i'm using a fairphone 4, i'm pretty happy with it.
i like their goals of sustainability and repair friendly builds. i just got a security android update yesterday, although the one before was quite a few months ago, so it's not as frequently updated as it was in the first few years
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
64 points (98.5% liked)
DeGoogle Yourself
13917 readers
7 users here now
A community for those that would like to get away from Google.
Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!
Rules
-
Be respectful even in disagreement
-
No advertising unless it is very relevent and justified. Do not do this excessively.
-
No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.
Related communities
!privacyguides@lemmy.one !privacy@lemmy.ml !privatelife@lemmy.ml !linuxphones@lemmy.ml !fossdroid@social.fossware.space !fdroid@lemmy.ml
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah I'm getting a 4 here in a bit and it's still supported. And should be able to get parts for at least 3 more years.
oh wow, why not a 6?
4 has cheaper parts overall and looks like other OSes are going to support for a long time. And they already removed the bugs in the 4. I dont buy new phones until about a year out when they are thoroughly tested. Its also significantly cheaper to buy the phone outright. I cant afford the 6 in the US. Way too expensive.
I got bit a couple of times with Terracube and their "promises". The phone literally fell apart in my hand. Glue came loose and parts stopped working after a while. Worst of all, no software updates for years.
Ive been disappointed with fairphone 5, OS updates were late and not in full. Other security risks like the original OS signed with android test keys. I see that you want to flash another OS on there so this isn't relevant for you, but I am a bit disappointed.
I'm 90% happy with my fairphone 5 with calyx. Only downturn is that it's too big for AFAB hands, but it's hard to find a phone that isn't these days. So, to me, there's no downsides to it compared to other phones. Id get it again simply for ethical reasons and recommend.
I have a few major gripes about the Fairphone 6 which otherwise looks like an awesome phone. It costs an extra $200 in the US. So it’s a midrange phone made out of plastic for $900. Really difficult to justify that unless you have a ton of disposable income. Then you can only use it on T-Mobile. While it’s awesome that parts are easily replaced, I wish there was a way to upgrade over time. I’d imagine those parts will cost more in the US as well.
T Mobile and their partnership with Starlink make this a hard no for me.
Which, also semi-related-unrelated Delta airlines signed up for MuskratLink as well.
T-Mobile also cozied up to the Mango 1.0 admin and Shit Pai to get the Sprint merger through and hoard great 5G spectrum in the Legere era, so they've been aligning with Fascism for quite a while.
One will find though, that most business will align with a garbage regime for the profits, so the best thing to do is spend as little money with these companies as possible, while admitting in the case of utilities, one can't truly quit them completely.
Trump's tariffs likely contribute significantly to that added cost.
Yep. Might make it really expensive then....if it doesn't change in a day.
Thats sadly a US problem, I live in the EU and can buy it for maybe 680USD. If the price is the biggest problem for you then that's great news about the phone
Yeah, if I lived in Europe it’d be almost a no brainer. Although the lack up upgrade path without buying a completely new phone is still kind of a bummer. I’ve had my iPhone for 3 years and never needed anything with it repaired. By the time something in this phone does break, I’ll likely be due for an upgrade anyway. Wish I could buy a Fairphone and slowly upgrade the parts so I would no longer be tied to an upgrade cycle. To me that’s way more attractive than a highly repairable phone.
Can people in the US just use EU providers and get away from all this, or at least until the EU becomes fascists too?
load more comments
(3 replies)
They can ship it with e/os already installed, which is awesome.
I know someone with a fp4. It seemed like you could get 'more' phone for the same amount of money, at the time. But then again, i have a feeling that not all brands/models are supported in the same way that fairphone strives to.
It seems easy enough to install /e/os afterward. Thinking about buying the phone in store
Gotcha. I managed to install e/os on an old galaxyS8, which was easy enough. It took some time to find the right guides since its an older phone, but i imagine there are more resources for a newer phone like the fp6, 5, or even the 4.
I wish we had that option...
Time to move to EU😁
load more comments
(1 replies)
USB 2, therefore no external monitor.
If they make 6+ (like there was 3+) with USB 3, then I will consider getting it.
~~?? my fp4 can use the external monitor, no way the 6 can't~~
~~it's usb-c 2.0, not usb 2 maybe that caused the confusion?~~
edit: nope, the 4 and 5 does have usb-c 3.0, the 6 has usb-c 2.0 that is weird, going back like that
Think they said it's because of keeping the cost down, I never do anything except charging with USB C cables on my phone anyway
@twikz FP4 here with /e/ - no complaints, has served me well for many years now. Graphene fanbois will cry that it's very insecure, but in a world where big tech (google et al) are the biggest threat factor, /e/ makes the most sense to me.
Agreed, grapheneOS seem to care more about security than privacy perhaps
GrapheneOS user out of convenience here, but strongly considering FP6 for my next phone. GOS team are indeed very zealous about security. Which isn't a bad thing, but from a purely statistical standpoint, the chance of being hacked on any recent flavor of Android is very low as long as we download apps from reputable sources only. Android by itself is already far ahead of typical desktop OSes in terms of security.
My only turn off is the lack of a tele-camera: I love the 4x (104mm eq.) on my Pixel 6 Pro and I don't think I can live without it.
I had a fairphone 2 years back. Had the battery replaced once, otherwise it worked fine. It was a bit clunky, a bit slow, the camera wasn't that great, it felt a bit out of date overall, but I'm not crazy about this sort of thing, I just need a basic smartphone. For me the environmental and fair trade aspect was the selling point, not the technical stats, so I can't really speak on that. It was .. a phone, lol. It worked fine. Friend of mine is using a newer one (not sure which one) and says they've done a good job to bring it up-to-date and especially make the battery last longer. I don't think they aim for super high perfomance cutting edge phones, so don't expect that. Oh, because you can take them apart, they are obviously not waterproof. Just something to know.
I heard Fairphone's voice to text function sends data to open AI with no option to opt out. Anyone know anythung about this?
I use iodé OS and I'm having a blast.
view more: next ›