Fairphone’s latest phone offers upgrades in all the right areas
Two years after the Fairphone 4 and following the release of some audio products like the Fairbuds XL, the Dutch company is back with a new repairable phone: the Fairphone 5. It looks and feels a lot like the Fairphone 4, but it adds choice upgrades across the board, making it the most modular and also most modern-looking repairable phone from the company yet.
The design is largely unchanged compared to the Fairphone 4, but the improvements that the company did make go a long way: The teardrop notch and the LCD screen is finally gone, with an ordinary punch-hole selfie and an OLED taking its place. Otherwise, you’re looking at an aluminum frame, a triangular camera array, and a removable back cover. Here, the company brought back its signature translucent back cover next to two black and blue variants. The dimensions and weight has been reduced ever-so-slightly compared to the predecessor.
I could live without headphones jack, but its thick and cost almost 2x the price I can afford. Id consider keeping it if I get it for free because I like the Idea of repairability
I refuse to accept a phone without a 3.5mm jack. I have old hi-fi systems and my car also doesn’t have BT. The two places I listen to music most. No jack, no buy.
I would definitely get this phone if I can get it easily in my current location. Otherwise, I’ll help reduce my smartphone usage impact by using it long term and give it to my family members after I get a new phone.
That’s what I did. Used my ROG Phone 2 for four years before giving it to my brother in law and getting a Fold5 because of work.
Looking at the spare parts from the shop it appears that it’s not possible. It would have been cool, but that must be pretty dang hard to do without compromising the new device.
I like it. If Google didn’t send me a new pixel 6a when my 5a broke, I’d have bought one right now. Hopefully these catch on and are still around in a few years when this one breaks. I’ll get one for sure…
Their promo video looks good. Though it is a promo video.
My guess is that it won’t have the bells and whistles of Samsung or Google Pixel devices. That doesn’t really seem to be the goal with the device though.
I get that. I’m not planning on switching from iPhone anytime soon really, but whenever I swap my Pixel 6 work phone I might go for a Fairphone instead.
GSMArena says it’s a Sony IMX800 with a 1/5.6" sensor, which is pretty respectable hardware, better than many premium compacts from years ago. With the right camera app or post processing you can get decent images from this.
I was pained to move to iOS when my kids decided they wanted iPhones and I needed one to manage their parental controls, but boy do I love the form factor of the 12 mini I got.
Everything out there seems so huge now.
I’d love to have more options for smaller, manageable phones, especially as my workplace have given out work iPhones now, I could realistically go back to Android again come upgrade time as I can manage their accounts with that.
There are no good phones due to the way the SoC and modem manufacturers work. The best phones, like the PinePhone or PinePhone Pro, are simply the least bad.
Manufacturers (e.g., Qualcomm, Samsung) won’t return your call unless you buy in huge quantities, hundreds of thousands or millions of units.
Lack of documentation.
Information restricted by NDA.
Non-free binaries required for lots of hardware.
Generally lording over the market and exploiting their position, to the degree of anti-competitiveness, and as a consequence artificially extending the rein of non-free software in the mobile domain.
Are there any better alternatives? The only ones I’m aware of off the top of my head would be Samsung’s Exynos, Kirin, and MediaTek. From the little experience I have in the space it always struck me as Qualcomm being the least shitty option, not necessarily the best.
Proprietary drivers/firmware. Basically makes it impossible/very hard to develop custom ROMs/operating systems (the lack of openness makes it super hard to extend/modify/verify the software running on these chips).
The drivers are well separated via HAL so you can absolutely make custom ROMs/OSes without changing those. The Android OS has way more code above the HAL layer than below. You can’t however arbitrarily update the Linux kernel, modify the drivers or fix security issues found, beyond the security support window provided by Qualcomm.
I said it’s no good for free software OSes, I didn’t mention Linux. I’m not sure what you think it means for Linux to support a processor or why you think that’s relevant. Linux can be and often is used with non-free OSes.
Lineage OS, graphene, caylx, yk the stuff you jailbreak a phone for. People are saying this can run Ubuntu touch, and yet other people are saying this will be troublesome for the Android ROM community to develop for. Bear with me, I’m new to the concept and certainly might be wrong about something.
Arstechnica has in depth articles on 3, 4, and one about the 5 that should give you a good idea on this. I say this as a pixel owner who’s undecided myself…
The released fairphone 4 in the us comes with a special os, not based on android iirc.i think it was to test the waters.
What i am curious about is wether they can be reflashed to run lineageOS
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I could live without headphones jack, but its thick and cost almost 2x the price I can afford. Id consider keeping it if I get it for free because I like the Idea of repairability
I refuse to accept a phone without a 3.5mm jack. I have old hi-fi systems and my car also doesn’t have BT. The two places I listen to music most. No jack, no buy.
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No and yes.
It’s in the article
I would definitely get this phone if I can get it easily in my current location. Otherwise, I’ll help reduce my smartphone usage impact by using it long term and give it to my family members after I get a new phone.
That’s what I did. Used my ROG Phone 2 for four years before giving it to my brother in law and getting a Fold5 because of work.
Can anything from the new phone be used on the pervious models?
Looking at the spare parts from the shop it appears that it’s not possible. It would have been cool, but that must be pretty dang hard to do without compromising the new device.
I like it. If Google didn’t send me a new pixel 6a when my 5a broke, I’d have bought one right now. Hopefully these catch on and are still around in a few years when this one breaks. I’ll get one for sure…
Sounds like the perfect opportunity for GrapheneOS
Low-end hardware and a pretty much closed CPU you can’t do much with for 700 Euros? No, thank you.
8 years of suffering on that octa-core
You make it sound like 8 years of guaranteed support is something bad, lol.
No, but this will be a living, stutters hell in 3 years time.
You know, people are out there using their phones on Snapdragon 400s; I know you’re exaggerating.
Don’t know, have my FP4 since release, no problems with performance.
Same here
Nah, these days hardware doesn’t go outdated that fast.
I dont really understand this gripe. Can you explain why its a closed CPU that I cant do much with?
If the CPU isn’t a breadboard I can resolder any time I want and have to carry around in a suitcase what is the point?
Lmfao
It’s a 778G equivalent, from what I can tell, how is that even low end?
But is the camera good?
Their promo video looks good. Though it is a promo video.
My guess is that it won’t have the bells and whistles of Samsung or Google Pixel devices. That doesn’t really seem to be the goal with the device though.
I’m excited for some real world tests. If we can get to at least an iPhone 13 quality of processing on the image, I’m in.
I get that. I’m not planning on switching from iPhone anytime soon really, but whenever I swap my Pixel 6 work phone I might go for a Fairphone instead.
GSMArena says it’s a Sony IMX800 with a 1/5.6" sensor, which is pretty respectable hardware, better than many premium compacts from years ago. With the right camera app or post processing you can get decent images from this.
1/1.56", big difference.
According to CNET not as good as pixel, but it is honestly fine (not great, but definitely fine) in my eyes.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/fairphone-5-review-the-phone-that-wants-to-save-the-world/
I’m surprised there are no night tests. The images look pretty good on what they tested.
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Victim complex much? Shesh who the heck cares
Why is that a problem?
Brand only wants to fit in, instead of standing out.
I really hope it does well, the business model really needs to change.
😡
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6.46" is too large a screen. My pixel 6a is barely small enough. Also, bring back the headphone jack.
I was pained to move to iOS when my kids decided they wanted iPhones and I needed one to manage their parental controls, but boy do I love the form factor of the 12 mini I got.
Everything out there seems so huge now.
I’d love to have more options for smaller, manageable phones, especially as my workplace have given out work iPhones now, I could realistically go back to Android again come upgrade time as I can manage their accounts with that.
Probably harder to make stuff repairable and modular when it’s smaller
I know lots like small phones, but I don’t. I personally would like a 6.7" 19.5:9 screen. This is actually a little smaller than I’d like.
No good for free software OSes then :-(
What would be a good phone for free software OSes?
There are no good phones due to the way the SoC and modem manufacturers work. The best phones, like the PinePhone or PinePhone Pro, are simply the least bad.
Can you elaborate on why? Like, I’m not surprised, I just am not involved in this space enough to know why.
Are there any better alternatives? The only ones I’m aware of off the top of my head would be Samsung’s Exynos, Kirin, and MediaTek. From the little experience I have in the space it always struck me as Qualcomm being the least shitty option, not necessarily the best.
Rockchip RK3399(S) is the best you can get in terms of freedom. The rest are much of a muchness.
Proprietary drivers/firmware. Basically makes it impossible/very hard to develop custom ROMs/operating systems (the lack of openness makes it super hard to extend/modify/verify the software running on these chips).
The drivers are well separated via HAL so you can absolutely make custom ROMs/OSes without changing those. The Android OS has way more code above the HAL layer than below. You can’t however arbitrarily update the Linux kernel, modify the drivers or fix security issues found, beyond the security support window provided by Qualcomm.
So you can’t make free software OSes.
What is the best open blob SoC available?
What do you mean?
To be fair: Murena will be shipping a version of this with /e/ OS on it. https://mastodon.social/@murena/110978277374459512
The processer has Linux support though. Isn’t it more the device drivers that are the problem?
If thie phone gets mainline linux support I wil buy it in a heartbeat.
By the way. It does already have an entry on the postmarketos wiki https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp5)
PostmarketOS isn’t a free software OS.
I said it’s no good for free software OSes, I didn’t mention Linux. I’m not sure what you think it means for Linux to support a processor or why you think that’s relevant. Linux can be and often is used with non-free OSes.
Fairphones have always used Qualcomm SOCs, there’s nothing new here. I don’t understand the fuss here if I’m being honest.
I am so new to this so bear with me. There is Lineage OS for fairphone 4 - does this mean there won’t be FOSS ROMs available for the fairphone 5?
What do you mean?
Lineage OS, graphene, caylx, yk the stuff you jailbreak a phone for. People are saying this can run Ubuntu touch, and yet other people are saying this will be troublesome for the Android ROM community to develop for. Bear with me, I’m new to the concept and certainly might be wrong about something.
No, it does not mean any of the projects you mentioned will be unavailable. None of those projects are free software OSes.
Damn…
They’re gonna keep getting bigger, aren’t they?
I’ve heard that a few times.
The bigger they are, the easier they are to repair. So repairable phones in general are going to be on the bigger side.
Phones back then are both smaller and more repairable
I think they meant the company, not the phone
The bigger the hoop, the bigger the hoe… Or something like that.
Is it available in the U.S. yet?
Arstechnica has in depth articles on 3, 4, and one about the 5 that should give you a good idea on this. I say this as a pixel owner who’s undecided myself…
The released fairphone 4 in the us comes with a special os, not based on android iirc.i think it was to test the waters.
What i am curious about is wether they can be reflashed to run lineageOS
No :(