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How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

arstechnica.com

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Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#61

Post by prmoustache »

mdp2021 wrote: post #23
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #17

I would love a Fairphone, but no headphone jack is a nonstarter for me. Still blows me away that a company saying they are focused on longevity would get rid of a universal audio interface that we've had for decades. In the article they claim it's to fit other features in, but frankly that's not a believable claim. Other manufacturers manage to get a headphone jack in just fine, without any noticeable downside.

I absolutely concour about the need of a headphone jack - I do not buy anything without it. So, > to fit other features in what exactly, one would ask. If there are tradeoffs, if would be nice if the customers can decide what to have, in a modular product.

At this point headphones with an usb-c connection have become nearly as common as 3.5mm trs ones. Additionally you can permamently hook a small usb-c dac with 3.5mm trs output to the headphones of your choice.

Only issue is some very cheap ones are actually bluetooth headphones in disguise where the usb-c connection only exist to power the bt recepter inside the headphone. I find this completely stupid.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#62

Post by Foobar8568 »

mhitza wrote: post #21
Valodim wrote: post #10

Not an expert, but I recently heard that apparently not everything is perfect in fairphone land: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...

Fairphone makes their fair share of blunders. Software updates are a big issue, especially around the times that critical vulnerabilities need to be patched. With the hardware I'm not impressed, and on their own forum I've seen plenty of people reporting issues with overheating on the Gen 6. Hopefully kinks have been ironed out on their 6+. The current CEO also has a persona that would stir up any community (read a f…

I have an FP4, and when it'll die, I will just buy an iphone. Security updates are slow, and after the bullshit of the android upgrade, yeah but no.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#63

Post by dsr_ »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #60
artisinal wrote: post #43

The recently released Fairphone 6+ runs on Android 16. I had to look that up on Wikipedia, their website doesn't even clearly state that. Android 16 is 14 months old at the moment. Android 17 was released to manufacturers 6 months ago and had a general release 2 months ago. So why does a brand new phone run an operating system from over a year ago? Does it really take over 6 months to update a phone to a new version…

I am a user. What does Android 17 do for me that 16 doesn't?

Since about 12 or so, it's been a series of cosmetic changes, bugfixes, and "AI" features.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#64

Post by Grombobulous »

neobrain wrote: post #37
Grombobulous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, a lot of the “fairness” of the Fairphone is offered by “just buy a really popular manufacturer.” Everyone and their dog can repair an iPhone because it’s the most popular phone on the planet. Are those repairs accessible to the consumer at home with amateur skills? No, not really. However, newer iPhone models are significantly easier to repair and come along with lower repair costs direct from the manufac…

I'm not big on this general line on argument, but one point in particular: > And of course, fairphone’s hardware and OS are nothing to write home about. For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it. For the "freedom nerds", FP is one of the only (if not the only?) vendor to have official support for microG-based operating systems,…

[flagged]

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#65

Post by Foobar8568 »

alerighi wrote: post #42
eleventen wrote: post #34

Are ya'll really repairing your phones? I replace mine when it can't run Google Maps smoothly anymore. After 4-5 years, on every phone I've ever had, user interactions begin to lag noticeably. Apps launch much more slowly. Intense graphical apps like maps become frustrating to use. At some point I can't take it anymore and replace the phone, long before its physical parts or battery have worn out.

I've bought new a Google Pixel 7a two years ago, paid for it 400 euros. After 1 year I've dropped it, landed on a corner, screen completely broken, replacement costed screen costed me nearly 120 euros (and was not an original screen, otherwise I would have spent more). Just costs much money because of the fucking fingerprint reader under the screen that why couldn't put it in the back of the phone as they did for man…

Look at the cost of a FP screen replacement, 100 €/chf for the FP4. Mine is going black randomly until I reboot the FP4 one to five times.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#66

Post by Grombobulous »

awelxtr wrote: post #51
Grombobulous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, a lot of the “fairness” of the Fairphone is offered by “just buy a really popular manufacturer.” Everyone and their dog can repair an iPhone because it’s the most popular phone on the planet. Are those repairs accessible to the consumer at home with amateur skills? No, not really. However, newer iPhone models are significantly easier to repair and come along with lower repair costs direct from the manufac…

The new Sennheiser earbuds have replaceable batteries too so the fairbuds are no longer unique in that regard. I haven't read comparisons on sound quality though

And of course, wired headphones still exist as an alternative for those who really don’t like the battery aspect, and it’s not even terribly inconvenient for phones without a headphone jack.

I suspect that the venn diagram of the kind of person who takes issue with Bluetooth audio batteries and the kind of person willing to use wired headphones or prefers them outright has a lot of overlap.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#67

Post by luqtas »

Grombobulous wrote: post #31
mhitza wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairphone makes their fair share of blunders. Software updates are a big issue, especially around the times that critical vulnerabilities need to be patched. With the hardware I'm not impressed, and on their own forum I've seen plenty of people reporting issues with overheating on the Gen 6. Hopefully kinks have been ironed out on their 6+. The current CEO also has a persona that would stir up any community (read a f…

Ultimately, a lot of the “fairness” of the Fairphone is offered by “just buy a really popular manufacturer.” Everyone and their dog can repair an iPhone because it’s the most popular phone on the planet. Are those repairs accessible to the consumer at home with amateur skills? No, not really. However, newer iPhone models are significantly easier to repair and come along with lower repair costs direct from the manufac…

isn't the main point of Fairphone to not use conflict minerals?

by using FOSS only myself and hating monopolies like Apple etc., i still pretty much convinced that being "green" or "ethical" is more about participating/volunteering/doing-something towards a better world than off-loading your duty to other companies... one could easily make a point that Apple products despite locked down, are still green (Apple has a bunch of zero-emission and whatever policies) and much more if one uses their devices for a long while. i had a 2° hand iPhone SE 1° gen. till 2021? if stuff breaks despite your not being able to fix it's not like you can't hop into a specialized shop to change batteries or even pay the expensive service Apple offers... sure that allows exploitation and it's always nice to get rid of it, that's why somehow these emerging companies are important and/or policies like the right of repair will make them obsolete

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#68

Post by ValdikSS »

SahAssar wrote: post #56
ValdikSS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS is like a veteran and war zone expert: for them, not only the external environment is considered extremely hostile that you should leave your house only wearing an armor and with bodyguards, but also the internal environment is hostile: your bodyguards could be bribed and work against you, that's why you need to somehow be protected against that as well. Just as physical security, digital security most of…

> That's why Xbox, PlayStation, Switch all run on a custom silicon and not an ordinary chips! Not really. Xbox and PlayStation both run on pretty standard AMD Zen 2 chips. Somewhat customized, but standard enough that people by binned playstation 5 motherboards to use as computers with normal OS'es (lookup BC-250). The last gen with more customized chips was the PS3/Xbox360 era, when both went with a variant of Power…

>but standard enough that people by binned playstation 5 motherboards to use as computers

That doesn't mean that all the features are enabled right from the factory, or that the compatibility with already existing features is lost.

Modern chip's security features are pretty complicated and include hardware patches, hardware debug authentication, multiple provisioning states (and multi-key hierarchy for that), RMA states to clear all the private information, etc.

>Switch runs on basically the same Nvidia Tegra CPU/GPU as multiple android tablets.

Yes, and the one which got cracked with a bootrom vulnerability ;)

That's a pretty working motivation for a chip company to improve their chip security when the company as beefy as Nintendo tells them that their chip is vulnerable they're losing money because the customers can play for free ;). I'm pretty sure patchable bootroms started to be common only after Switch hack.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#69

Post by kenniskrag »

artisinal wrote: post #43

The recently released Fairphone 6+ runs on Android 16. I had to look that up on Wikipedia, their website doesn't even clearly state that. Android 16 is 14 months old at the moment. Android 17 was released to manufacturers 6 months ago and had a general release 2 months ago. So why does a brand new phone run an operating system from over a year ago? Does it really take over 6 months to update a phone to a new version…

Certification takes time and probably overlaped with the phone development. Fairephone is small compared to e.g. samsung and they describe themself more "stable" and long-term support than bleeding edge.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#70

Post by dathinab »

artisinal wrote: post #55
iririririr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If this were genuinely 100% a Qualcomm limitation, I'd expect every Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 phone to be similarly stuck. But Motorola's Edge 70 Fusion uses the same SoC and was already in Android 17 beta testing in February, and Nothing's Phone (4a) and OnePlus Nord CE 6 are also slated for Android 17. So it seems the SoC isn't inherently preventing Android 17.

[flagged]
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