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Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

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Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#101

Post by Fnoord »

monopoliessuck wrote: post #87
Fnoord wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An always plugged in port risks damage and a damaged USB port makes your phone a brick, not so for an analog port that is inarguably more resilient. Doubt it, there is no data to support this with regards to Fairphone 4 and 5. You'd think that if there was a negative data point on that, there'd be tons and tons of CS reports on it. On the contrary; Fairphone 4 has very little CS support requirement and returns. In…

You need the phone upside down in your pocket to plug it in and a new USB headset to boot. The Apple and Samsungs of the world in their ubiquity have changed the ecosystem. It's not surprising that if you make using my old headset difficult, I and millions of others will move to buying a wireless alternative — they're counting on it. That's what happened and the sales numbers mirror that. People throw away way more a…

> It's not surprising that if you make using my old headset difficult, I and millions of others will move to buying a wireless alternative — they're counting on it. That's what happened and the sales numbers mirror that. People throw away way more audio equipment today than they ever have.

Hehe, well there's converters which add Bluetooth to devices like keyboards. Surely you can get one to work on your 3.5 mm device so you're up to par? /runs

Honestly, I've been a 3.5 mm user for a lot of years in my life, and I actually love listening to my little WF-1000XM3. In fact, they're more safe to wear before I fall asleep. Because I won't be able to suffocate due to wires. Also, back in those days where I often used 3.5 mm cables I often had cable breakage at the choke points (point of entry and near the speakers). I used to burn through a couple of headsets a year as kid! I'm not missing that at all. But cool enough, Fairphone actually had a 3.5 mm headphones where you could detach the cable to replace it. And a third example: with ambient sound I can do stuff like dishes, open front door, or make up my bed without using a wire and without being attached to anything.

Do you know about VR by chance? Do people like being connected with VR, or do they prefer to be not connected? The latter ehhh..? Cause it is more convenient, that is why.

> The fact that these Sony earbuds happen to be replaceable is quite a bit different than them being _designed_ as user-replicable. You found a community member that uploaded a video showing you how to do it, now show me the manufacturer's documentation explaining how it's done.

I don't give a shit what Sony's take on it is. iFixit guide is enough for me.

> This exists for watches and cameras

Both of which are type of device which is now redundant.

> I get it, you either work for or just really dig Fairphone. Glad you found a company you like so much.

shrug and you're on the of them 3.5 mm loudmouths? :)

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#102

Post by monopoliessuck »

Fnoord wrote: post #101
monopoliessuck wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need the phone upside down in your pocket to plug it in and a new USB headset to boot. The Apple and Samsungs of the world in their ubiquity have changed the ecosystem. It's not surprising that if you make using my old headset difficult, I and millions of others will move to buying a wireless alternative — they're counting on it. That's what happened and the sales numbers mirror that. People throw away way more a…

> It's not surprising that if you make using my old headset difficult, I and millions of others will move to buying a wireless alternative — they're counting on it. That's what happened and the sales numbers mirror that. People throw away way more audio equipment today than they ever have. Hehe, well there's converters which add Bluetooth to devices like keyboards. Surely you can get one to work on your 3.5 mm device…

Redundant? Smart watches exist and camera (phones) exist. They're both worse off today in the repair department _by design_, not coincidence or necessity. I still have both (non smart versions) I use specifically because of their repairability.

Planned obsolescence is baked into the marketing strategy. Fairphone realizes this but capitulated to sell peripherals, toeing Apple's talking points.

Companies taking a principled stance on repair is how repairs actually get done not the random customer finding an out-of-band way to increase the longevity of their hardware by trawling iFix it.

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#103

Post by bigstrat2003 »

Tom4hawk wrote: post #99
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's anything "environmentally friendly" about making users have an extra dongle to get basic functionality.

I personally know absolutely no one with a dongle. I know many people who still use phones with jack that are not using it (or have earbuds). I was using wireless headphones before anyone heard of "earbuds" - they are much more convenient in situations where I'm using headphones. Of course, it's anecdotal but it seems that there are much more people like me/my friends than people missing Jack...

IMO the biggest utility of a headphone jack is not for earbuds, it's that it enables you to play music from your phone on basically any device made in the last 30 years. Want to hook up to some random stereo? No problem, you can do it. Want to play music in your car, but you have one of the many cars without Bluetooth? Easy. There's a lot to be said for having a damn near universal audio connector. Bluetooth is nice, but it's not there yet in terms of ubiquity.

My personal use case for the headphone jack is playing music in my car. My car doesn't even have an aux input (I have to use a cassette adapter), let alone Bluetooth. And when I'm on a long drive, being able to play music while charging is a must. I will only very rarely hook up a pair of wired earbuds to my phone, but I absolutely must have a headphone jack.

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#104

Post by rglullis »

Fnoord wrote: post #100
rglullis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a smartphone has a different form factor and ecosystem than a laptop. But there is nothing stopping them from standardizing their own and building out support from other players in the industry. My point is, during the Fairphone 3/3+ years they seem to be going in this direction. This is why that I bought in the first place. With the FP4, they went from "company with potential to disrupt the market and do good thin…

> But there is nothing stopping them from standardizing their own and building out support from other players in the industry. The smaller the device, the more difficult this is. Especially with modularity taken into account. A Framework has modules which are basically USB-C to X where X can be anything (TB, USB-A, USB-C, microSD, etc etc). Easy, if you have the space. On 5-6 inch smartphone? You don't have such spac…

It's precisely because the device is so small that it should be easier for them to come up with a standard. And "modularity" is not a problem if your design is about fixing what these modules are.

All they need is to come up with a design where they can set:

- a standard dimension for the board. - a standard dimension for the camera module. - a standard dimension for the battery. - a standard location for I/O and power: display connector, audio, sd card, digitizer, camera, usb port, 2 sim slots, vcc/ground. - a standard location for battery.

That's all, really. They don't need to optimize for thinness, they don't need to optimize for performance. They don't need to optimize for heat dissipation. They don't need to optimize for screen size or to ensure that their phone has a stupid notch. I don't care if the phone ends up being 1 cm thick or if it ends up with a 3 mm bezel. First, the people who care about silly things like that are the people who buy whatever "innovation" is being pushed by Apple or Samsung. Second, the phone will likely end up in a protective case anyway so all these details are just stupid vanity metrics.

All I know is that they had the chance of having a repeat customer in me, but they are throwing that away if they expect me to keep buying whole new phones from them.

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#105

Post by doc_gunthrop »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #14
MarcusE1W wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/e/OS is focussed on not (or less) leaking data (-> privacy), especially to Google. Whereas I understand Grapheme OS wants to make it very difficult to hack the device (-> security). This leads to different compromises. I would say that /e/ is more normal end user friendly and GrapheneOS enables more security for those who need it, but less Android apps will work as normal.

>> GrapheneOS enables more security for those who need it, but less Android apps will work as normal. I can attest this is pretty accurate. A lot of the Android apps you find in the F-Droid or Aurora store can be installed, but won't work since most require you to have Google Play services enabled which Graphene sandboxes by default: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play A perfect example is when I was l…

F-Droid apps do not require Google Play services (that's part of its raison d'être) and will work fine on Graphene OS. Aurora Store, on the other hand, depends on the app in question. If it's a paid app that requires Google Pay, then it won't be compatible.

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#106

Post by Tom4hawk »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #103
Tom4hawk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally know absolutely no one with a dongle. I know many people who still use phones with jack that are not using it (or have earbuds). I was using wireless headphones before anyone heard of "earbuds" - they are much more convenient in situations where I'm using headphones. Of course, it's anecdotal but it seems that there are much more people like me/my friends than people missing Jack...

IMO the biggest utility of a headphone jack is not for earbuds, it's that it enables you to play music from your phone on basically any device made in the last 30 years. Want to hook up to some random stereo? No problem, you can do it. Want to play music in your car, but you have one of the many cars without Bluetooth? Easy. There's a lot to be said for having a damn near universal audio connector. Bluetooth is nice,…

I'm not claiming that there is no use for Jack. I just think that this is a niche and doesn't require a separate connector in every smartphone. Having a universal connector that can be used for various niche scenarios is IMO enough. We should push for improvements in that regard (e.g. make it easy to charge the phone and use the dongle at the same time).

I wish I had the same problem as you do with your car. Mine is old enough that it doesn't have Bluetooth (I'm not the first owner and Bluetooth was an "extra" in this model) but new enough that there is no cassette player (and no built-in aux input) :)

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#107

Post by Fnoord »

rglullis wrote: post #104
Fnoord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there is nothing stopping them from standardizing their own and building out support from other players in the industry. The smaller the device, the more difficult this is. Especially with modularity taken into account. A Framework has modules which are basically USB-C to X where X can be anything (TB, USB-A, USB-C, microSD, etc etc). Easy, if you have the space. On 5-6 inch smartphone? You don't have such spac…

It's precisely because the device is so small that it should be easier for them to come up with a standard. And "modularity" is not a problem if your design is about fixing what these modules are. All they need is to come up with a design where they can set: - a standard dimension for the board. - a standard dimension for the camera module. - a standard dimension for the battery. - a standard location for I/O and pow…

Fairphone 2 went this way. Unfortunately it being more modular meant more hardware issues because of friction and such.

So if they went for a standard dimension of everything you mention, it isn't possible on a small scale. Because every device upgrade is an iteration. One might for example have more cameras or more sensors, another time you get an upgrade from microUSB to USB-C, another time the SoC gets updated (they went to an industrial grade now, meant for 8 years of updates). If you look at Project Ara or the project Dave Hakkens' Phoneblocks, these projects are exactly that, and they increase the size of the device massively.

> They don't need to optimize for thinness, they don't need to optimize for performance. They don't need to optimize for heat dissipation. They don't need to optimize for screen size or to ensure that their phone has a stupid notch. I don't care if the phone ends up being 1 cm thick or if it ends up with a 3 mm bezel.

Yeah, that is the gist of your message. You don't care about this, and that, and this, and that, while they need to take it into account. Not as extreme as a non-modular, non-repairable smartphone but still it has to be taken into account. The company is too small for various markets like one where they want the device to be upgradeable between different versions, one where they want a hardware keyboard, one where it is an e-ink screen, one where the form factor is small, etc etc.

For exameple: Look at the small form factor of iPhone Mini and I get what you described is what YOU want heck I've read it all on the Fairphone forums but the world isn't only about YOU. So that they lose you as customer, who cares? They get more customers in return.

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#108

Post by Moldoteck »

bornfreddy wrote: post #95
Moldoteck wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo not big deal, there are plenty of usb-c headphones, even from apple now

I prefer not throwing away my existing headphones, thank you very much.

welp, u can get zenfone then

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#109

Post by lm28469 »

monopoliessuck wrote: post #42
lm28469 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends a lot of what you do with your phone tbh, I'm on a pixel 3a and still see no reasons to update, the fairphone 4 is better spec'd than that

I agree with you practically except that the pixel 3a has not been getting security updates for over a year. I wouldn't run it with anything personal on it. - https://endoflife.date/pixel

Contrary to seemingly everyone here I'm not exposed to state level threats so I couldn't care less, as long as Google maps give me my direction and Spotify plays my song I'm ok

Re: Fairphone 4 with /e/OS by Murena now available at fairphone.com

#110

Post by rglullis »

Fnoord wrote: post #107
rglullis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's precisely because the device is so small that it should be easier for them to come up with a standard. And "modularity" is not a problem if your design is about fixing what these modules are. All they need is to come up with a design where they can set: - a standard dimension for the board. - a standard dimension for the camera module. - a standard dimension for the battery. - a standard location for I/O and pow…

Fairphone 2 went this way. Unfortunately it being more modular meant more hardware issues because of friction and such. So if they went for a standard dimension of everything you mention, it isn't possible on a small scale. Because every device upgrade is an iteration. One might for example have more cameras or more sensors, another time you get an upgrade from microUSB to USB-C, another time the SoC gets updated (th…

> One might for example have more cameras or more sensors, another time you get an upgrade from microUSB to USB-C,

There is no need to change your main board dimensions for that.

> small form factor (...) get axed because there isn't enough demand. And yet the flip seems to be a new rage, seemingly big enough market share.

Is it really? To me it looks like they push for the foldable phones while downplay the small display ones because they can ask for a higher price on the new gimmick and therefore have a higher profit margin

> So that they lose you as customer, who cares? They get more customers in return.

If they are favoring "get more customers" over "create a product that reduces global environmental impact / gets away from planned obsolescence", then they are no different than all the other companies and all their talk is just marketing. As with any bad ethical decision, it looks good in the beginning and it might even seem as something justifiable, but in the long run people end up noticing the fraud and move on to the next one that promises to do better.

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