Live data from Hacker News

Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

ifixit.com

221–230 of 491 posts

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tossed it onto a tile floor, and it broke. That's unfortunate, but not entirely a surprise no matter who manufactured the phone. Glass is glass.

technically they tossed it onto the earth's core, which is estimated to be around 5000°C. though even if it had been a (completely uncovered, unrugged, and un-folded-up-sweatered) tile floor, i would absolutely expect most manufacturers' phones to hold up just fine at that height... to get serious for a moment though, id like to go against the anti-glass grain by pointing out that supposedly, successive generations o…

Thinner panes are cheaper panes. In theory they could keep the thickness the same and use a lower grade of material, but the savings likely aren't that high and thinner phones are likely the nail in the coffin.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#222

It sounds nuts that they reorganized the phone to increase the battery size from 3900mah to 4200mah. Also this phone is too expensive to be a practical device rather than a statement. Someone please just make a straightforward phone powered by replaceable 18650s dammit. If it runs AOSP out of the box then great.

An 18650 is twice the thickness of a Fairphone 5. The market for phones that big is small. Those people are probably just going to buy "ruggedized" phones with big lipo cells, like this: https://www.unihertz.com/products/tank

22000mAh battery. Giant ridiculous 1200 lumen flashlight. Weighs more than a pound. A quoted "hundred days" of standby time. Why have replaceable batteries if your phone can go three months without recharging?

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#223

I owned a fairphone 3. It was expensive but very easy to take apart and promised years of updates. Then it broke, after about 18 months. Fine, I thought, I'm glad I got a repairable phone. I'll just fix it, it'll be easy. I determined the problem was with the main logic board and found that a) a new one would cost much more than an entirely new, and more capable phone and b) it was out of stock. I just bought a new p…

This is why people buy iPhone. Unless you drop it from a speeding car, it won't cause any issues for 4-5 years at least.

As much as I love iPhones, that's simply not true. Hardware fails, no matter who makes it.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you've described are conveniences, which in essence was what my comment was about. A headphone jack is a convenience. It is inconvenient to use a dongle to convert from USB-C to 3.5mm, just as it is inconvenient to go down to your local government branch to change your address. You could do it, but you'd probably much rather just use your phone. You could ask the restaurant staff for a physical menu, but it's pr…

I won't be able to pay in most parking places. There's no government office to show up at for that. I also don't think I can manage my business information in any offline way - the most manual form of that requires (electronically) signed forms to be sent via e-mail. So while I agree, some things you probably can do without, others in a 2023 Northern European society you really can't. If I wanted to live life with a…

[flagged]

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#225
I do have some criticism on it. The way that both the motherboard and main frame are linked and not available as spare parts is pretty repairability inhibiting. The aluminium frame can scuff easily but it's not possible to replace that part :( making it necessary to use a case, the lack of which would have been a huge advantage of a repairable phone.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#226
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VERY ironically just do NOT buy a fucking Google phone to un-google it. I really really like the Grahpene OS project but its a damn shame that is does only support Pixels and not Fairphones or phones that are at least privacy supporting from the manufacturers end. I think "hardware security" of Google phones sounds nice on paper but you never know if these is some NSA chip or some other exploit build in that the Grap…

There are good reasons why Pixel phones are the only ones supported by GrapheneOS. See the list of requirements here[1]. If other devices met that criteria, they would be considered for support as well. The GOS team has done very thorough work to audit the supported devices, including the hardware, firmware and software components, to make sure they reach their high standards. They've made upstream contributions to A…

I bet that if Google stops matching one of those requirements, the team will just drop that requirement instead of abandoning the whole project and all their work.

Which means that these requirements are at least partly informed by the capabilities of Google pixel phones.

I have to say though that the timely security update thing is really a weak point of Fairphone. Yes they have years of support but they often delay updates for many months or skip major upgrades altogether.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one less eco-friendly thing I'm not letting go of. Hot showers are amazing.

Did see an interesting thing recently about mist showers. You run them hotter than a normal shower, but they also use significantly less water, and therefore energy. That's always something to consider.

But the lower amount of water flowing will make it harder to remove soap suds from the hair, leading to longer shower times unless you like dandruff :) for me that's the longest part of showering.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#228
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why I never use fast charging, avoid wired charging in general Wireless charging isn't a silver bullet either. It generates tons of waste heat, which is also bad for batteries. I'm also not sure why you're so against wired charging, especially since you have to go out of your way and pay a premium for fast charge capable chargers. If you buy a bog standard 5W/10W charger, you're not fast charging. If you plu…

I'm not against wired charging per se, I just think wireless is better. I use an extremely old wireless charging stand that doesn't even hit 500mA. It gets warm, but not hot. It takes all damn night to charge which suits me just fine. That said, I agree with you, which is why I've explicitly disabled fast wireless charging. The heat is almost as bad as excessive charge current. Though both heat and excessive current…

Yeah I disable all the fast charging modes too. Except when I really need them for a quick top-up. I think it's great to have the capability when needed but not something to use every day.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#229
post #53
post #4

> Fairphone promises five Android version upgrades and at least eight years of security updates, with an aim for a total lifespan of a decade. Impressive

So I’m completely out of the loop on the whole de-googling your Android phone thing. How workable is it today and how well would it work on a phone like this?

I tried to switch from iOS to de-googled Anrdoid. Basic stuff is completely broken. Any app that uses Google location services had intermittent problems getting a GPS lock (it was a software problem, not a hardware problem, since things that just directly ask the GPS chip for the device's location worked just fine).

Worse than that, most apps use random google stuff that they don't need, and the developers inevitably forget to check for NULL when they ask for the optional google service. At that point, the app fails with a null pointer exception at startup. Most apps fix this in a week or so, but they don't add de-googled android to the regression tests, so they end up breaking it again in a month or so.

The final straw was standing outside my car in 40F driving rain and staring at a java stack trace that was preventing the charger from turning on. At that point I pulled my work iPhone out of the glove compartment. If I didn't have it with me, I would have been stranded.

On the bright side, my Pixel 6 Pro got something like three times longer battery life than advertised until I broke down and installed the Google crap in a sandbox. At that point, battery life immediately plummeted back to advertised.

I wonder if politicians would intervene if more people realized that 66% of the battery usage of an Android phone is Google surveillance crap running in the background.

Re: Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?

#230
post #158
post #4

> Fairphone promises five Android version upgrades and at least eight years of security updates, with an aim for a total lifespan of a decade. Impressive

This is comparable to Apple timeline. The iPhone 6, released sept 2014 got a security update earlier this year.

it's limited to ios12 though, and crucially also safari 12 because of that, which limits its usefulness. so while it getting security updates is great, it does have a limitation an android getting security but not OS upgrades would not have. Though of course most android manufacturers are far worse than apple even if we just look at full os upgrade timeline.
Post reply on HN