this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Hard pass. What a pointless downgrade in functionality. I'm due for a new phone, and this had tweaked my interest, but lacking desktop mode and fast USB is crazy in 2025.
So do you not care about easily replaceable batteries? If these features are more important than that then unfortunately fairphone doesn't work for you
Fp5 managed to have both, they arent mutually exclusive features.
And battery replacement is a once every 2-5 years event, if I had to pay a professional (or ifixit) every few years thats fine with me. I replaced the battery in my Samsung s10 with a ifixit kit, its really not that hard. Its not on-the-go swappable, but battery banks exist for that.
Sure, it doesn't happen super often but I wouldn't say it's 'not that hard'. For most phones you need a heat gun + suction cup and you do have to be quite careful. Jerryrigerything does takedowns for a living but will still occasionally shatter a glass back. Not saying it's impossible but most people will never even consider it cause you gotta buy the tools and be very careful. Paying someone to do it is fine but if it's super easy to do then anyone can actually do it.
Not saying fairphone is for everyone but I do think the tech comunity underestimates how nice it is to be able to easily change a battery yourself.
But the more important question is, why can't we have both replaceable batteries and proper usbc/desktop mode? The FP5 fit them both in, and then for 6 they just downgraded it for no real reason.
If they come out with a fp7 that fixes this, I'll reconsider then, but right now, I'd rather get another glued together Samsung and actually have fast USB storage access.
They mentioned they did it to save cost. It seems to have worked cause the phone is cheaper at launch than the fairphone 5 was which surprised me. Not aware of many follow-up phones that where cheaper than the previous model.
You do you but for me dead easy battery replacement is far more important than a desktop mode that I personally never found that useful on my S20 FE. Since FP6 has an SD card slot you can always transfer lots of files quickly that way even if it's a bit more cumbersom requiring a microSDxc card reader
I dont buy the cost excuse at all. A few traces and some more smd components do not add up to a significant cost saving.
SD cards are slow compared to modern smart phone storage, so thats really not really a solution either.
I don't know much about designing a phone motherboard but it's my understanding that it's not price of the materials for the traces themselves that adds cost but actually integrating it with the design as a whole. Smartphone PCBs are crazy complex so if not including 3.0 speeds meant the board was easier to design for them and thus cheaper then that's fine for me. Ultimately they have made the phone cheaper at launch than last gen so they have managed to do that somehow.
I'm a photographer and I don't find SD card slow for photos and video storage/transfer at all. Obviously they aren't great for running applications off of but they work very well for transfering files.
Obviously, I can't seem to convince you that the other benefits fairphone bring outway the fact that they don't offer usb 3.0 speeds. It is a bummer and weird they had it on the last gen but I would give it up in a heart beat to be able to replace the battery, screen, usb-c port, etc. of my own device on my own with very little hassle. We can agree to disagree on this one