i used this phone for a year. the phone is a bit bulky and heavy, but not much more than a flagship phone with a case on it. i never needed a case because of the metal build, and the back is this rubber/plastic material that’s really nice. no stupid glass that will crack if u drop it.
the back comes off nice and easy and everything is removable with a screwdriver. the battery doesnt require a screwdriver to remove if i recall correctly. the replacement parts are available on fairphone’s website. the bootloader is unlockable so you can change the OS if you wanted to aswell. the stock OS isn’t so comfortable so i do recommend trying out alternatives, i had good experiences with /e/ and CalyxOS.
the fairphone marketing is a bit gross in my opinion. removing the headphone jack right as they release their own wireless accessories. having the hardware inside the phone for a second SIM, but making it inaccessible to end-users. promising 5 years of warranty and software support despite using old hardware that will not have 5 years of firmware updates, let alone security updates down the line. they base this on their long-term updates to fp2 and fp3 which also lack these critical components.
the phone’s specs are nothing special. which is fine when you consider that the premium you’re paying is for your own ethics; NOT the quality of the phone. but remember, fairphone are no stranger to misleading marketing and greenwashing. if you care about security updates, this isn’t a 5 year phone as they’re promising it to be.
i ended up installing grapheneOS on a used pixel, that’s my phone now. it’s a much, much better experience and i get to know that it will hold this quality of life for a long time to come. i do miss the removable battery, though.
please correct me if im wrong on anything.
to also note, we shouldn’t make Good the enemy of Perfect.
if the fp4 fits your needs, even knowing everything in this thread, then it’s still a massive leap forward and a future that NEEDS financial support to ever exist. i regret buying my FP4, but i would have still donated to fairphone either way. however, we shouldn’t blindly accept their misleading marketing either.
edit: clearing up a vague sentiment
FP has supported previous models for many years. I certainly agree with you about many things. The “eco conscious” tech thing is peculiar. Hard to make a decision. There are some companies that guarantee phones for 5 years and provide 10 years of replacement parts but they aren’t available globally.
I very nearly bought the FP4 but decided not to based on the specs.
the problem isn’t that they dont “support” older models, it’s that the support is purely for show. they aren’t receiving the chip OEM updates and they also aren’t rolling out support for android releases. even the FP4, right before android 13 launched, was stuck on android 12 for a worrying length of time. CalyxOS, a group of FOSS developers, ended up making the android 13 port for them. fairphone shouldn’t be taken seriously on their product support length claims. you will not be receiving some of the most important updates. this should be important to any of security conscious readers.
So I’m from the Netherlands. My wife and I have this phone. We also have the framework laptop and “repeat audio” headphones (https://repeat.audio/, which are also repairable)
After owning and breaking a few phones and apparal that I could not fix, was hard to get serviced, and got stuck with repair bills I was done. Plus, I’m in a well-paying job (IT) so I figured; if anyone is capable of voting with my money, it’s me.
I did install lineageos, and I use Linux on my frameworks. But the phone is simply wonderfull! I have an extra battery in my nutsack (https://nutsac.com/) so when I need it, I can swap battery’s in like 10 seconds and continue my day with a full battery (https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-4-battery-22?category=4#attr=)
My wife already broke the screen ;-) which was a 5 minute job to switch with simple tools. Absolutely wonderfull
Thank you for sharing your nutsac. I’ve been looking for a good one to play with for a while now and I just know I’m going to have fun with this one! My kids are gonna love this!
My wife cannot say enough good things about my nutsac. Holds everything we need while on the road.
I’ve got the larger 13" nutsac, which does impress everyone who sees it.
About the extra battery, I’ve considered getting one myself, but it sounds a bit like a hassle having to turn off the phone while swapping them out? Or can you connect it to a power source while swapping to keep it on?
No it turns off as soon as you take the battery out ;-) All in all no more then 20 seonds, including starting back up (10 seconds for just replacing the battery). I don’t mind it. Especially since now I do not have to carry a larger powerbank and cable.
While I won’t be getting it as I don’t really need a new phone any time soon, I really hope they take off in the US. I like to think I’ll start owning more repairable tech down the line.
Interesting - they sell not only repairable phones but OEM phones with the /e/ os (degoogled Android).
Has anyone tried using it? What was your experience?
The phone is such a good idea, I really hope it is compatible with carriers here in Canada.
Honestly, just last night I was trying to replace the battery in an old Samsung phone, an A5. (For my son to play with, for making lego stop motions, videos etc.) So I bought a battery and repair kit. How hard could it be?
I’m sure it was designed to never be repaired or opened. Replacing the battery required me to totally dismantle my phone, then hopefully reassemble correctly. However the whole thing was so filled with glue and this proved to be impossible.
It was a really nice little phone. So ticked off with how stupid and disposable the design ended up being.
I purchased the Fairphone 4 a couple of months ago to use in Canada. It works great with my carrier here.
The phone I purchased runs stock Android, not the /e/ OS. And yeah, it’s super easy to open up and repair. I purchased an extra battery and an extra camera module. I have no idea what stock will be like 5, 6, or 7 years from now, but that’s how long I typically run each of my phones before switching to something new and I wanted to make sure I could keep the thing running regardless of how the company performs.
I’ve been using my Fairphone 4 for a couple of months now and I really like it. It wasn’t easy to get it in Canada, but it works great with my carrier here. Getting my hands on some spare parts and a wallet case here wasn’t easy either.
But now I have a repairable phone with an extra battery and an extra camera module. I should be able to run this hardware for years to come regardless of wear and tear or the longevity of the company. I’m hoping to get 6 years out of it. I ran my previous LG phone for 7 before switching; had to replace the battery twice, which was easy because that model had a removable battery.
I was considering this some time back, but the fact that this sustainable phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack irks me.
I understand that it’s the trend nowadays but it’s still an extra dongle people will loose and need to buy again and again.
Bought an FP3 for that reason (and because I’d rather be as late as I can to the moronic 5G-party).
I think I’m OOTL, what’s wrong with 5G?
More of a personal/situates POV, my previous comment was a bit rashly worded.
From where I stand, it’s yet again another useless trend generating e-waste.
Like “oh look with 5g you’ll be able to load netflix and pornhub in 10k very ultra mega high hd on your tiny phone screens, you really need it and you need to ditch uour old phone before its end of life and to buy a 5g one”.
They even tried to sell it as philantropic " thanks to 5g, poor people in poor countries [insert picture with black people here] will have access to good doctors from good places for surgeries [insert white old dude in a white coat picture here]".
And it opens a whole new field of connected items which sounds really nice in terms of corporate/state spying.
It makes Corona!!!111
Not to mention charging and listening to music at the same time…
Hopefully this will extend to Canada as well.
I love the idea of the fair phone but I hate the degoogling of it. Like I don’t love Google but they are so embedded into my phone that it’s pointless to try to change. I use a google voice number and thus all calls or texts I take are processed by Google. Going through the pain of not having the play store would just be a headache for no benefit. Not to mention email. I have 2 TB of google drive storage and transferring that is going to be a headache, not to mention something like proton mail only has 500 GB as it’s very top offering of storage.
I’ll happily degoogle myself when it becomes realistic to do so but right now there aren’t any real competitors to any of these services.
Murena comes with microG and its own Play Store front-end so you can still install Play Store apps if you really want to.
