Fairphones seem okay from a hardware POV but the software is a bit lacking in terms of security and support.
See I keep reading this, especially here on Lemmy but since owning one, I’ve had more frequent updates than I think any phone I’ve previously owned, and definitely more than family who go with bigger brands.
I don’t know why they have this reputation, perhaps it was true in the past
This comes from the people who run GrapheneOS e.g. https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private. Maybe they’re opinionated for some reason that extends beyond the hardware/software.
I AM BUYING IT NOWWWW!!! LESSSS GOOOO!
Man I love it. Hoping one day it is supported on grapheneos. Still no headphone jack throws me off though
Graphene OS needs a hardware level chip, that enables secure encryption of data so far only pixels have that. They are working with Motorola though.
Somehow after being repeatedly told that they still ask it. But GOS team did make a post detailing why they won’t support nor partnership with fairphone
Yeah I am aware of their hardware requirements. I’m not sure if Fairphone has this on their roadmap
Does it work on Verizon’s network? -Otherwise, Idc.
Fairphone or not T-Mobile isn’t anything like what it used to be. If you’re in a major city or suburb it’s worth taking a serious look at T-Mobile. I’m on US mobile which is a MVNO that allows you to freely switch between all 3 networks with two simultaneously active at any given time. 90% of the time T-Mobile has far better and faster coverage than either of Verizon or ATT. It used to be that Verizon was by far the best, but their network capacity hasn’t kept pace with T-Mobile’s growth, even if your Verizon plan has priority data (as mine does). This difference shows most when network capacity is limited.
T-Mobile’s rural coverage isn’t as great as either of Verizon’s or ATT’s, but it’s absolutely good enough for every road trip I’ve done. And when visiting family in rural northern Wisconsin only T-Mobile and ATT have reasonable coverage in their area. You can use a Mint Mobile trial SIM to see for yourself.
I think Verizon knows this too, all of the cheapest MVNOs have been switching to use Verizon’s network in recent years. The ISP mobile networks you can often get a year of for free also nearly all run on Verizon now. If you’re paying for your service, the Total Wireless $20/mo BYO plan with unlimited priority data and 10GB/mo of international data is the best deal out there by far. Verizon certainly wouldn’t be providing MVNOs with the lowest cut rate pricing if they thought they had the best network.
Could you tell me what MVNO you’re using? I’m grabbing the FP+ ASAP, and I need the tea. \
Pixel + graphene OS ftw
Fairphone 6 might be the worst phone I’ve ever owned. I bought one hoping it’d last me 6 years and it barely last 6 months. The software is so buggy it’s embarrassing.
It’s a greenwashing phone. Might as well buy a normal phone and donate to charity.
I am now 6 months in, I do not share that experience at all.
Same question for you then: what OS?
Is that on their version of Android or e/OS? This is the exact thing that has kept me from even coming close to purchasing one of these without handling one first.
That’s with Fairphone’s own OS. I stuck it out until the Android 16 update but that introduced a load more bugs so I swapped it for a Pixel 10a.
I also tried iodéOS which was a slight improvement but still pretty buggy.
ITT: People complaining about how this phone is 100% perfect and what they want. Instead of moving towards heaven, we might as well remain in hell until heaven is directly attainable. It’s a good start and the more money that gets thrown this way, the more others will follow. But by all means, don’t support this endeavor, let’s stay in our Apple/Samsung/Google versions of hell instead.
But it’s also unfair to blame customers for not supporting something financially when it would be easy to improve from the criticism. If fairphone wanted to sell more they would address the feedback from GrapheneOS instead of hiding behind the startup label, but instead we get this zombie development where the product is held up by partnership decisions that are holding them back, and any criticism to help improve their standing is shot down.
Is my fairphone 5 the perfect device? No, I guess.
Did I get to buy a new USB-C port for my nearly 3 year old phone after destroying the old one by dropping it in a full sink of dirty water and replace it in 5 minutes without soldering or phone repair knowledge? Hell yes!
A friend of mine just bought a new battery for his 6-7 year old FP3 and can keep using it.
If Fairphone can do modularity of that kind, imagine what big players Apple or Samsung would be able to achieve if they cared at all. Imagine GrapheneOS would not publicly shit on Fairphone for their flaws but instead reach out a hand and ask for collaboration to try and make their next phone compatible.
Oh well, hell is fine too, I guess.
GrapheneOS’s toxic leadership have crab mentality. Oh and a victimhood complex.
No not really. Their project is aimed at providing the highest level of security and privacy. They can’t help that Fairphone’s hardware does not adhere to their hardware requirements in order to attain that security and privacy.
GrapheneOS’s goal is not to deliver the most broad amount of support for as many phones as possible, its goal is to obtain the highest levels of security. For broad support there is /e/os for instance.
They choose to roast small hardware manufacturers for their hardware/firmware security deficits and burn bridges instead of being constructive and offering collaboration once their security requirements are met by future phones.
They could voice their legitimate concerns without being such total dicks about it.
that’s too many stairs
Basically sums up all the reactions to any increase in popularity of any open/foss project 🤷🏻♂️
That is what turned me off choosing Graphene, other than having to buy Google hardware. They, but also some other Foss people, are investing way too much time attacking other alternatives fiercely, as if they were created by the devil, because they are not pure enough or because they are less secure than Graphene.
No not really. People keep asking them why they dont support certain hardware, and they need to keep explaining why they dont support the hardware. They don’t go out of their way to demonize those projects. Their project is aimed at providing the highest level of security and privacy. They can’t help that Fairphone’s hardware does not adhere to their hardware requirements in order to attain that security and privacy.
GrapheneOS’s goal is not to deliver the most broad amount of support for as many phones as possible, its goal is to obtain the highest levels of security. For broad support there is /e/os for instance. On the other hand, /e/os is not the most secure OS. Those are just the facts. Every OS has its own use cases.
Except that this is exactly what at least one of the leading developers is doing by harassing threads that are about other projects, with all sorts of loaded language, insinuations of nasty motives, Russian influence and what not.
All of that does nothing to achieve GrapheneOS’ goals.
I have no issue at all with GrapheneOS stating that FP6 is not an option because this hardware feature is missing or that firmware update routine being insufficient. That is not what I am talking about here.
@Jiral @DannyMac jasnt #grapheneos a partnership with #motorola ? When first devices?
There is no concrete timeline yet as far as I know. So your guess is as good as mine. Bottom line if you want to use GrapheneOS now or in the near future you have to buy Google hardware which is a nogo for me, even if you rip out the OS.
I only buy second hand hardware these days, but I get you
The Dutch company has stated they absolutely will not include wireless charging in the Fairphone because it’s too energy inefficient.
Well let me publicly state I absolutely will not ever buy a Fairphone because it lacks wireless charging, which is a basic convenience I now expect my wireless devices to all have.
Wireless charging requires induction coils, they either need to include them in a custom battery pack (which goes against their philosophy for how they source parts) or to include it in back plate which would also complicate a simple component. You can just get a protective case with the induction coils in it, it would make the device a bit taller for the extra usb-c plug.
Ive been rocking an EU FP4 in the states for years now (had a UK distributer just ship me one) so im biased, but try not to be overly negitive over a problem you can fix yourself.
It feels somehow wrong to do in U.S.A, I feel like it’s meant to be like a hellscape at this point, and a Fairphone is like water in hell.
Fairphones have very late security updates and many decisions are made by a Chinese ODM so keep those in mind if you buy one.
Android 💀💀
It can’t even compete with USA devices. The Dutch gimped it. I guess we shouldn’t expect the Dutch to engineer something nice.
The new Fairphone is available on Amazon and at Fairphone.com for $650, and it’s officially certified to work on T-Mobile and AT&T’s networks.
Fail lol
Yeah what a bunch of losers getting certified for 2 of the 3 largest US carriers.
Phones need to be certified for carriers in the US? How does that work?
In the EU, you just buy any phone you want, any sim card you want, put the sim card in the phone, and that’s it.
Kind of. GSM (which all but Verizon and formerly Sprint used) let most any phone on the network. CDMA let carriers pick and choose compatible devices. In the early 2010s when Verizon was attempting to buy more spectrum for its 4G network, Google put themselves as a potential buyer, but they wanted the FCC to set a rule for the spectrum that said any phone compatible had to be allowed onto the network. Verizon won that auction and since then Verizon’s been way more open on what they allow.
And with Sprint being purchased by T-Mobile, it would make more sense at this point to have a phone certified for AT&T and T-Mobile and Verizon would just have to let it on the network. These days, a phone being “certified” is Moore just a carrier making the statement of “we’ve tested the phone and we do know it works on the network.“ it doesn’t mean an uncertified phone will never work, it just means that this one should work by all metrics they’re able to tell.
@DupaCycki @[email protected] Europe did the sensible thing and made cell phone towers public infrastructure. In the US, each cell phone company has to construct its own network of towers.
@SallyStrange @DupaCycki it’s real rail baron shit
The peasants in the USA will learn what a repairable phone is!
It still sucks for security. If you own this phone you should consider that the authorities and pretty much anyone who really wants to can get into your phone at will. I wish they could meet Graphene’s hardware requirements.
Aren’t Graphene’s hardware requirements “be a Pixel”?
No lol, they have a list of specific hardware security requirements for a device to have, the biggest one being a secure element. Without a secure element there is no hardware-backed key derivation throttling, so it’s much more possible for an attacker to brute force your phone’s PIN.
Support for using alternate operating systems including full hardware security functionality Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week for device support code (firmware, drivers and HALs) At least 5 years of updates from launch for device support code with phones (Pixels now have 7) and 7 years with tablets Device support code updated to new monthly, quarterly and yearly releases of AOSP within several months to provide new security improvements (Pixels receive these in the month they're released) Linux 6.1, 6.6 or 6.12 Generic Kernel Image (GKI) support Hardware accelerated virtualization usable by GrapheneOS (ideally pKVM to match Pixels but another usable implementation may be acceptable) Hardware memory tagging (ARM MTE or equivalent) Hardware-based coarse grained Control Flow Integrity (CFI) for baseline coverage where type-based CFI isn't used or can't be deployed (BTI/PAC, CET IBT or equivalent) PXN, SMEP or equivalent PAN, SMAP or equivalent Isolated radios (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, etc.), GPU, SSD, media encode / decode, image processor and other components Support for A/B updates of both the firmware and OS images with automatic rollback if the initial boot fails one or more times Verified boot with rollback protection for firmware Verified boot with rollback protection for the OS (Android Verified Boot) Verified boot key fingerprint for yellow boot state displayed with a secure hash (non-truncated SHA-256 or better) StrongBox keystore provided by secure element Hardware key attestation support for the StrongBox keystore Attest key support for hardware key attestation to provide pinning support Weaver disk encryption key derivation throttling provided by secure element Insider attack resistance for updates to the secure element (Owner user authentication required before updates are accepted) Inline disk encryption acceleration with wrapped key support 64-bit-only device support code Wi-Fi anonymity support including MAC address randomization, probe sequence number randomization and no other leaked identifiers Support for disabling USB data and also USB as a whole at a hardware level in the USB controller Reset attack mitigation for firmware-based boot modes such as fastboot mode zeroing memory left over from the OS and delaying opening up attack surface such as USB functionality until that's completed Debugging features such as JTAG or serial debugging must be inaccessible while the device is lockedUntil the collaboration with Motorola produces a device, only the recent Pixels meet the requirements.
Fairphone is also one of the worse OEM’s when it comes to how slowly they patch and releases security vulnerabilities, and they are known to be quite sloppy, in the past they have published their private keys. I wouldn’t trust keeping anything remotely private or sensitive on a Fairphone.
nah. grapheneos requires open source drivers and immediate security updates from the oems as well as an unlockable bootloader. pixel just happens to be the only one who fits the bill for all of those. as an example, the Samsung I had before my pixel wouldn’t get security updates for months after an Android release which was really annoying. Motorola will soon comply with these standards too, but they have their own line of flock camera alternatives so I won’t be touching their products with a 10 foot pole.
That’s two entirely different unrelated companies. They split ages ago
Those cameras are from Motorola Solutions, which is a seperate company to Motorola Mobility.
But you touch Google?
This
My dream phone is made by Fairphone, runs Graphene and has pin-board power switches like the Pinephone (its got good ideas, but its running a 2013 chipset, its a dev device for making linux mobile work better)
… Wishful thinking.
Samsung hardware
Fairphone sustainability / repairability
Pixel / GrapheneOS privacy
Chinese prices
Dream phone of mine.
How do you break into it? If it’s not hard then why doesn’t everyone do it.
Everyone? The group of people that includes those who can’t use their computer after their desktop icons get sorted?
It still takes some skills, but those skills might just be “desoldering chips to stick them in a chip reader device” and doing that on the storage chips. Or maybe tapping a trace to read the signals that are sent over it to grab a key or something. “Not hard” doesn’t mean “you don’t need skill to do it”, it means “someone who has some skills won’t have difficulty applying them”.
Look, at least this way I don’t have to worry about all the software back doors phoning home.
I just don’t take the phone out with me when I think I’m going to be arrested or something.
You probably aren’t safe from Pegasus but at least you are not streaming your location and IRL contacts to Google 24/7.
Just don’t bank on it.
Why? I’m not sure what am I missing?
This is perfect - my wife and I have both been limping along on old falling-apart phones, and have been looking for something new that doesn’t make us feel gross for supporting a major company, and isn’t overloaded with so many nearly-useless features. Decided to take the de-google plunge at the same time, and grabbed the eos ones!
If this thing ran grapheneos I’d get rid of my pixel tomorrow
It can run EndeavorOS, which is deGoogle’d. Not quite as private and secure, but it’s better than stock Android.
There’s also a user on here who’s been working to make Linux drivers for the FP6 as well, and they’re making good progress
I thought we would see more custom Roms honestly. CalyxOS shows upcoming but still seems to be unavailable. What really concerns me about fairphone is their delay in Software updates. The FP6 releases June of last year, the same month as Android 16. It took them until March of '26 to release Android 16 for the FP6. That is quite a large gap. Software support is as important as hardware support and unfortunately not a single manufacturer seems to nail them both.
Wait … EndeavourOS? That’s arch linux, a PC operating system. Did you confuse something?
Tbh, I thought /e/OS was EndeavorOS.
Why the fuck did they decide to call their OS something unpronounceable? I’m mad now
It can also run LineageOS, iodéOS and /e/ OS at least, so there are a few options for a degoogled IS with this phone.
Only if…
(The company is also teasing its next-generation Fairbuds 2 wireless earbuds, launching later this year, which it says set “a new bar for repairability and performance.”)
I wish they could figure out a type of earbuds that wouldn’t require batteries. Sadly, it seems that technology is either unachievable or lost to time.
Do wired usb-c headphones not exist? Don’t get me wrong, I hate that everyone has dropped the jack and buds can fuck right off, but they’re just advertising those buds as an adjacent product, they’re not locking anyone in.
So a lot of people are pissed because they launched their fair buds immediately after removing the headset jack from their phones. Seems more profit motivated than sustainable motivated.
The big problem for me is that there is only one port, so you can ether listen to something, or, charge the phone, not both. Just having two ports would solve this.
Also, not something I really care about but a lot of people do, the headphone jack is an analog output, where as the USB-C is a digital output, and you need an analog signal to run a speaker. So they need to have their own DACs (Digital-Analog converter), and many of the USB-C headphones have poor quality DACs that loose detail. Used to be the DAC was just in the phone, and was generally of good quality.
Do you have evidence for the Apple USB-C DAC, that is about 10€, losing details over commonly built-in DAC with in ear monitors? That is not my experience nor have I found any reviews reporring that.
Depending on the headphone you want to use, that dongle is insufficient. My kiwi ears astrals sound worse with it and the koss ksc75 are rather quiet. This is with the EU version of the dongle, which has half the power of the US version.
It’s also another damn thing you need to carry around and that can break. There’s no reason not to include a headphone jack. Stop defending greedy design decisions that actively screw you over, it makes you look quite dumb.
I have yet see the need to use iems with excessive power requirements where they end up “rather quiet”, my Kiwi dongle DAC can blow my ears out if I were to long for it. If you do have a need for that, just upgrade the DAC to your extraordinarily high power reqirements. Lighter sized DACs pack a much stronger punch and can facilitate your early deafness if that is your preference. USB-C gives you that flexibility. All of those solutions are perfectly portable, you also don’t need to carry a separate part, just keep it connected.
I am not defending a"greedy decision", the only downside for most people is a bit more wear on the USB-C port and that is a minor issue given how reasonably priced the replacement part is and how easy it is to install.
The ksc75 is not an IEM. You’re also mentioning a completely different (and more expensive) dongle than the one in the comment I reolied to.
And no, more wear on the usb-c port is not the only downside. In some places (e.g. where I live), you simply can’t buy most dongles. I always have to travel or import stuff. You also have one more thing that you need to buy, carry around and that can break.
Stop being a corpo simp. Makes you look dumb.
The kiwi dongle is pretty much the same price as the apple dongle, about 10 EUR. More powerful DACs in the lighter format are more expensive but they are also more powerful than what you’d usually find in a phone with headphone jack.
Yes, the ksc75 is not an IEM, I had to look it up. I was only talking about IEMs before.
In the age of the internet buying DACs is a non issue.
@megopie technically you can buy an adapter that has two connectors, one for charging and one more, either a headphone jack or one more USB. But I agree with the sentiment, a second built in port would be neat.
“SPEND MORE, BUY MORE”
Yeah, no thanks. I’d rather just have a headphone jack. This is a problem that has been solved for quite a while.
I’ve tried a few of those, I always get a buzzing or it gets weirdly hot, one just blew out my headphones. So I don’t really trust them at this point.
Yes they do.
I see many people complaining about phones not having an audio jack anymore. But really I don’t think it would make that much sense add one to the phone. The only thing I could see is to make the usb c modular like framework did.
“I don’t care about this, so fuck everyone else”
Nice attitude dude.
That is not what I meant.
I don’t see the reason to add it back for a few people. While most don’t ever will need it
Why do you think “most” bought bluetooth earbuds in the first place? What’s the source for your data regarding how many people want the jack back? Also, not sure where you live but in the EU it’s very common to see people wearing wired earbuds/headphones.
Again, you’re defending corporations taking away options from consumers while also (presumably) being a consumer yourself. Adding the jack would not make the phones more expensive and would also not take away any of the features you want. Why would anyone in their right mind be against this? What a joke.
One good-ish reason is that In A Certain country the Bluetooth connections are monitored by Flock cameras and all, so you will be identified if you have Bluetooth headphones on in a public place. And that’s likely to spread other places too eventually…
Mh true. An usb c Adapter with aux and usbc inside of the case of the phone would be cool I think. Then you can easily add it to the phone where most people won’t need it. And you don’t have to redesign the whole phone for the audio jack
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isnt broadcast done only manually? I.e. when you begin pairing? I guess it depends on device.
Yes however you can still see the signal and probably identify the mac address or something.
Bluetooth is not secure.
This is a phenomenon that is easy to demonstrate with monitor apps for airtags, pervert glasses, and even Tesla automobiles (yes, they constantly send out a Bluetooth signal your phone can pick up).
