to be given to "waterproof" devices. Remains to be seen how many producers jump on that angle to avoid serviceability.
I just want a screen with a headphone jack and a web browser on a device that isn’t serviced by Apple or Google.
I don’t even care about having the battery being removable. It doesn’t even have to be able to make phone calls.
I’m getting ready to go back to a dumbphone and digital camera because no one is making what I’m looking for, and it sort of seems like they never will.
EDIT: jolla also sells this, has a jack https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
Which browser though? But what you're describing sounds a lot like a Linux tablet, which do exist: https://itsfoss.com/linux-tablets/
But for now it seems like I'll remain with a Pixel and GrapheneOS.
For me another feature is what disqualifies it. Fairphone 6 would have been otherwise acceptable for myself, as it has quite decent specifications, but it only has USB 2.0.
Other smartphones at around the same price not only have USB 3, but also DisplayPort 1.4 (e.g. from Motorola).
I hate when I see even on many smartphones over $1000, that they save a few cents by implementing USB 2 instead of USB 3, and a few dollars at most by not implementing DisplayPort.
The SoC used in Fairphone 6 supports both USB 3 and DisplayPort, but its designers have saved a few external components by not offering these features.
Pixel is also disqualified for me by the same reason. Unfortunately only some smartphones made in China offer complete features and without excessive locking of the phone.
How so?
I think all pixels starting from 6 or 7 have DisplayPort output through USB C.
I watched a movie the other day with my projector connected to my pixel 10 running grapheneOS. Other than getting a phone call halfway through the movie and a few hiccups selecting the audio Jack output, everything ran smoothly.
On Google Store there is no information about this and other sites, like Gsmarena, also do not have any information on it, unlike for the smartphones from other vendors that have DisplayPort.
On some older Pixel models, it has been discovered that DisplayPort existed in hardware, but it was disabled in software by the Google operating system. It could be enabled only by replacing the OS. I see that you also do not use its native OS, so this condition may have remained true.
About newer models, it was supposed that the hardware support might have been removed.
How did you discover that DisplayPort exists on your Pixel 10?
Was this mentioned in its user manual?
Do you have the plain Pixel 10 or some Pro version?
Do you happen to know whether you have DisplayPort 1.2 or 1.4? I.e. which is the maximum resolution at which you have used it, can it do 4k @ 60 Hz on a monitor or projector?
Did you have to use the audio jack because the smartphone does not know to send the audio through DisplayPort, or was that a limitation of your projector (or perhaps of some DisplayPort/HDMI converter that you may have used)?
Having this feature and not documenting it for the potential buyers is even more stupid than not implementing it, as this can lead to lost sales. Like with Fairphone 6, I have considered buying Pixel 10, which at least has USB 3, but I have eliminated it from the possible choices for the lack of DisplayPort.
EDIT:
Googling now, I have found an article at Google's "Pixel Phone Help":
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/2865484?hl=en
which says "Connect your phone to a display device (Pixel 8 and later)",
So indeed, DisplayPort is supported officially starting with Pixel 8.
Nevertheless, it says nothing about what kind of DisplayPort is supported, i.e. which is the maximum resolution that is achievable on a monitor/projector, and this help answer is well hidden, you have to search specifically for it, instead of having clear technical specification of the Pixel phones, easy to discover by potential buyers.
Moreover, it can do only screen or window mirroring, instead of having a desktop mode like other vendors, so I think that it probably is limited to 1080 lines, which is the resolution of Pixel's screen (non-Pro models, but Pro are only slightly better). In that case, it still does not do what I want, which is a 4k resolution on a monitor/projector (it can record 4k movies after all, so I would have expected to be able to play them).
It doesn't have to be cheap. It might for example resign into a security camera or a doorbell. A metal bracket with a connector, a button or a connection for one, a seperate psu with a bell or a relay for one, screws to attach the wires, perhaps a stripped down end of life OS (altho it could just be a mode) and it becomes a very good doorbell with motion detection, a good amount of storage, two way video if you want it. Share with someone [temporarly]. Backup footage on laptops, pc's, phones, storage devices etc etc
For $100 in parts it would be highly competitive in the space but it could be more expensive as it can basically do everything a $1000 security camera offers and more. Battery backup, sim card, etc. A big phone brand might even be able to get a contract with local law enforcement so that they can have/request [emergency] access.
It's just one example, a small/portable computer could resign into many things. The device only needs to know it is now a TV remote control.
I wonder what the take rate will be from people rejecting the Fairphone and requesting their own SIM instead. The inner IT purchasing cynic in me says this is just a simple way to cull out your purchasing costs by only issuing one quasi-unpopular* device.
* I used to issue out phones at a large hospital and we allowed device choice. We saw ~90% iPhones, 10% Android in our fleet.
The Fairphone 6 is a pretty good phone.
Which probably explains the 35% market share if that's true.
But I get it, you wanted a cheap shot.
Also not everyone wants a shitty OS, that restricts even simple things like picture synchronization to promote their own shitty cloud service
The reason is how messaging works. In the US (and Canada?), SMS was affordable since before smartphones, and people kept using SMS once smartphones became common. Apple automatically integrated iMessage into that. Americans are used to texting using the default messaging app, and using an iPhone to text another iPhone provided a better experience than plain old SMS/MMS.
In Europe, SMS was extremely expensive in the late 2000s/early 2010s, so people never really used it, and instead started using cross-platform internet messengers. MSN, Skype, then WhatsApp. Android was/is seen as the same or better quality for a lower price, so why buy an iPhone?
https://github.com/sbaresearch/whatsapp-census/blob/main/cou...
As far as what people want... it depends... A lot of people have two phones anyway, since they don't want to pay the additional taxation for using a company phone privately. Also because it's easier to turn it off when you're not working. In education I would imagine a lot of teachers/professors would prefer to not give their private numbers to students.
The US hasn't turned out to be a reliable partner in the last few months.
Also nice would be replaceable plug-in modules a` la Frame.work laptops.
Mine fell on its side on some pebble stones. The power-button, unprotected by the case, got scratched. The button doubles as a fingerprint reader, which ceased working due to the scratch. At first, I thought "no worries, this phone is friendly to those who want to repair it."
It turns out, this part is not available for replacement. I think this is an oversight; just like the screen, it is an outward facing part, hence, bound to be damaged for some.
Then, I brought it to my local repair shop. The owner had to tell me that they cannot repair Fairphone's, and that, for him, it is one of the worst companies to deal with. They try to centralise all repairs in their own repair center. Which means sending the phone -- which I need -- away for 2 weeks; paying a fee for diagnosis, an unknown cost for repair, and the hassle of a flashed phone. I already know what's broken, I just want the part.
I feel this is a real shame, as I am fully supportive of the stated aims of the company, and I want the product to be good.
[Aside: suggestions on how to deal with a scratched fingerprint reader are most welcome. E.g. can the scatch be re-painted? The phone thinks the reader is there, but it doesn't register any touch. ]
I could be wrong, any hardware guys please feel free to chime in over me.
Note: slightly simplified explanation but mostly holds for the three common types of sensors.
I brought mine to my local repair shop as well and they were completely unwilling to even try to repair it. Then I went home and tried myself and managed by just bending back some pins. The display cable had gotten loose. Have worked fine since then.
Chances are they refused because it's not only a niche phone but a niche phone that's particularly repairable without shop logistics.
My impression was that they had never seen the model before and for some reason they weren't interested in trying. I think I talked to the shop owner and it wasn't at a chain store.
The actual screen had dislodged from its detachable frame so I glued it back to that. And the screen connector pins were a bit bent so I bent them back. Then it worked. Figuring out how the broken parts were supposed to fit together were a little bit finicky I suppose. If I hadn't launched it into a concrete wall it would've been easier to figure out.
You also might ask who is sticking you up. For example, I believe there is fourth amendment literature re government officials that have gotten away with using an arrested persons biometrics to unlock a phone, in a manner in which compelling the release of a password would be illegal. Put another way, I can simply grab your finger or put your phone in front of your face, whereas beating you until you surrender your password is a lot harder to accomplish without creating additional consequences.
This also explains my original reply to the ancestor comment. As I see it, most people's personal threat model essentially already accounts for data breaches to the point that they are almost irrelevant. We hear about them all the time. More and more people are learning about credit freezes or 2fa or just getting these services baked into things they already use (more banks offer free credit monitoring, 2fa is increasingly a standard). It seems like we are in a place where data breaches just become essentially background noise to the average user.
In my view then, I would personally factor in physical theft as a higher threat than "phishing and data breaches". Even if low probability to begin with.
There is also the objective question of which occurs more or incurs more damages to individuals, the answer to which I do not know. I know companies often spend a lot of money to fix problems or deal with lawsuits, but individuals don't really get compensated by that the way they would if someone who ripped your phone away from you was tackled to the ground and your property got returned. For example.
As you say though, the threat model is everything.
This sounds like an odd & inconsistent story (from the repair shop guy - I'm not doubting your side of this, only his). Why would he need to be dealing directly with the company for any reason other than to purchase replaceable modules which are consumer-available & what would they be giving him trouble with specifically? Unless he's sending all his phones for repair back to the OEMs, but I'm sure that's not the case.
I wouldn't be surprised if some repair shops simply have a "mainstream brands only" blanket policy & don't consider other brands worth the time it takes to read about.
Otherwise you're right that the fingerprint module is specifically a bit of an achilles heel in their repairability. Even leaving aside the fingerprint reader isn't a separate component, it's also unclear to my why they made the decision not to sell the core module for standalone replacement (even if it ended up being quite expensive).
I do want to support Fairphone's mission and wish I could whole-heartedly recommend it to friends and family. But this experience and the many software issues have led me to recommend other options instead.
I ended up posting it for repair, over Christmas, which did take about 2 weeks but it was fully covered by the warranty.
I've successfully replaced the USB port after accidentally filling it with sand once, and that was trivial apart from UPS losing the package the first time. I really do appreciate the repairability, even if it could be better.
Great though, that they resolved yours within the scheduled time!
I like the devices, but I've stuck with Pixel devices for the better security practices. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that a university wouldn't be concerned about late security updates and the like.
It doesn't matter if their os gets security updates late, becase security updates depend on the rom maker this case grapheneos.
The security issues stemming from such things are likely real, as well. There was a paper released some time back, about binary blobs, that found:
> Our results reveal that device manufacturers often neglect vendor blob updates. About 82% of firmware releases contain outdated GPU blobs (up to 1,281 days). A significant number of blobs also rely on obsolete LLVM core libraries released more than 15 years ago. To analyze their security implications, we develop a performant fuzzer that requires no physical access to mobile devices. We discover 289 security and behavioral bugs within the blobs. We also present a case study demonstrating how these vulnerabilities can be exploited via WebGL.
The security capabilities of their hardware are what makes GrapheneOS incompatible to target the phone, Not any specific security practices of the developers of Fairphone.
Having said that: if there’s a way to MDM GrapheneOS, I’d be looking at that also!
The n+ patch interval on Lineage, /e/ and the rest of them, that’s plain and simply more days your administrators are at risk of giving up the keys to your castle - and that’s a tough pill to swallow!
Not that I disagree. I bought a Fairphone some years ago and sold it onward because it simply didn't fit in my hand, but the phone I got instead had a delicious combo of small physical battery and terribly inefficient chipset (2019 Exynos). I'd still make the same choice but it's a considerable downside (thankfully the only downside of this phone besides its age and software support by now)
Might even get another one and run E or some other less googlified os