I don’t like smartphones. I use a dumbphone.
But this is a wonderful initiative.
I hope Graphene eventually shifts to support the fairphones. Doubtful, but it’d be perfect
No, it’s the other way around. Fairphone needs to implement the things Graphene requires.
Por que no los dos?
GrapheneOS can’t add hardware features to an existing phone. That’s why no los dos.
Sure, but once that’s in place, Graphene has to make efforts on their part. It’s not instantly compatible unless the hardware is exactly identical to a supported device. That’s the point I was making. I forget sometimes when being flippant that I have to explain every detail so that overly pedantic people can follow…my bad…
If we could get a Fairphone with GrapheneOS, that would be the perfect phone for me. Repairability & the most secure and private Android. Sign me up!
Hows their secure boot?
ass stock operating system, no macro lens, shit battery, still overpriced. you are better off with a refurbished pixel with a custom os.
im still not sure the whole business thing is a just a greenwashing scam or not.
on the other hand the battery can just be popped out, has a cool semitranspaerant early 00s design.
im still not sure the whole business thing is a just a greenwashing scam or not.
What does “greenwashing” actually mean to you? None of your criticisms are related to the environment.
Well even if the manufacturing of the phone is no greener, replaceable battery is still greener.
the poor stock os and the pricing are ultimatly what where a dealbreaker for me. I just bougth a google pixel 6 pro for 200€ of of ebay used about a year ago and installed graphene os on it. honestly better specs for the price but still shit 5G module on the pixel 6. Nevertheless better specs for chesper price and yeah graphene os is awosme.
why does a poor stock os matter if you will replace it anyway? did the same thing on day one
fair point. I meant to say rather that graphene os sadly isnt supportet
Out of curiosity… how is doing that in 2025?
Probably don’t want to play graphics heavy games on it. For everything else it’s pretty much like any other phone. Although of course it’s not quite as premium as flagship phones. Hardware wise, a Pixel 8 leaves it in the dust. But you can’t swap your battery or really anything on that one.
I am happy with it.
Its fine, I haven’t noticed any slowdown yet, the main issue right now is that there was a screen problem that caused the OLED pixels to stay on when a black screen was present. They removed the AoD while they fix it, they’ve fixed it a few months back, but we still don’t have AoD.
I haven’t noticed any slowdown yet
?? Confused with Windows?
No? People complain that mid to low range chips on android become unable to do everyday tasks overtime. My friend has a Samsung midranger that started out smooth, but now he complains about it and after handling it I see what he means, animations are choppy and app loading is slow, sadly making it no longer useable for him.
i got a 4 a few years back and it’s still works great, still gets security updates. it still has the default android on it, so i’ve been looking into alternatives but it seems complicated. then again, i managed to switch to linux on pc so maybe it’s not so bad
A firmware update from Fairphone bricked mine last year. Not impressed. Apparently it’s happened to a lot of people who went to an alternative OS (Lineage) then back to stock. I just woke up one day to a paperweight on my bedside table and the support was horrendous: it took over six weeks to get any response and after another month of back-and-forth with responses taking a couple of days at a time I ended up just claiming on insurance.
If they just didn’t drop the headphone jack.
How else would they push their mediocre reviewed Bluetooth headsets and ear buds?
my phone has a headphone jack, my phone before that had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? Zero because I have decent bluetooth headphones
This is fine if you don’t care about having the best audio quality and lowest latency possible.
not just that. with a jack, you can use your phone as a perfect mic for your PC. its also better in terms of privacy as you don’t blast “IM HERE” signals that every other shop has a tracking device for logging them. I would guess majority of bluetooth audio devices don’t even support mac address randomization
I would guess majority of bluetooth audio devices don’t even support mac address randomization
Wouldn’t that be a nightmare for pairing? The device wakes and tries to connect to the last device it was paired to, only to find unknown vendors
mac randomization is a defined thing in the BLE standard (afaik bluetooth classic does not have it, but maybe that changed in BT 5.1?). It’s not truly random, it involves cryptography so that paired devices can recognize each other in the end
I feel like latency only matters if you’re realtime gaming. In any other situation the video just syncs to the audio.
As for quality AptX-HD is decent for low bitrates even at 24-bit, and LDAC remains excellent for anything higher.
Unless you’re listening to high-res FLAC (in which case, god help your earphone impedance when listening to normal songs), I doubt the loss is audible
Okay? You’re not the one asking for a headphone jack tho??? Pointless comment.
Wanna know how many times I played a piano in the past 20 years?
Zero. Clearly they shouldn’t exist.
No, but maybe you should re-gift it to someone who does…
You’re not making sense.
Your position was that someone else is wrong to desire audio jacks, because you personally don’t need one after spaffing money on some Bluetooth earphones.
My point – which I thought was very obvious, but apparently you missed it – was that just because you don’t see the value of something doesn’t mean others don’t or that it shouldn’t exist.
I don’t have a piano, and I don’t know why you think I do.
My entire metaphor is that I don’t play or have a piano, but I recognise that it’s stupid for me to discourage others from having them solely because I personally don’t have or want one.
I’m a bit confused by your metaphor then (and thanks for the constructive insults, brings me back to the old reddit days…), since why take issue with something you dont own or use in the first place? Is the piano the headjack, or is it the bluetooth?
I didn’t insult you, I remarked that you didn’t appear to have understood my comment, and by the looks of it you still don’t.
Apologies if you’re upset by my comment. That was not my intent. I was just pointing out the absurdity of your judgemental comment.
I’m not the one taking issue with something I don’t own. That’s my entire point. You are discouraging someone from wanting something just because you personally don’t value it.
The piano is the headphone jack.
You don’t need a headphone jack, and feel the need to disparage others who do. “I don’t use a headphone jack, so you shouldn’t want a phone with one.”
Similarly, I don’t need a piano. However, I don’t go around telling people they shouldn’t want/play one, because I recognise that the things I want in my life are different to the things other people want in theirs.
It’s more like a new keyboard comes out and people all complain that it’s not a piano.
I use mine. Bluetooth is great and all, but it’s still not the same quality as a hard-line. And they also run out of batteries.
Boo this man!
…are they booing me, or are they booing headphones?
You. They’re booing you.
Help me, Smithers!
😔
Ok I use my wired headphones
I just have a dap that can receive bluetooth. More battery life, drives literally anything to very loud, 4.4mm out and can hold it’s own music library and play it without eating phones battery or memory.
My last phone had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? All the time! And that was despite having decent Bluetooth headphones.
I loved wearing my cans when mowing the lawn because it cut down on the noise, and I also used them when laying in bed since they had much better audio. I would use my Bluetooth headphones the rest of the time because they were more convenient.
My new phone doesn’t have headphone jack, and I’m super bummed.
So now you still do the exact same things but with a little dongle, right?
I’m going to lose that dongle. You say further down that I can just leave them connected, but I use my headphones with more than my phone (laptop, desktop), and those other devices have a headphone jack. Leaving it plugged in to my phone sucks too, for obvious reasons.
I don’t care about water ingress. I’m happy to give up water resistance and have a slightly thicker phone if it means I get a headphone jack, bonus points if it’s easier to open the phone for repairs.
USB-C to headphone jack dongles suck. You lose them easily, you can’t charge your phone if they’re connected and if you disconnect your headphones the device still behaves as if they’re plugged in. It’s so much less convenient and on the other hand there’s just no downside to having a dedicated headphone jack, so I still don’t get why they’re no longer including them.
You lose them easily
Just leave them connected to the headphones.
you can’t charge your phone if they’re connected
Dongles with an additional usb port exist.
if you disconnect your headphones the device still behaves as if they’re plugged in.
Again, leave the dongle connected to the headphones, not the phone.
It’s so much less convenient
It is less convenient, but I’d argue not by all that much. More importantly it’s not any less convenient for the vast majority who are already only using Bluetooth.
there’s just no downside to having a dedicated headphone jack
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It’s an additional, and to most people superfluous, point for water ingress. Water damage is the most common type of damage in phones.
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It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
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It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few. This is especially important to Fairphone in particular because they don’t use off-the-shelf components and promise to supply replacement parts pretty much indefinitely. I.e. Fairphone would have to design a custom module and then have that module in stock and manufactured specifically for them for the lifetime of each of their devices. That’s not a trivial expense.
It’s an additional […] point for water ingress.
the whole back panel is a big point of water ingress when that is not glued shut hard
It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
I never needed the additional camera modules, and there were phones with single camera module that made very nice images. the jack is also often at the top of the device where the battery doesn’t reach, but in my phone there’s also enough place for it between the bottom and the battery for a jack connector. in a fairphone
It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few.
exact same opinion about multiple camera modules. nobody really needs them.
I can’t have them connected to my headphones all the time because I connect headphones to other devices that all have a fucking headphone jack.
- It’s an additional, and to most people superfluous, point for water ingress. Water damage is the most common type of damage in phones.
I’ve had watertight phones with a headphone jack over a decade ago.
- It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
Yes. Anything you add to a phone is a tradeoff. No shit. These points are what is usually used to justify the lack of a jack. But maybe, just maybe, they don’t save as much money as they make with selling wireless headphones and this is just an excuse? Especially the big companies like Apple or Samsung that sell their own peripherals? And this whole thing is just an excuse to sell overpriced gadgets that need to be replaced every few years because of their batteries? Maybe, just maybe, it’d be valid if consumers still had a choice and could pick phones with or without a jack and would have to pay for the luxury of using decent headphones with a few milliamperehours?
- It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few. This is especially important to Fairphone in particular because they don’t use off-the-shelf components and promise to supply replacement parts pretty much indefinitely. I.e. Fairphone would have to design a custom module and then have that module in stock and manufactured specifically for them for the lifetime of each of their devices. That’s not a trivial expense.
Manufacturing a phone is not a trivial expense. Removing features is a business decision and a headphone jack costs money but doesn’t earn any whereas they can produce more cheaply without one. I get it. It’s just that doing so requires you to buy and use battery powered headphones that are much less sustainable than traditional magnets tied to a cable. How a company that lives off its promise to safe the world jumps on that wagon is a miracle to me. Companies that remove headphones don’t care about audio quality (which is why Sony still produces phones with audio jacks, I guess) or sustainability. Which is odd for a company like fp.
requires you to buy and use battery powered headphones
This is simply false though, we’d agreed that you are required to buy and use a dongle, and that this is an added inconvenience. But you are not required to switch to wireless headphones and your old cans haven’t suddenly become useless. People still have a choice between wired and wireless, wired has just become a little less convenient, that’s all. I completely agree with you that people shouldn’t go out buying new gadgets if their old stuff is still functional, but you can just continue using your old headphones if you get a new phone if you buy a dongle with it. Inconvenient yes, but not the end for wired headphones.
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As well as all your points (which I 100% agree with), my other issue with these dongles is simply that they stick out way more. If I buy a pair of headphones with an angled connector, I can plug them in and wrap the wire a little bit and then when the phone’s in my pocket, the wire takes up basically no space and doesn’t get smushed about by my leg.
With a dongle, I need an extra couple inches of vertical space, and because the wire/connectors are sticking directly out the phone, they get bent all over the place. Absolutely crap design. Yes 90 degree USB-C to headphone jacks exist but they take up way more space than just a headphone jack.
Yup. If anything, they should add a second USB-C connector. Much more versatile and you can still charge your phone if one of them dies.
These flaky, but simultaneously bulky headphone connectors need to die. They’re inferior in pretty much every way imaginable.
Every day the bait gets lower and lower effort
My decent Bluetooth headphones have the option to plug in a headphone cable to use them wired. I use it occasionally so I can reduce audio latency, which can be useful with gaming…and essential with rhythm games.
I use my backup headphones when my Bluetooth headset has run out of battery
Good for you.
my phone has a headphone jack, my phone before that had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? Zero because I have decent bluetooth headphones
That’s just like your opinion man
I used mine all the time because I hate using bluetooth even though I have expensive bluetooth headphones, I have now cancelled you out
Ah, that’s a dealbreaker for me
I wish importing phones were an option for my country, but no. Even if I secured a way to bring it here, it takes 1000 dollars just to register its IMEI to use here.
Şu an yurtdışından telefon getirtecek olsam IMEI değiştirir geçerdim. iPhone için mümkün olmayabilir. Bu hale getirenler utansın.
500 Euro for what amounts to a midrange phone still seems like yuppie consumerism to me. Better to get an older phone and hold onto it. My Moto G4 lasted 7 years before obsolescence and physical wear caught up with it. I wonder how many current Fairphones will still be in use in 2034.
Turns out ethical wages and materials cost money. I agree that older tech being more ethical as whatever ‘cost’ is may have was paid by the first owner.
I still have a made in Finland Nokia N9 that cost $200 around 15 years ago. Too bad it became unusable in the US with the shutdown of the 3G network, wherever that was.
Better to get an older phone and hold onto it.
That’s sort of how they’ve marketed their phones over the years. Fairphone exists as a fairer alternative to brand new phones, but the company has always been quite clear that the most environmentally friendly phone you have is your current one and that you should keep it for as long as realistically possible.
The lack of an FM radio and headphone jack make it unusable for me.
Are there phones available these days with both of these things?
yes, even some that never mention the radio have one (n10 5g us model).
Yes, a quick search on GSM Arena shows 189 phones with a radio and headphone jack. That’s just phones from the last year.
Interesting, I very rarely see headphone jacks and had noe clue that FM radio in phones was a thing still. Nice resource, bookmarking that for later!
Yes
I’m using this phone right now and I love it. it feels solid. Im using a degoogled ROM and it just works, there seems to be a lot of people pressing for graphene os specifically and discrediting the phone for what it is. its so easy to take apart and cheaply repair its great. it’s perfect for folk who want a decent smartphone that you dont have to worry about being thrown around. sure it’s not perfect but it is still a very great photo
What’s the cost to replace a cracked screen?
You buy the OLED display as a spare part for 100 EUR on the official website. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?category=4&filters=31
Yeah, that plus labor is 80% of what I typically pay for a whole brand new phone… I know why it is this way, but it really is this way and that makes it very hard for low volume players to enter the market.
Smartphones of this price would be low quality, impossible to self epair, and very likely made with very poor social and environmental conditions. It’s the opposite of what Fairphone does, so the comparison is not possible.
The heck are you talking about? If you change it yourself it’s still 100€. And you won’t find any decent smartphone at this price.
I typically pay US$250 for unlocked smartphones, and they are fine for me, my wife, my kids, friends and family…
If the screen is 100€ and the labor to install it competently (I suppose this is a DIY serviceable phone, but the screen?) is another 75€, that’s 80% of what I would be paying for a brand new phone.
I have been shopping for a rom for my FP. Which are you running?
I use CalyxOS on mine. It has microG all working by default so if you need that sort of thing it’s probably the easiest way to get it up and running
calyx os is what I use
Unfortunately it’s not available in the US though.
I like it a lot bit I need two physical SiM slots so it doesn’t work for me, unfortunately. But great idea and love the price drop
Great idea, but will never take down here in south America
People know that all these import parts and replacements are not exactly easy to pay for, even less to find. They need a cheap reliable phone that will at least handle day to day for years
I mean come on, the average cellphone user here is still using the equivalent of a Moto G2 or Samsung J2 and thats stretching it.
An S8 is still seen like luxury in here. And I’m not even going into iphones.
Fairphone don’t sell replacement mainboards, presumably to stop people building phones from parts but they look very serviceable in other respects.
I wish they could implement the parts of the Pixel phones that allow GrapheneOS to be used.
I mean, you could use CalyxOS
It dosent have such things as 2 factor pin auth for fingerprint, but its the closest to Graphene
Not quite the same. The big thing with GrapheneOS is it can run the actual Google services, but sandboxed. Organic Maps is better than Google Maps in everyway, but it’s routes are so much worse because it has no traffic into to go on. It’s an anticompetitive network effect, but it’s hard to fight without law makers.
Organic Maps is better than Google Maps in everyway
It’s really not, here are a few more:
- no reviews for businesses - that’s a huge reason people use Maps
- you have to manually download maps you want to see, and repeat w/ every update
- lots of missing info, especially where I live, and especially businesses
- no satellite images or street view - OSM has it though
That said, I use Organic Maps almost exclusively, and I put in the time to add missing info where I can. I’ve probably added hundreds of places for my area. Basically, when I go somewhere new, if it’s not in OSM, I take a few pictures and add the place when I get home, and I’ll put in the effort to enter hours, phone number, etc from their website. It’s a pain, but hopefully someone down the line appreciates that.
All of that info exists in GM though, so the only reason for me to use OM is stubbornness. OM is fantastic, but it’s hardly “better than Google Maps in every way,” in fact it’s probably worse in most ways. However, I prefer it and will keep using it because I refuse to use Google services.
Ok, I accept all that, but the maps just are better to me. I grew up with the UK Ordnance Survey maps, and that’s kind of what I want from my maps.
I’ll amend.
What parts are these? I’ve always wondered what this was about, why the pixel was the only phone that could support GrapheneOS
https://www.kuketz-blog.de/weshalb-grapheneos-aktuell-nur-google-pixel-geraete-unterstuetzt/
(From an Interview - The relevant parts are in English)
Security seems not easy.
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
So, graphene could be put on those phones if the devs wanted to do it, but it would be less secure since the bootloader would remain unlocked.
Also, supporting a small line a phones is probably infinitely easier than a range, of devices, but it would be nice to have another option. Especially now that the Fairphone pice is reasonable.
The Fairphone can be locked after flashing a custom rom. /e/-OS is officially supported. You can even buy it from them with /e/ preinstalled. iode-OS also works. I don’t know about Graphene OS, but tbh, I don’t see the benefit of Graphene OS for the average user. /e/ has built in privacy features, is google-free and runs MicroG as alternative to Google Play Services. Most apps run fine. You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
I’ve been using Fairphone 5 with /e/-OS for over a year and love it.
/e/ has built in privacy features
/e/ uses a for profit 3rd party for unencrypted backups. That alone should be a big red flag.
is google-free and runs MicroG
So it runs google. MicroG just limits what data is sent to google.
You can even use your apps that you purchased from the PlayStore.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
It a perfectly usable Android for the average user. Everything works out of the boy. If it is not for you, fine. Buy a Pixel.
for the average user.
So we are talking about an average user, who
- fully understands the appeal of a degoogled Phone
- Willingly spends extra money for a fairphone
- is able to migrate away from google services to /e/'s services
- Is willing and able to troubleshoot any problems that MicroG has
- is willing to fix not working banking apps
- but somehow can’t use a simple web installer from Calyx
Tell me, is this average user in the room with us right now?
Everything works out of the boy.
So does (and does not) with Calix or Graphene
Buy a Pixel.
I think you don’t get what I’m talking about.
-It takes a base level of understanding why you would buy a Fairphone (or any degoogled phone)
- it takes a base level of understanding phones to be able to use a degoogled one
- If you already have that knowledge, you might as well just take an extra 5 minutes and use the web installer for calyx since it is literally the same AND has less vendor lockin than /e/
Exactly. Even if I wanted /e/, I would re-flash when I got it, because the reason I want /e/ is because I don’t trust the OEM.
It’s the same way with desktops, I see zero value in buying a laptop w/ Linux pre-installed because I’m just going to reinstall when I get it anyway.
Well even graphene os still runs a version of Android. So there is still some goggle code in that. But ripping oit google play, amd various goggle services means goggle doesn’t track you with those. Yeah if you still ise gmail and log into toutube every day they will.
there is still some goggle code in that.
But that code is open source, and it has been verified that it dosent track you.
You can do the same with aurora store. That’s available on just about every phone.
not if the app attempts to verify its license through the play store. you need microg for that, or patch it
e-OS is said to have the worst security of pretty much all Android distributions. Dunno if this is a fact, but apparently the upgrade schedules are not great.
They are usually a month behind
The last I looked was that the Pixel was the only phone that allowed you to load a custom rom and relock the bootloader. Other phones kept the bootloader unlocked once it was modded.
That is not the case. SHIFTmq, Motorola and Fairphone allow the bootloader to be relocked with a custom rom. There are many requirements the Fairphone lacks for GrapheneOS, but relocking the bootloader is not one of them.
Thanks! I guess what I read before was either old or just wrong.
Fairphone 6 approaching? They are great, the project is amazing and I wish every brand would be like them in terms of caring about users and environment
Anyone tried this Linuxphone?
I looked at it, but it looks really outdated phone. Would be interesting if we live in a 2015, but not today.
In what way does it look outdated?
Look at its specs. Processor and screen and so on.
People need to stop wanking over specs for a device that’ll be used 99% of the time to send text messages and watch YouTube videos
What do you need on a phone that takes 8gb+ ram?
I need my pocket sized spaceship computer for shitposting and occasionally checking my email
To connect it to a dock station and have a full desktop experience. That is my use case
Well Jolla phones run Sailfish OS which doesn’t support this anyway so probably not the phone you should be buying (And the phone supporting Sailfish OS doesn’t suggest at all that it’ll be able to run a “regular” Linux distribution either)
That is the dream :') a phone running linux with desktop capabilities
That’s sound in theory, but app developers don’t really test on low end phones, so the apps tend to get more and more bloated as time goes by. As soon as you need something with a map, you’re pretty much fucked. Looking at all the hiking maps that just get progressively worse without adding anything that I care for.
Also put the OS into perspective. The specs might not do for Android normally but might be just fine functionally, for Linux.
Looks ok but I dont like the subscription model for os updates. First 12 months is free, then you have to pay.
But I guess they have to make their money somehow.
I used a Jolla when it was new. It was pretty decent, and in fact had many innovations. Apple brought gestures to their OS several years after. It was one of the first implementations of a phone UI implement on Wayland, and one of the first serious Linux non-Android phones. Might still be.
Unfortunately, being a pioneer does not always help. Application developers didn’t get interested in it enough so it never really got any apps.
