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Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

arstechnica.com

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Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#31

Post by cauch »

miduil wrote: post #12

I really wish Fairphone 4 had GrapheneOS support, but after almost 4 years of Fairphone 3 I decided to go with a Pixel instead. Too many hardware bugs with the FP3 that were never acknowledged by the vendor and unhappy customers with bricked FP4's that requires sending them back in. Also I would have hoped for them continuing the FP3 architecture, feels such a waste that they've now instead developed a much more expe…

> Too many hardware bugs with the FP3 that were never acknowledged by the vendor

I have a FP3, and it has been my first and only Android smartphone. I now wonder if what I've experienced is the "normal Android experience" or if I would have experienced something different from another brand.

I'm also avoiding / disabling Google stuffs (I'm using f-droid, ...). I was occasionally surprised to see how a lot of people are flooded with ads / unsolicited messages and seemed not to care. I don't get it, though, it looks such an awful experience.

The main thing I've noticed is the long time it sometimes take for the picture-taking app to get on focus. But I thought it was due to the standard Android software.

Is there a place to list the FP3 bugs?

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#32

Post by rmdes »

Issues with microphone on the FP4 that are not explainable but the good news is? I can just change the mic for 20 euro!

The real issue with the FP4 is the camera. Ugly pictures, and under bad lightning its like taking picture on android a decade ago.. Albeit the pixel number is enough.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#33

Post by stevezsa8 »

This is cool and all... I just wish someone would release a device with user replaceable battery and better OS update policies. Basically a pixel with slightly easier repair.

I think the modular aspect is cool, but seems like a gimmick that would be prone to failure. Just my opinion anyway.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#34

Post by throwawayadvsec »

TheMode wrote: post #27
notRobot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to update it if you don't want to?

I will likely have some software compatibility/security issue by using a 10y old phone. Theoretically I do not have to, but software is designed with constant internal requirement changes.

Every single useful device on earth that is connected to the internet needs to be updated regularly.

You sounds like a salesperson telling a dev "why didn't you make our software bug free and vulnerability free????"

You're free to use Windows XP and a Nokia 3310.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#35

Post by dimitar »

stevezsa8 wrote: post #33

This is cool and all... I just wish someone would release a device with user replaceable battery and better OS update policies. Basically a pixel with slightly easier repair. I think the modular aspect is cool, but seems like a gimmick that would be prone to failure. Just my opinion anyway.

I have a Fairphone 4 and I can replace the batter and upgrade the OS (a choice of multiple ones is available)

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#36

Post by phh »

TheMode wrote: post #14

Is the hardware really the bottleneck to sustainable device? The software seems more much important but nobody is tackling it. Having a phone with a new battery doesn't matter if I can't run the same apps as others.

As a software engineer who spend the vast majority of his time on (successfully) putting newer Android versions on the vast majority of older Android devices:

Yes the hardware is the bottleneck.

This pains me, because what I can do is software, not hardware, where I spend all of my time is software.

An app just needs to target Android 7 to target 95%+ of users (so "only" 5% additional e-waste). And for app developers, targeting Android 7 is fairly easy (and the vast majority do), because Google provide androidx which is a compatibility library that provides backward-compatible APIs for every new shiny things. It's not 0 effort, and I understand app developers preferring Apple ecosystem here, but most of the Android app developers I've seen do use androidx and do target around Android 7. [1]

So, you get reasonably 5-7 years of app that are still working. The average renewal rate still barely bulged and still is around 2 years. People are not renewing their devices because of apps that are no longer supported.

IMO things that make people renew:

- Things that are a bit broken but annoying enough and accumulate: Too many apps leading to slow down, USB-C port getting dust making the connection harder

- The phones always look shinier in-store (because of over-saturated, over-brightness-ed screen amongst other things), so I'm pretty sure stores would manage to sell the same device over and over again by just changing the name.

- Kinda the same: Despite Gorilla Glass 424 Ultra Pro Max, screen's glass do wear, and phones' screen look worse and worse over time (if you have a screen protection, the screen will still look shinier in-store, if you don't your screen will be weary, and the screen in-store will look shinier) -- I like what Rebel Tech is trying to do here, they are trying to replace exclusively the glass part of the screen. That's so much cheaper that you could do it every 6 months to make your device look new again.

- Completely random software bug (which could very well be BECAUSE the device got a software upgrade, or could be just a bug in the app, or just Google decided that this was the new Best User Experience) that make people think "yeah well I get it, my phone's old"

[1] I do know of one exception: Slack app. They are deprecating Android 7 and Android 8. They suck.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#37

Post by zeroCalories »

I like that we're moving in the direction of repairability. I haven't needed to upgrade my pixel 2, and I would love it if I could simply replace parts as needed instead of buying a whole new phone. That said, it seems clear that phone makers would prefer you upgrade every two years. Wonder if we will see regulation around that in the coming years.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#38

Post by londons_explore »

rmdes wrote: post #32

Issues with microphone on the FP4 that are not explainable but the good news is? I can just change the mic for 20 euro! The real issue with the FP4 is the camera. Ugly pictures, and under bad lightning its like taking picture on android a decade ago.. Albeit the pixel number is enough.

All modern smartphones have masses of proprietary stuff to turn gigabytes of raw data from the sensor into a beautiful photo.

If you want an opensource phone, you end up with crappy photos unless you have a camera team of 500 people to rewrite that stuff, and a big team of lawyers to deal with all the patent licensing you're going to have to do for the techniques you use.

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#39

Post by TheMode »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #30
TheMode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather call it a workaround. They are doing the exact same thing everyone do, but for longer. Which I guess is better, but they are not tackling the root of the problem.

Besides not making smartphones what do you think the actual root problem is and how would you tackle it?

I believe that the root problems are programs having direct access to environment, being compiled down to hardware instructions, and these instructions not being easily interpretable (without having access to an already made interpreter)

These problems cause software to depend on highly specific platforms [1] that prevent any hardware from being standalone-ly sustainable.

* Environment access creates the opportunity for security risks, and dependencies that cannot be fulfilled on different platforms (e.g. asking for touch input on a desktop device)

* Being compiled to hardware specific instructions obviously prevent the same software to run on different hardware, rendering them obsolete sooner than otherwise necessary

* These instructions being hard to implement prevent individual users from creating their own interpreter, therefore creating the need for a centralized entity to provide it.

In other word, my suggestion would be to create a new target platform that compile down to a very understandable instruction set ("understandable" referring to the amount of time it would take for a new developer to fully implement it) and leave environment access out of the spec (How the software convert an input request to your mouse position remains platform specific).

This way, all software becomes permanently available without depending on any external entity, but new devices would still be free to improve the process

[1] - https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/213491697-What...

Re: Fairphone 4 is coming to the US

#40

Post by crossroadsguy »

miduil wrote: post #12

I really wish Fairphone 4 had GrapheneOS support, but after almost 4 years of Fairphone 3 I decided to go with a Pixel instead. Too many hardware bugs with the FP3 that were never acknowledged by the vendor and unhappy customers with bricked FP4's that requires sending them back in. Also I would have hoped for them continuing the FP3 architecture, feels such a waste that they've now instead developed a much more expe…

I wished there was a Graphene/Lineage OS phone (OEM supported; not “flash it yourself” sorcery needed kinda thing).

And something within the size of original iPhone SE or Mini with just even an above average battery. I’d pay a premium for that phone. It’s my wishful thinking about smartphones.

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