The tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following:
USB-C 2.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output?
That's sad.
Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs:
USB-C 3.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/display (also Android™ desktop mode)/Camera/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
Likely not used enough, yet. It would be premature to drop support this quick, as Google seems to just now move Android in the direction (DEX by Samsung is the same thing, but it's Samsung specific).
At the same time, only last year I saw a device in which I'd "dock" my phone (the Nexdock looked reasonably priced) and having both a phone and the steam deck with desktop mode would make such a device more useful.
I know you're talking strictly from the perspective of display glasses, but convergence is the main category under which I'd classify this feature.
I agree, display with desktop mode on mobile devices could be useful. I'd really like the idea of using a phone as an everything device at some point, but there are a lot of things that are not lining up, with missing compatibility with external displays being a huge blocker.
Based on what I had read yesterday, when I still hoped that it will have the same USB 3.0/DisplayPort like Fairphone 5, I was considering very seriously to upgrade my rather old ASUS smartphone to a Fairphone 6.
However, if it lacks USB 3.0/DisplayPort, which can be acceptable for a $200 smartphone, but never for a $600 smartphone, then Fairphone 6 is completely disqualified from my point of view.
Unfortunately, only some Chinese smartphones, e.g. from Motorola, offer USB 3.0/DisplayPort in smartphones with decent price/performance ratios and up-to-date Qualcomm SoCs, starting as low as $400.
Yeah, I am considering either the previous Fairphone or a Samsung for this capability, but I had looked forward to go with a European developed phone this time. Oh well.
I bought the Fairphone 4 a while after the 5 came out. It felt like their strategy was basically to use the previous edition as the "low-end model", i.e. it's cheaper and less powerful, but still well-supported. And I'm very happy with it.
Which is to say, buying the previous Fairphone is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
Yeah, totally adequate for a normal phone, yet lacking if you want to use your phone for something more. You could argue that this isn't something that a phone should be used for, but yet it's something that I'd like to try.
>Isn't USB C 2.0 on-par with what recent iPhone models offer?
Except I don't want to put up with the bs that Apple does to its customers, otherwise I'd buy an iPhone. It's not outrageous to expect USB 3.0, a 15 year old standard, on a 600 Euro phone with modern internals in 2025 that users are expected to keep for a long time without upgrading.
>It's just fine.
Just because it's fine for you doesn't mean it's fine for others. For other's that's the dealbreaker. Fairphone isn't a mainstream brand, it's a niche brand which tends to draw enthusiasts (often tech workers, hackers, tinkerers, etc), and enthusiasts are more picky and expect more features than your regular Apple and Samsung "muggles".
People buy niche phone brands not because they're the most performant or sexy, but because they still provide the niche features that Apple and Samsung gave up on, like SD cards, headphone jacks, removable batteries, etc.
OnePlus had USB 3.0 and DisplayPort outputs on 500 Euro phones all the way in 2019, and that feature was a lifesaver when my laptop suddenly died. There's no excuse now for this phone.
Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature, and it’s just highly opinionated people cosplaying as wizards who insist it’s incredibly important?
As a product manager, if I had a dime for every time someone insisted with stridency bordering on rudeness that some fringe feature was absolutely critical to my product’s success, despite data showing no market demand even from these overconfident “experts”… I would have a lot of dimes.
> Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature, and it’s just highly opinionated people cosplaying as wizards who insist it’s incredibly important?
I'm a fairphone user and promoter. They are a good company for what they do, but I doubt they have the finances to really do anything outside product development, software work (albeit slowly) and a bit of marketing.
If their user survey is anything to go by, they mostly ask about how the users match on their brand and mission, and less about what the users want. Their forum has a bunch of feedback on what they could do differently. Some acknowledged, like lack of communication and software updates (yet to see the results of that).
>Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature
Like I said, I don't care what process they did to justify that decision internally, all I said is I'm not buying it since for me it's a deal breaker, but since their competitors ship this feature my money is ging to them. Simples. Free market baby.
If they think it's gonna sell well regardless, then power to them and I wish them well, but how do you know their decision is the right one and my opinion is the wrong one? I guess only time will tell.
But the majority of mainstream users who don't care about those features tend to buy Apple and Samsung anyway, not niche brands they never heard of. So then how do they expect to sway mainstream customers away as you suggest without differentiating features?
Now with the EU repairability laws and recent product developments, changing the display or battery on a Samsung or IPhone isn't the nightmare it once was, so repairability isn't such a huge differentiator feature for Fairphone as it was 5+ years ago, so they need to offer more to stand out, not less. The goalposts have moved, in favor of the consumer.
>As a product manager [...] that some fringe feature was absolutely critical to my product’s success
How niche or mass market was your product? If you have a niche product then fringe features could be important, otherwise your customers might prefer going with your tried and true IBMs since nobody ever got fired for that.
The niche might be different. The fairphone seems - completely subjective impression - appeal to a big part to non-techies that buy if for the sustainability promises. For them USB-3 might not matter at all, they probably never even connect it to their laptop ever. And never to a display, they don't own one.
Sufficiently technical users might prefer a used flagship phone that supports custom ROMs, maybe some market segmentation like that is in play here. Case in point, the missing headphone jack, and that the tech specs have never been impressive.
It would also explain why in their forum repairability was called a non-goal from a big user group, only the fair production aspect were relevant.
To be fair (pun intended), I am still on Fairphone 4, and I've gotta say it has lasted me very well, and the battery is still in good condition so the selling point of being able to swap the battery (something I actually _have_ practically missed in the phones I have owned before the Fairphone) hasn't really even come up yet. Ironically, I have been mildly itching to replace the 4 with the 6, just because. But I am not going to -- not until current phone becomes unusable.
I got a FP3 in 2020, replaced the battery and the bottom module in 2022 because I couldn't charge it anymore, and I've been really happy with it ever since. I'm not planning on buying a new phone until this one die.
My only issue with my FP3 is that I have to tighten all the screws from time to time otherwise whenever the screen displays too many green pixels the touchscreen will start to trigger at random.
I've got a Fairphone 4 since 4 years and I've bought two replacement batteries so far (one has gone bad and I like to have an extra to swap with if needed).
It still works very well with CalyxOS so the rational thing to do is to keep using it.
As I near the eol of my daily driver, I'm considering a Fairphone, but what it's missing is a folding card holder, like the Satechi wallet stand for iPhone. Putting the phone in horizontal mode on a table and using a bt keyboard is how I do a lot of my writing
Which features specifically do Fairphones miss? It seems to me like most of those requirements are all part of the (mostly open-source) software stack. The Fairphone uses a standard Qualcomm chip that should work as well or as badly as a Pixel SoC.
The "Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs)" part isn't even true for Pixels.
>The "Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs)" part isn't even true for Pixels.
Doesn't the ASB get published at the same time as pixel updates? So by definition it's up to date.
Yes, but vulnerabilities don't always get backported to older (supported) devices immediately. I distinctly recall one case where an Android CVE was patched months later on one Pixel model compared to the others that were in support. However, because search engines have all become terrible in the age of AI, I can only find vague references.
I myself regularly find my Pixel only noticing updates half a month later unless I manually check while my Samsung tablet notifies me immediately once my quarterly update is available. It's quite annoying to have to check for updates manually every week, but I suppose updates are technically available.
The tech is impressive, but not exactly Google exclusive. If the ROM developers intend to only support devices with Pixel exclusive features like the Titan chips, they might as well say they're not interested in supporting non-Google phones.
This is a misunderstanding. It's just that Google Pixel are the only devices that have this level of hardware security engineering AND are open to thirdparty roms like grapheneos to a decent degree.
Samsung Flagships and Iphones seem to have similar level of security engineering in them (Pixels use Samsung CPUs essentially) but aren't open to the required degree for third party roms.
There's nothing else on the Market that delivers on that Level. The GrapheneOS guys are working with someone one a potential custom phone to get the required level of hardware security but nothing has materialized. Companies like Fairphone are free to deliver hardware that is competitive in the security space and i'm sure that the grapheneos team will consider them then. But until anyone else does i'll keep buying whatever phone grapheneos wants me to buy, i don't care.
This seems to be missing the new focus features introduced with the physical switch, or am I missing something here. Also quoted as 50/100€ more expensive (two prices on the same page?)
eOS uses microG. I'd wish Fairphone offered partnership with GrapheneOS, especially now that Google broke their workflow. Sandboxed Play Services is pretty much a must for a lot of people.
Fairphone is as insecure as most non-flagship Android phones. Make of that what you will.
GrapheneOS takes security very seriously. Your average desktop PC or laptop won't come close to their requirements. That makes GrapheneOS an excellent OS for people who want the security of iOS without the many downsides of Apple. Their patches reduce usability but make the phone more secure than Google's own, official Android build.
However, if you've ever used a Windows (or Linux) laptop, you've already experienced the kind of insecurity that GrapheneOS tries to prevent. No hardware encryption accelerators outside of the CPU, rarely any patches that roll out within a weak of announcement, firmware protection being basically nonexistent, no A/B updates, almost certainly no verified boot (even with Secure Boot enabled), and usually no firmware USB lockdown.
Interesting enough, GrapheneOS runs exclusively on google devices. This fact makes it obsolete for me. I don't trust google in anything, soft or hard ware.
Security is a policy-driven spectrum of considerations and solutions. GrapheneOS targets very specific threat models, which is not possible with Fairphone hardware/BSP. Whether it makes it not secure for your own use cases, it's up to you to decide.
Case in point: re-lockable bootloader requirement. Not everyone is a target for an evil maid types of physical attacks or possible state actor pressure. But when you actually need it, it's not negotiable.
Unfortunately there seems to be bad blood between the two :(
It would be good if Fairphone could make a product that meets GrapheneOS requirements, but they measure the tradeoffs between security, usability, and cost (to do hardware and software things) differently. Each team is free to make the choices they deem fit. If only the intersection of GrapheneOS and Fairphone users were bigger, market forces would push them towards a common vision.
> Unfortunately there seems to be bad blood between the two :(
There's is no bad blood here, it's merely that fairphone doesn't meet the required standards for them to be a target the graphene team is interested in supporting offically. There's nothing preventing anyone from porting it themselves and nothing preventing fairphone from porting an inferior version of grapheneos to their phoens.
I've used it on both my previous phone (Fairphone 2) and now on the Fairphone 4. It's very painless, their installer is easy to use. The caveat here is that my most-used app is Firefox, and I don't use banking apps or Chromecast, which people seem to be worried about often.
I hope so too! The fallback is switching back to regular Android. If /e/OS doesn't work well enough for you, it wouldn't work well enough on other phones either, so in that sense this purchase isn't a waste.
Is it just me or does the discourse about a product like the Fairphone often feel kind of "culture war"-y? So many times I read comments where people are very upset and offended how a Fairphone costs way too much compared to other smartphones or how it supposedly is completely unusable because one feature does not work the way they expect. It's just strange. If you don't like it, don't buy it, no need to engage. But so many people seem to feel obliged to present their strong dislike for the Fairphone as if it's sole existence attacks them personally.
I noticed the same general reactions for Framework laptops. Some folks are acting like these smaller companies are trying to force their products on the consumers, but their advertising is completely fine.
However I also find some of the supporters of consumer friendliness unbearable (e.g. Framework or Thinkpad fans).
I get that tribalism is present in many layers of our society and culture (politics, sports, music), but I always found it weirder when people do it for products. The only goal of a company is to maximize their profits, why someone becomes a die hard supporter of them is beyond me.
To summarize, I just wish people would put less emphasis on consumer practices. Buy a product you like and is beneficial for you, but don’t judge others for their choices.
> The only goal of a company is to maximize their profits
Overall this is effectively true, but it is not a law of the universe or anything.
Why can't a collection of people have ideals, want to support and realize those ideals through action, and also find a way to financially support themselves and even profit by pursuing those ideals?
The hypothesis you've put forth is that the group that founded Framework were sitting around thinking about the best way they could invest money to make money, and the best option they could come up with was to make modular laptops. What has their return on investment been thus far, and does it clearly and readily beat all other options they had for investing?
Plenty of companies choose different balances between profits and social impact. Compare Unilever and Nestle and tell me all companies are equally profit-focused. Look at Patagonia.
I agree with a live and let live view of purchasing decisions, and I agree that tribalism about companies is weird, but at the end of the day it’s far too reductive to say all companies prioritize profits equally.
I see it as a larger problem in many "ideologically inclined" projects, like Open Source software, fairtrade products, etc.
A large amount of energy is wasted on "infighting" where people spend significant effort on attacking projects that, seen from a distance, are actually allies¹.
Or where people dismiss the entire project because it's not 100 aligned with their view of perfection².
Or, indeed, where people who don't even use or want to use a project, spend significant effort to discredit this project.
¹ an example is the enormous amount of effort and campaigning within the "mastodon" community against projects like bluesky or nostr. But also gnome vs kde, Ubuntu vs Redhat, Etc
² an example is Opensource software being discredited because they use GitHub, or host on AWS. It's Patagonia being discredited because they use plastic. Or Fairtrade coffee being dismissed because it transports coffee with trucks and ships burning oil.
I experience this a lot. I have a Fairphone 5 and helping provide answers to questions in threads online is a minefield. You answer questions of someone, and somebody else comes along and starts shouting they want feature x.
People seem to flock to smaller phone companies and demand they fill in their one feature. Whether it's USB-OTG display functionality, headphone jack, slider to kill all connections, etc, everybody is convinced their one feature is holding this phone company back, just because they want this one feature.
It's just disappointing. I'm just happy with my long-lasting repairable phone.
Although it does have a μSD card slot, it does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Sadly, my search for a new phone, since Samsung now has neither, will continue.
8 GBs of RAM, what is the point of this? if you can't upgrade the ram this device lifespan will be limited
put at least 12 GBs or just don't even bother, EU already has rules for software updates and repairability, so there're not that many selling points left
The technical descriptions are clearly lacking, up to the point where this product page almost makes me angry... the dimensions seem to be "156.5mm x 73.3mm" with "9,6 mm" thickness, but just right below in the isometric view it says 162mm x 75.5mm x 10.5mmm. I would be really interested in this product as replacement for the iPhone SE, but how can they screw up something so simple?
According to this https://github.com/the-pudding/data/tree/master/pockets data, only 27.5% of women's jeans and 97.5% of men's jean could fit a phone wider than 72mm in their front pocket. While not a common truth, it is a little annoying.
For this phone in particular, it's 5% for women and 85% for men. Assuming a lot of things, the majority of the population cannot fit this in their pocket.
It's hard to find research about this, but I think a lot of people might think that yes, phones are too big. (And that's not even thinking about hand size and how it affect comfort of use).
Just because majoroty repeat something, it doeant meant that it is true. Conformity behavior shape opinions on observable facts, look at Asch experiments.
I also wish there were more compact options, but the Pixel 8 is 71mm wide and you can unlock the bootloader. And if you're gonna run a custom ROM, the Pixel 5 is still a decent option.
True, but if you don't want to give your money to google or use anything from them (why would I need custom ROM?), then your options are quite limited.
Sizes of modern phones are interesting. Manufactures doesn't mind making phones into small tablet devices, but make them a bit thinker... That's crazy talk.
To be fair (pun intended), the Fair Phone 6 is a very good option for a midrange phone in 2025, the Snapdragon 7s gen 3 is more than enough for running any app the general user might use. That is without considering the ease to fix.
If they'd just provide a physical switch (not software-based but actually cutting off the respective chips and antennae from electricity) to go full offline (no GPS, no Wifi, no mobile connection, ...) they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential.
> they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential.
I doubt they'd even get the RND cost for that change back, this is a feature no one cares about except a very very small minority within a small minority. I'm a hardcare FOSS only user and only use grapheneos/fedora linux on my devices for privacy and security reasons and even I am not remotely concerned about hardware switches when i can just powerdown the wifi/Gps/wwan connection.
I'm not sure if thats true. I would love the ability to be able to save battery by turning off my mobile.
At the moment iPhones seem to drain power even when they are "off" which makes me suspect that they aren't, in fact, actually fully powered off. There have been a few occasions when I have been without a charger for one reason or another, and would like to be able to fully power off my phone in order to save battery.
I'd be happiest if they'd provide a physical switch for the microphone and cameras. That way, you could have a private conversation and be sure you're not being recorded.
Turning off connectivity doesn't help as much to guarantee your privacy as the phone could theoretically be recording and then upload the recording later, when you turn it back on (if it was thoroughly compromised, which admittedly seems unlikely, but nevertheless it would be nice to have some guarantee that it's impossible).
Such a device, sufficiently deshittified, might win some contracts in the sasec (safety and security) biz. But let's be honest, the Fairphone, strictly from a security standpoint, is more aimed at the performativity crowd. Heck, most people already seem to lack the imagination for when and why killswitches and the like might be a really good idea. Kind of like with mSD card slots, audio jacks, etc.
Wireless-only, data-harvesting slabs are good enough for ME, so they oughta be good enough FOR EVERYONE!
I don't think it's easy to not carry a phone, nowadays. Let's say I'm meeting up with someone: I'll need to use navigation, potentially message them if I'm running late, and so on.
Then once I'm there, what do I do with the phone? Ask to put it in a separate room and hope that the microphone isn't powerful enough to pick up our conversation?
I could turn it off entirely, but what if someone needs to call me for an emergency?
For me, as a user, the easiest solution would be to have a killswitch. I understand that building it would be more work, of course :)
Yes, that's what I had to do for meetings that the organizer thought were important enough. Also, in very sensitive areas special rooms with anti-eavesdropping gear are common [1].
> I could turn it off entirely, but what if someone needs to call me for an emergency?
But you would also not be reachable if the killswitch is active ;)
Don't get me wrong, I think a killswitch can make a lot of sense for highly sensitive areas (R&D, politics, military, ...), but I don't think Fairphone 6 are the devices that target this demographic and thus should not include one. Furthermore, current "offline" measure seem to mitigate the problem okay enough to not need such a killswitch - else we would already have phones with such features. And lastly, killswitches can only mitigate parts of the features modern spyware [2] implements and does not protect from simple human-based errors like the United States government group chat leaks [3].
I've never heard this request from anyone before, so I guess that implementing such a switch wouldn't "effortlessly at least double their market potential".
What a lot of people talk about is a headphone jack. But even that niche has been filled by USB-C adapters for people that really want them and not only talk nostalgic about it.
It hasn't been filled by those adapters. Usb-C adapters suck as you have to carry them with you, they can be lost, quality is often bad and they block the one charging port of the device.
The demand for a headphone jack is fueled by functionality and sustainability concerns, not nostalgia - can't, too recent a change and current devices do have the port.
Plenty of phones with headphone jacks had terrible DACs. If you care about audio quality, external is the way to go. It’s also more sustainable as you can spend $100 once for fantastic quality and keep it forever rather than insisting that each phone have an audiophile quality DAC that will eventually be disposed of.
The one upside is convenience of not having a separate dongle, which is pretty well offset by the significant increase in phone size needed to accommodate the jack.
Given the current phone sizes compared to the phones from before, that all had the headphone jack, the idea that you would need even bigger phones as otherwise it just would not fit is ridiculous.
For the external DAC, you have to balance the "you could buy that once" against all the consumers that are pushed by the omission of the headphone jack to buy throwaway head- and earphones with glued in batteries. There is no chance in hell that the waste produced of both paths is in favour of the jackless phones.
There are legitimate situations where you may want to have a phone easily accessible, but not zapping your location to a base station every millisecond. For example protests.
If you are worried about getting noticed at a protest, stay at home. If you plan on doing things at that protest which might make it necessary to track you, please stay at home.
While there are plenty of valid reasons not to tell the government where you are 24/7 (including reasons like "I don't feel like it"), I agree that protests shouldn't be a reason. Functioning democracies don't arrest people for peaceful protests, and the governments that do won't be fooled by just not bringing your phone with you in the age of surveillance planes regularly sweeping areas to track movements, facial recognition, and simply finding you because they've arrested other protestors you know already.
For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out. You may as well keep your (Android) phone in your pocket (but turned off, though that won't help with iOS' Find My network).
> "Functioning democracies don't arrest people for peaceful protests [...]"
That might be true on planet Ogo, but not on planet Earth.
> "For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out."
Another utterly absurd statement. Killswitches are, amongst other places and situations, useful on the battlefield (and therefore urban "battlefield", e. g. protests). And turning a practical solution to tactical and operational problems into a discussion about the inapplicability of such solutions to cure the "ills of society" at large is just... bizarre.
1. The government doesn't have any way to only track the phones of people torching cars. Everyone in the vicinity with an active cellphone is going to get caught up in that dragnet.
2. That advice sounds more reasonable if you assume a reasonable government that is only interested in tracking people who are torching cars. Governments have retaliated against political dissidents in the past who have committed no crimes.
To your point 1: Haven't you learnt at school that if you hang with the bad guys, you can get punished even through you claim not having done anything? Is that not a lesson everyone learns anymore?
No, people should be allowed to do things that are risky, and mitigate that risk, without being told to not do that activity at all.
I wear a helmet and leather when I ride my motorcycle. Obviously, it'd be safer to never ride the motorcycle. But, I want to the ride the motorcycle, so, if I'm going to do it, it makes sense to mitigate my risk on it.
If people want to go to protests, they should, however a killswitch isn't good enough imo - you should leave your phone at home so the cops don't steal it from you, force you to unlock it with your fingerprint or faceID (a valid legal order in the USA), and then hunt through the contents to hit you with some bogus charge.
First and foremost, it would be less noisy! What MC riders tend to conveniently forget is that they are putting the burden of having to deal with the noise they produce on everyone around them. Yes, your safety is also important (for you), but the noise you're producing is an issue for everyone around you.
OOookay yeah sure, human activities can have secondary consequences on people around them, that's true. So, what? The conversation was around mitigating risk...
Also, imo cars and their driver's dependence on them are a significantly greater cause of noise pollution than me and my stock pipe motorcycle, or even a harley. Hundreds of car tires rolling by on the road all day every day is so horrendously loud I can hear it from the 21st floor of my parent's apartment. When the 3 nearby red lights line up perfectly it's suddenly so quiet you can hear the cidadas on the mountain.
Not to mention the beeping, in the city I can hear a car beep from hundreds of meters away, echoing off the buildings. Or sometimes when I'm a pedestrian they'll dare to beep at me for the crime of walking in a way that inconveniences them, that's very very loud!
I take my motorcycle from my apartment straight into the basically unlived-on mountain roads, two weekends a month at most. I highly doubt I'm burdening anyone even a fraction what the average car driver does to tens of thousands of people every week.
Same reason I encrypt my messages and web traffic: my ISP/carrier and government don't need to know everything I do, even if they're not malicious and even if I'm not a criminal.
Governments and carriers retaining months of location history data is a risk. If the Russians invade and get a hold of that data, a lot of people suddenly become at risk, for no good reason other than it being around "just in case".
We've seen it happen here in the Netherlands when the nazis came in and happily browsed through the city archives, which contained a details count of how many people of what religion lived in each neighbourhood.
I have nothing to fear from the current government, but with the rise in ultraconservative, anti-intellectual, extreme right wing politicians across the globe, a lot of people may not want to be recorded having been to things that are perfectly safe today.
All of that said, as long as you don't have an iPhone, you can just turn your phone off. It'll power down the CPU. If you don't believe the manufacturer, then you'll have to measure the voltage on the PCB traces yourself, but so should you when you buy phones with a physical off switch.
Unless you assume the market for smartphone hardware with physical switches is the same as the one for sustainable smartphones, I don’t think they’re going to gain much from adding the switches. The only phones with switches that I know are the PinePhones and the librem phone that has a very questionable customer service. [1]. Adding them to the phone design will mean expensive constraints, making the overall cost even more in which case you’re either shedding money to increase market share or you’re narrowing your target market to the librem-phone size. At that point, what’s the meaning of this exercise?
This would appeal the privacy/security crowd, but it is not really Fairphone's market. There are better options if that's what you are looking for, such as the Librem phones.
They probably don't want to position themselves against security-focused phones as they would likely be compared unfavorably with them. That is unless they also do whatever it takes to enter that market, for example by supporting a security-focused OS like GrapheneOS.
They could have kept the headphone jack though, but I guess they wanted to sell their earbuds (with replaceable batteries! which is at least a good point).
I made the switch to iPhone because they had a physical mute slider. A physical 'airplane mode' would be even better.
Now Apple has removed that ... and I am not happy. Yes, the functionality is theoretically available by configuring the 'smart button'. But I don't physically see the state of the device without picking it up.
The main camera still sucks, and they seem to keep with the misleading messaging. It's not a 50mp camera if the sensor is 50mp but each pixel in the final photos is averaged from 4 pixels of the sensor...
Yes, the closed-source camera app that does not work on Lineage OS and other alternative firmwares has a 50MP switch, however the quality of the 50MP photo is as poor if not worse than the processed 13MP photo...
It is 50mp camera still, otherwise you would not be able to increase quality by averaging those pixels.
I dont think anyone need 15000px noisy poor quality image over standard high res with good quality
Maybe it wasn't clear in my original comment. It sucks picture-quality-wise, and ON TOP of that, they use misleading messaging with their 50MP mode... Colour is washed out, focus is all over the place... I see no reason to buy a 6 before my 5 dies, which is funny because I can swap its components out indefinitely I guess...
This is better than most phones on the market, but I can't help but be turned off when I scroll down and start seeing the Google Play logo and mentions about AI and Google Gemini.
I wish like 75% of the overview page weren't dedicated to the camera. Yes, I get it, camera is important to the average smartphone user these days, but, come on. I'm not potentially buying a Fairphone for the camera.
I've got a Fairphone 4 and the most useful thing about it is the replaceable battery. I can't count the number of times an extra battery in my backpack has saved me.
Sure, maybe it's not that big of a deal to bring a screwdriver with me as well. But I just know I'm going to lose those tiny screws and changing the battery at the back of a taxi goes out the window.
The tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following:
USB-C 2.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output? That's sad. Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs:
USB-C 3.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/display (also Android™ desktop mode)/Camera/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
But maybe it was not used enough?
> But maybe it was not used enough?
Likely not used enough, yet. It would be premature to drop support this quick, as Google seems to just now move Android in the direction (DEX by Samsung is the same thing, but it's Samsung specific).
At the same time, only last year I saw a device in which I'd "dock" my phone (the Nexdock looked reasonably priced) and having both a phone and the steam deck with desktop mode would make such a device more useful.
I know you're talking strictly from the perspective of display glasses, but convergence is the main category under which I'd classify this feature.
I agree, display with desktop mode on mobile devices could be useful. I'd really like the idea of using a phone as an everything device at some point, but there are a lot of things that are not lining up, with missing compatibility with external displays being a huge blocker.
Really sad.
Based on what I had read yesterday, when I still hoped that it will have the same USB 3.0/DisplayPort like Fairphone 5, I was considering very seriously to upgrade my rather old ASUS smartphone to a Fairphone 6.
However, if it lacks USB 3.0/DisplayPort, which can be acceptable for a $200 smartphone, but never for a $600 smartphone, then Fairphone 6 is completely disqualified from my point of view.
Unfortunately, only some Chinese smartphones, e.g. from Motorola, offer USB 3.0/DisplayPort in smartphones with decent price/performance ratios and up-to-date Qualcomm SoCs, starting as low as $400.
Yeah, I am considering either the previous Fairphone or a Samsung for this capability, but I had looked forward to go with a European developed phone this time. Oh well.
I bought the Fairphone 4 a while after the 5 came out. It felt like their strategy was basically to use the previous edition as the "low-end model", i.e. it's cheaper and less powerful, but still well-supported. And I'm very happy with it.
Which is to say, buying the previous Fairphone is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
Isn't USB C 2.0 on-par with what recent iPhone models offer? It's just fine.
Yeah, totally adequate for a normal phone, yet lacking if you want to use your phone for something more. You could argue that this isn't something that a phone should be used for, but yet it's something that I'd like to try.
>You could argue that this isn't something that a phone should be used for
Shouldn't the user decide what to use it for, instead of others?
If people aren't gonna use USB 3.0, that's fine, but at least have it for those who do, it's not gonna bother the rest.
It's not like USB 3.0 is some expensive rocket science that takes a lot of effort to implement or takes up space in the phone like the headphone jack.
The iPhone Pros have USB 3.0 since the 15 series.
>Isn't USB C 2.0 on-par with what recent iPhone models offer?
Except I don't want to put up with the bs that Apple does to its customers, otherwise I'd buy an iPhone. It's not outrageous to expect USB 3.0, a 15 year old standard, on a 600 Euro phone with modern internals in 2025 that users are expected to keep for a long time without upgrading.
>It's just fine.
Just because it's fine for you doesn't mean it's fine for others. For other's that's the dealbreaker. Fairphone isn't a mainstream brand, it's a niche brand which tends to draw enthusiasts (often tech workers, hackers, tinkerers, etc), and enthusiasts are more picky and expect more features than your regular Apple and Samsung "muggles".
People buy niche phone brands not because they're the most performant or sexy, but because they still provide the niche features that Apple and Samsung gave up on, like SD cards, headphone jacks, removable batteries, etc.
OnePlus had USB 3.0 and DisplayPort outputs on 500 Euro phones all the way in 2019, and that feature was a lifesaver when my laptop suddenly died. There's no excuse now for this phone.
Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature, and it’s just highly opinionated people cosplaying as wizards who insist it’s incredibly important?
As a product manager, if I had a dime for every time someone insisted with stridency bordering on rudeness that some fringe feature was absolutely critical to my product’s success, despite data showing no market demand even from these overconfident “experts”… I would have a lot of dimes.
> Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature, and it’s just highly opinionated people cosplaying as wizards who insist it’s incredibly important?
I'm a fairphone user and promoter. They are a good company for what they do, but I doubt they have the finances to really do anything outside product development, software work (albeit slowly) and a bit of marketing.
If their user survey is anything to go by, they mostly ask about how the users match on their brand and mission, and less about what the users want. Their forum has a bunch of feedback on what they could do differently. Some acknowledged, like lack of communication and software updates (yet to see the results of that).
>Do you think it’s possible that Fairphone did research and found that nobody used this feature
Like I said, I don't care what process they did to justify that decision internally, all I said is I'm not buying it since for me it's a deal breaker, but since their competitors ship this feature my money is ging to them. Simples. Free market baby.
If they think it's gonna sell well regardless, then power to them and I wish them well, but how do you know their decision is the right one and my opinion is the wrong one? I guess only time will tell.
But the majority of mainstream users who don't care about those features tend to buy Apple and Samsung anyway, not niche brands they never heard of. So then how do they expect to sway mainstream customers away as you suggest without differentiating features?
Now with the EU repairability laws and recent product developments, changing the display or battery on a Samsung or IPhone isn't the nightmare it once was, so repairability isn't such a huge differentiator feature for Fairphone as it was 5+ years ago, so they need to offer more to stand out, not less. The goalposts have moved, in favor of the consumer.
>As a product manager [...] that some fringe feature was absolutely critical to my product’s success
How niche or mass market was your product? If you have a niche product then fringe features could be important, otherwise your customers might prefer going with your tried and true IBMs since nobody ever got fired for that.
The niche might be different. The fairphone seems - completely subjective impression - appeal to a big part to non-techies that buy if for the sustainability promises. For them USB-3 might not matter at all, they probably never even connect it to their laptop ever. And never to a display, they don't own one.
Sufficiently technical users might prefer a used flagship phone that supports custom ROMs, maybe some market segmentation like that is in play here. Case in point, the missing headphone jack, and that the tech specs have never been impressive.
It would also explain why in their forum repairability was called a non-goal from a big user group, only the fair production aspect were relevant.
I wonder if this is something that could be “upgraded” at some point, aka a part that could be replaced later?
Or would there be other limitations, like compatibility with a processor/chip…?
Strange. Even my Fairphone 4 has USB 3 it seems and supports connecting to an external display. Is a nice feature although I don't use it (yet).
To be fair (pun intended), I am still on Fairphone 4, and I've gotta say it has lasted me very well, and the battery is still in good condition so the selling point of being able to swap the battery (something I actually _have_ practically missed in the phones I have owned before the Fairphone) hasn't really even come up yet. Ironically, I have been mildly itching to replace the 4 with the 6, just because. But I am not going to -- not until current phone becomes unusable.
I got a FP3 in 2020, replaced the battery and the bottom module in 2022 because I couldn't charge it anymore, and I've been really happy with it ever since. I'm not planning on buying a new phone until this one die.
My only issue with my FP3 is that I have to tighten all the screws from time to time otherwise whenever the screen displays too many green pixels the touchscreen will start to trigger at random.
Isn't that one of the selling points of the Fairphone - the durability?
Same story here. 4 is running strong, with ongoing updates from e/OS.
Still rocking a 3 here (albeit only 5 years old). Going quite strong after a couple of replacements and upgrades.
I've got a Fairphone 4 since 4 years and I've bought two replacement batteries so far (one has gone bad and I like to have an extra to swap with if needed).
It still works very well with CalyxOS so the rational thing to do is to keep using it.
Fairphone also sent some Linux patches: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-pm/20250625-sm7635-fp6-initial...
One core member (@z3entu) of postmarketOS works at Fairphone.
available with /e/OS too https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-s...
As I near the eol of my daily driver, I'm considering a Fairphone, but what it's missing is a folding card holder, like the Satechi wallet stand for iPhone. Putting the phone in horizontal mode on a table and using a bt keyboard is how I do a lot of my writing
This question always comes up:
The Reason GrapheneOS isn't made for Fairphones Officially is that Fairphones lack a lot of base requirements for official support:
https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
There's nothing preventing anyone from making a 3rd Party port of GrapheneOS to Fairphones, it just seems no one does.
Which features specifically do Fairphones miss? It seems to me like most of those requirements are all part of the (mostly open-source) software stack. The Fairphone uses a standard Qualcomm chip that should work as well or as badly as a Pixel SoC.
The "Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs)" part isn't even true for Pixels.
>The "Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs)" part isn't even true for Pixels.
Doesn't the ASB get published at the same time as pixel updates? So by definition it's up to date.
Yes, but vulnerabilities don't always get backported to older (supported) devices immediately. I distinctly recall one case where an Android CVE was patched months later on one Pixel model compared to the others that were in support. However, because search engines have all become terrible in the age of AI, I can only find vague references.
I did, for instance, find a case where Google Project Zero published a blog post on a vulnerability while their Pixel 6 was still four days away from the first updates: https://9to5google.com/2023/03/20/pixel-6-march-2023-update/
I myself regularly find my Pixel only noticing updates half a month later unless I manually check while my Samsung tablet notifies me immediately once my quarterly update is available. It's quite annoying to have to check for updates manually every week, but I suppose updates are technically available.
> The Fairphone uses a standard Qualcomm chip that should work as well or as badly as a Pixel SoC.
I suspect it's the features of the titan m2 security chip. It's a pretty cool piece engineering [0].
[0] https://www.androidauthority.com/titan-m2-google-3261547/
The tech is impressive, but not exactly Google exclusive. If the ROM developers intend to only support devices with Pixel exclusive features like the Titan chips, they might as well say they're not interested in supporting non-Google phones.
here's a pretty good thread about compatibility:
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114721666000552094
This is a misunderstanding. It's just that Google Pixel are the only devices that have this level of hardware security engineering AND are open to thirdparty roms like grapheneos to a decent degree.
Samsung Flagships and Iphones seem to have similar level of security engineering in them (Pixels use Samsung CPUs essentially) but aren't open to the required degree for third party roms.
There's nothing else on the Market that delivers on that Level. The GrapheneOS guys are working with someone one a potential custom phone to get the required level of hardware security but nothing has materialized. Companies like Fairphone are free to deliver hardware that is competitive in the security space and i'm sure that the grapheneos team will consider them then. But until anyone else does i'll keep buying whatever phone grapheneos wants me to buy, i don't care.
This seems to be missing the new focus features introduced with the physical switch, or am I missing something here. Also quoted as 50/100€ more expensive (two prices on the same page?)
The $50 extra, for a pre-installed eOS goes toward the eOS Developers;
However you could also install eOS yourself instead of course, if you prefer.
eOS uses microG. I'd wish Fairphone offered partnership with GrapheneOS, especially now that Google broke their workflow. Sandboxed Play Services is pretty much a must for a lot of people.
>I'd wish Fairphone offered partnership with GrapheneOS
The makers of GrapheneOS have indicated that Fairphone doesn't meet their security requirements:
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114737139118874189
I think there are some fundamental flaws with how Fairphone operates, plus they don't seem to release security updates promptly.
> plus they don't seem to release security updates promptly.
They did announce they're going to do daily linux patches though, so that's atleast something https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fairphone-6-Linux
So Fairphone is NOT secure?
Fairphone is as insecure as most non-flagship Android phones. Make of that what you will.
GrapheneOS takes security very seriously. Your average desktop PC or laptop won't come close to their requirements. That makes GrapheneOS an excellent OS for people who want the security of iOS without the many downsides of Apple. Their patches reduce usability but make the phone more secure than Google's own, official Android build.
However, if you've ever used a Windows (or Linux) laptop, you've already experienced the kind of insecurity that GrapheneOS tries to prevent. No hardware encryption accelerators outside of the CPU, rarely any patches that roll out within a weak of announcement, firmware protection being basically nonexistent, no A/B updates, almost certainly no verified boot (even with Secure Boot enabled), and usually no firmware USB lockdown.
Interesting enough, GrapheneOS runs exclusively on google devices. This fact makes it obsolete for me. I don't trust google in anything, soft or hard ware.
Security is a policy-driven spectrum of considerations and solutions. GrapheneOS targets very specific threat models, which is not possible with Fairphone hardware/BSP. Whether it makes it not secure for your own use cases, it's up to you to decide.
Case in point: re-lockable bootloader requirement. Not everyone is a target for an evil maid types of physical attacks or possible state actor pressure. But when you actually need it, it's not negotiable.
Unfortunately there seems to be bad blood between the two :(
It would be good if Fairphone could make a product that meets GrapheneOS requirements, but they measure the tradeoffs between security, usability, and cost (to do hardware and software things) differently. Each team is free to make the choices they deem fit. If only the intersection of GrapheneOS and Fairphone users were bigger, market forces would push them towards a common vision.
> Unfortunately there seems to be bad blood between the two :(
There's is no bad blood here, it's merely that fairphone doesn't meet the required standards for them to be a target the graphene team is interested in supporting offically. There's nothing preventing anyone from porting it themselves and nothing preventing fairphone from porting an inferior version of grapheneos to their phoens.
I'm actually interested on this. Has anyone used previous Fairphones with /e/os? ¿How painless is the experience?
I've used it on both my previous phone (Fairphone 2) and now on the Fairphone 4. It's very painless, their installer is easy to use. The caveat here is that my most-used app is Firefox, and I don't use banking apps or Chromecast, which people seem to be worried about often.
Thanks for the answer. I finally ordered the Fairphone 6 with /e/os. I hope I do not regret this decision.
I hope so too! The fallback is switching back to regular Android. If /e/OS doesn't work well enough for you, it wouldn't work well enough on other phones either, so in that sense this purchase isn't a waste.
While I use CalyxOS not /e/os the experience was very painless. I assume it's the same with /e/os.
Is it just me or does the discourse about a product like the Fairphone often feel kind of "culture war"-y? So many times I read comments where people are very upset and offended how a Fairphone costs way too much compared to other smartphones or how it supposedly is completely unusable because one feature does not work the way they expect. It's just strange. If you don't like it, don't buy it, no need to engage. But so many people seem to feel obliged to present their strong dislike for the Fairphone as if it's sole existence attacks them personally.
I noticed the same general reactions for Framework laptops. Some folks are acting like these smaller companies are trying to force their products on the consumers, but their advertising is completely fine.
However I also find some of the supporters of consumer friendliness unbearable (e.g. Framework or Thinkpad fans).
I get that tribalism is present in many layers of our society and culture (politics, sports, music), but I always found it weirder when people do it for products. The only goal of a company is to maximize their profits, why someone becomes a die hard supporter of them is beyond me.
To summarize, I just wish people would put less emphasis on consumer practices. Buy a product you like and is beneficial for you, but don’t judge others for their choices.
> The only goal of a company is to maximize their profits
Overall this is effectively true, but it is not a law of the universe or anything.
Why can't a collection of people have ideals, want to support and realize those ideals through action, and also find a way to financially support themselves and even profit by pursuing those ideals?
The hypothesis you've put forth is that the group that founded Framework were sitting around thinking about the best way they could invest money to make money, and the best option they could come up with was to make modular laptops. What has their return on investment been thus far, and does it clearly and readily beat all other options they had for investing?
Plenty of companies choose different balances between profits and social impact. Compare Unilever and Nestle and tell me all companies are equally profit-focused. Look at Patagonia.
I agree with a live and let live view of purchasing decisions, and I agree that tribalism about companies is weird, but at the end of the day it’s far too reductive to say all companies prioritize profits equally.
I see it as a larger problem in many "ideologically inclined" projects, like Open Source software, fairtrade products, etc.
A large amount of energy is wasted on "infighting" where people spend significant effort on attacking projects that, seen from a distance, are actually allies¹.
Or where people dismiss the entire project because it's not 100 aligned with their view of perfection².
Or, indeed, where people who don't even use or want to use a project, spend significant effort to discredit this project.
¹ an example is the enormous amount of effort and campaigning within the "mastodon" community against projects like bluesky or nostr. But also gnome vs kde, Ubuntu vs Redhat, Etc
² an example is Opensource software being discredited because they use GitHub, or host on AWS. It's Patagonia being discredited because they use plastic. Or Fairtrade coffee being dismissed because it transports coffee with trucks and ships burning oil.
I experience this a lot. I have a Fairphone 5 and helping provide answers to questions in threads online is a minefield. You answer questions of someone, and somebody else comes along and starts shouting they want feature x.
People seem to flock to smaller phone companies and demand they fill in their one feature. Whether it's USB-OTG display functionality, headphone jack, slider to kill all connections, etc, everybody is convinced their one feature is holding this phone company back, just because they want this one feature.
It's just disappointing. I'm just happy with my long-lasting repairable phone.
This is super common with most slightly niche devices I feel.
Framework/Oura/Whoop/Garmin/Fairphone etc etc it's all the same.
Where is the headphone jack?
And the parallel port?
...and the front panel toggle switches?
... And the interface for my IBM 729?
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Although it does have a μSD card slot, it does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Sadly, my search for a new phone, since Samsung now has neither, will continue.
The obscure Brax3 has a jack, which is why I ordered one and am awaiting its arrival.
The Motorola Moto G series has both.
I just bought their 2025 model for that reason.
8 GBs of RAM, what is the point of this? if you can't upgrade the ram this device lifespan will be limited
put at least 12 GBs or just don't even bother, EU already has rules for software updates and repairability, so there're not that many selling points left
It's not clear to me how many of the components are swappable in this version. That was a big selling point of the Fairphone to begin with.
The technical descriptions are clearly lacking, up to the point where this product page almost makes me angry... the dimensions seem to be "156.5mm x 73.3mm" with "9,6 mm" thickness, but just right below in the isometric view it says 162mm x 75.5mm x 10.5mmm. I would be really interested in this product as replacement for the iPhone SE, but how can they screw up something so simple?
Anything above 72mm is too big to use it comfortable by one hand or put it in pocket.
I wish there is compact android phone with open bootloadet option.
Too big for you, or too big for almost everyone?
If the latter, do you have a source or some research to point to?
If the former, why did you choose to present a personal preference as a common truth?
According to this https://github.com/the-pudding/data/tree/master/pockets data, only 27.5% of women's jeans and 97.5% of men's jean could fit a phone wider than 72mm in their front pocket. While not a common truth, it is a little annoying.
For this phone in particular, it's 5% for women and 85% for men. Assuming a lot of things, the majority of the population cannot fit this in their pocket.
It's hard to find research about this, but I think a lot of people might think that yes, phones are too big. (And that's not even thinking about hand size and how it affect comfort of use).
What is a common truth?
Universal truth?
Based on what? Subjective observation?
Just because majoroty repeat something, it doeant meant that it is true. Conformity behavior shape opinions on observable facts, look at Asch experiments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
I also wish there were more compact options, but the Pixel 8 is 71mm wide and you can unlock the bootloader. And if you're gonna run a custom ROM, the Pixel 5 is still a decent option.
True, but if you don't want to give your money to google or use anything from them (why would I need custom ROM?), then your options are quite limited.
Sizes of modern phones are interesting. Manufactures doesn't mind making phones into small tablet devices, but make them a bit thinker... That's crazy talk.
Because bigger screens are more catchy and give you more space to show ads.
But with a thicker phone you can fit a bigger battery and watch ads for longer.
The website speaks of 12 modules, haven't investigated which.
The shop has the 12 available replacement parts: https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?categ...
To be fair (pun intended), the Fair Phone 6 is a very good option for a midrange phone in 2025, the Snapdragon 7s gen 3 is more than enough for running any app the general user might use. That is without considering the ease to fix.
If they'd just provide a physical switch (not software-based but actually cutting off the respective chips and antennae from electricity) to go full offline (no GPS, no Wifi, no mobile connection, ...) they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential.
> they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential.
I doubt they'd even get the RND cost for that change back, this is a feature no one cares about except a very very small minority within a small minority. I'm a hardcare FOSS only user and only use grapheneos/fedora linux on my devices for privacy and security reasons and even I am not remotely concerned about hardware switches when i can just powerdown the wifi/Gps/wwan connection.
I'm not sure if thats true. I would love the ability to be able to save battery by turning off my mobile.
At the moment iPhones seem to drain power even when they are "off" which makes me suspect that they aren't, in fact, actually fully powered off. There have been a few occasions when I have been without a charger for one reason or another, and would like to be able to fully power off my phone in order to save battery.
I'd be happiest if they'd provide a physical switch for the microphone and cameras. That way, you could have a private conversation and be sure you're not being recorded.
Turning off connectivity doesn't help as much to guarantee your privacy as the phone could theoretically be recording and then upload the recording later, when you turn it back on (if it was thoroughly compromised, which admittedly seems unlikely, but nevertheless it would be nice to have some guarantee that it's impossible).
Such a device, sufficiently deshittified, might win some contracts in the sasec (safety and security) biz. But let's be honest, the Fairphone, strictly from a security standpoint, is more aimed at the performativity crowd. Heck, most people already seem to lack the imagination for when and why killswitches and the like might be a really good idea. Kind of like with mSD card slots, audio jacks, etc.
Wireless-only, data-harvesting slabs are good enough for ME, so they oughta be good enough FOR EVERYONE!
The easiest solution to such strict privacy needs is to not carry the phones. But then again you also need to worry about other means of espionage.
I don't think it's easy to not carry a phone, nowadays. Let's say I'm meeting up with someone: I'll need to use navigation, potentially message them if I'm running late, and so on.
Then once I'm there, what do I do with the phone? Ask to put it in a separate room and hope that the microphone isn't powerful enough to pick up our conversation?
I could turn it off entirely, but what if someone needs to call me for an emergency?
For me, as a user, the easiest solution would be to have a killswitch. I understand that building it would be more work, of course :)
> Ask to put it in a separate room...
Yes, that's what I had to do for meetings that the organizer thought were important enough. Also, in very sensitive areas special rooms with anti-eavesdropping gear are common [1].
> I could turn it off entirely, but what if someone needs to call me for an emergency?
But you would also not be reachable if the killswitch is active ;)
Don't get me wrong, I think a killswitch can make a lot of sense for highly sensitive areas (R&D, politics, military, ...), but I don't think Fairphone 6 are the devices that target this demographic and thus should not include one. Furthermore, current "offline" measure seem to mitigate the problem okay enough to not need such a killswitch - else we would already have phones with such features. And lastly, killswitches can only mitigate parts of the features modern spyware [2] implements and does not protect from simple human-based errors like the United States government group chat leaks [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_inform... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_group...
> But you would also not be reachable if the killswitch is active ;)
I would be, because I asked for a killswitch for the microphone and cameras, not a killswitch for connectivity like the original comment.
If I get a call while the killswitch is active, I can stop the sensitive conversation, turn on the microphone, and answer the call.
yes, of course, this as well
I've never heard this request from anyone before, so I guess that implementing such a switch wouldn't "effortlessly at least double their market potential".
What a lot of people talk about is a headphone jack. But even that niche has been filled by USB-C adapters for people that really want them and not only talk nostalgic about it.
It hasn't been filled by those adapters. Usb-C adapters suck as you have to carry them with you, they can be lost, quality is often bad and they block the one charging port of the device.
The demand for a headphone jack is fueled by functionality and sustainability concerns, not nostalgia - can't, too recent a change and current devices do have the port.
Plenty of phones with headphone jacks had terrible DACs. If you care about audio quality, external is the way to go. It’s also more sustainable as you can spend $100 once for fantastic quality and keep it forever rather than insisting that each phone have an audiophile quality DAC that will eventually be disposed of.
The one upside is convenience of not having a separate dongle, which is pretty well offset by the significant increase in phone size needed to accommodate the jack.
Given the current phone sizes compared to the phones from before, that all had the headphone jack, the idea that you would need even bigger phones as otherwise it just would not fit is ridiculous.
For the external DAC, you have to balance the "you could buy that once" against all the consumers that are pushed by the omission of the headphone jack to buy throwaway head- and earphones with glued in batteries. There is no chance in hell that the waste produced of both paths is in favour of the jackless phones.
All devices, especially small devices, made tradeoffs. It's not like they have empty space in them.
Would you want less battery?
> they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential
I think you overestimate the appeal of such a feature
Or you overestimate the appeal of the device as it is, how many do they sell?
Enough to keep going for 6 generations and 16 years. I fail to see any connection to this particular feature request though.
Genuinely interested, why is that? IOW, why do I want a (mobile) phone without connectivity?
Not a phone without connectivity. A phone with truly optional connectivity.
OK, but why?
There are legitimate situations where you may want to have a phone easily accessible, but not zapping your location to a base station every millisecond. For example protests.
If you are worried about getting noticed at a protest, stay at home. If you plan on doing things at that protest which might make it necessary to track you, please stay at home.
Do you think similarly about encrypted communication or locks in bathroom doors?
At least in the US geofencing warrants are a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofence_warrant
It is prudent to protect oneself against that.
While there are plenty of valid reasons not to tell the government where you are 24/7 (including reasons like "I don't feel like it"), I agree that protests shouldn't be a reason. Functioning democracies don't arrest people for peaceful protests, and the governments that do won't be fooled by just not bringing your phone with you in the age of surveillance planes regularly sweeping areas to track movements, facial recognition, and simply finding you because they've arrested other protestors you know already.
For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out. You may as well keep your (Android) phone in your pocket (but turned off, though that won't help with iOS' Find My network).
> "Functioning democracies don't arrest people for peaceful protests [...]"
That might be true on planet Ogo, but not on planet Earth.
> "For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out."
Another utterly absurd statement. Killswitches are, amongst other places and situations, useful on the battlefield (and therefore urban "battlefield", e. g. protests). And turning a practical solution to tactical and operational problems into a discussion about the inapplicability of such solutions to cure the "ills of society" at large is just... bizarre.
1. The government doesn't have any way to only track the phones of people torching cars. Everyone in the vicinity with an active cellphone is going to get caught up in that dragnet.
2. That advice sounds more reasonable if you assume a reasonable government that is only interested in tracking people who are torching cars. Governments have retaliated against political dissidents in the past who have committed no crimes.
To your point 1: Haven't you learnt at school that if you hang with the bad guys, you can get punished even through you claim not having done anything? Is that not a lesson everyone learns anymore?
No, people should be allowed to do things that are risky, and mitigate that risk, without being told to not do that activity at all.
I wear a helmet and leather when I ride my motorcycle. Obviously, it'd be safer to never ride the motorcycle. But, I want to the ride the motorcycle, so, if I'm going to do it, it makes sense to mitigate my risk on it.
If people want to go to protests, they should, however a killswitch isn't good enough imo - you should leave your phone at home so the cops don't steal it from you, force you to unlock it with your fingerprint or faceID (a valid legal order in the USA), and then hunt through the contents to hit you with some bogus charge.
> it'd be safer to never ride the motorcycle
First and foremost, it would be less noisy! What MC riders tend to conveniently forget is that they are putting the burden of having to deal with the noise they produce on everyone around them. Yes, your safety is also important (for you), but the noise you're producing is an issue for everyone around you.
OOookay yeah sure, human activities can have secondary consequences on people around them, that's true. So, what? The conversation was around mitigating risk...
Also, imo cars and their driver's dependence on them are a significantly greater cause of noise pollution than me and my stock pipe motorcycle, or even a harley. Hundreds of car tires rolling by on the road all day every day is so horrendously loud I can hear it from the 21st floor of my parent's apartment. When the 3 nearby red lights line up perfectly it's suddenly so quiet you can hear the cidadas on the mountain.
Not to mention the beeping, in the city I can hear a car beep from hundreds of meters away, echoing off the buildings. Or sometimes when I'm a pedestrian they'll dare to beep at me for the crime of walking in a way that inconveniences them, that's very very loud!
I take my motorcycle from my apartment straight into the basically unlived-on mountain roads, two weekends a month at most. I highly doubt I'm burdening anyone even a fraction what the average car driver does to tens of thousands of people every week.
Same reason I encrypt my messages and web traffic: my ISP/carrier and government don't need to know everything I do, even if they're not malicious and even if I'm not a criminal.
Governments and carriers retaining months of location history data is a risk. If the Russians invade and get a hold of that data, a lot of people suddenly become at risk, for no good reason other than it being around "just in case".
We've seen it happen here in the Netherlands when the nazis came in and happily browsed through the city archives, which contained a details count of how many people of what religion lived in each neighbourhood.
I have nothing to fear from the current government, but with the rise in ultraconservative, anti-intellectual, extreme right wing politicians across the globe, a lot of people may not want to be recorded having been to things that are perfectly safe today.
All of that said, as long as you don't have an iPhone, you can just turn your phone off. It'll power down the CPU. If you don't believe the manufacturer, then you'll have to measure the voltage on the PCB traces yourself, but so should you when you buy phones with a physical off switch.
Drug dealers wanting to go off the grid?
Unless you assume the market for smartphone hardware with physical switches is the same as the one for sustainable smartphones, I don’t think they’re going to gain much from adding the switches. The only phones with switches that I know are the PinePhones and the librem phone that has a very questionable customer service. [1]. Adding them to the phone design will mean expensive constraints, making the overall cost even more in which case you’re either shedding money to increase market share or you’re narrowing your target market to the librem-phone size. At that point, what’s the meaning of this exercise?
[1] https://consumerrights.wiki/Purism
This would appeal the privacy/security crowd, but it is not really Fairphone's market. There are better options if that's what you are looking for, such as the Librem phones.
They probably don't want to position themselves against security-focused phones as they would likely be compared unfavorably with them. That is unless they also do whatever it takes to enter that market, for example by supporting a security-focused OS like GrapheneOS.
They could have kept the headphone jack though, but I guess they wanted to sell their earbuds (with replaceable batteries! which is at least a good point).
I made the switch to iPhone because they had a physical mute slider. A physical 'airplane mode' would be even better.
Now Apple has removed that ... and I am not happy. Yes, the functionality is theoretically available by configuring the 'smart button'. But I don't physically see the state of the device without picking it up.
Reminder that the most sustainable choice in phones is to keep using your current phone as long as possible.
Absolutely! I can't bring myself to buy a new phone when my current one still works perfectly. Still using my Pixel 4a!
Or install custom ROM to get life back into old devices.
But mine just got soaked.
The moment they release the schematics (a.k.a information on how to repair and recycle), I'm buying one or two
They released them for the previous model [1] [2], so presumably will come for the 6 as well.
[0] https://www.fairphone.com/en/2024/01/24/have-you-seen-the-sc...
[1] https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Fairpho...
The main camera still sucks, and they seem to keep with the misleading messaging. It's not a 50mp camera if the sensor is 50mp but each pixel in the final photos is averaged from 4 pixels of the sensor...
Yes, the closed-source camera app that does not work on Lineage OS and other alternative firmwares has a 50MP switch, however the quality of the 50MP photo is as poor if not worse than the processed 13MP photo...
This practice of pixel binning is pretty much the industry standard though. Pretty much all recent phones do it
It is 50mp camera still, otherwise you would not be able to increase quality by averaging those pixels. I dont think anyone need 15000px noisy poor quality image over standard high res with good quality
Maybe it wasn't clear in my original comment. It sucks picture-quality-wise, and ON TOP of that, they use misleading messaging with their 50MP mode... Colour is washed out, focus is all over the place... I see no reason to buy a 6 before my 5 dies, which is funny because I can swap its components out indefinitely I guess...
FWIW, that closed-source camera app is also available on /e/OS, who they partner with.
Well the picture quality comparison from e/os speaks for itself https://gitlab.e.foundation/-/project/177/uploads/5584822b24...
Source https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/8193
This is better than most phones on the market, but I can't help but be turned off when I scroll down and start seeing the Google Play logo and mentions about AI and Google Gemini.
Kind of defeats the purpose, no?
There's an /e/os version : https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-s...
Thank you, I did miss this.
Disappointed. No USB 3 and no AV1 hardware decoding in phone supposed to last for years?
I wish like 75% of the overview page weren't dedicated to the camera. Yes, I get it, camera is important to the average smartphone user these days, but, come on. I'm not potentially buying a Fairphone for the camera.
I'm not a fan of the new battery and back panel.
I've got a Fairphone 4 and the most useful thing about it is the replaceable battery. I can't count the number of times an extra battery in my backpack has saved me.
Sure, maybe it's not that big of a deal to bring a screwdriver with me as well. But I just know I'm going to lose those tiny screws and changing the battery at the back of a taxi goes out the window.
That screw in the battery is strange. Old Nokia phones had no issues with batteries falling out.
The only time the battery has disconnected on the FP4 for me was when I dropped it from a fairly high distance.
Popped it back in and booted and went on my way.
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