An announcement for the announcement
A comment on a post for the announcement for the announcement
Hope they bring back the 3.5mm jack
Hopefully it isn’t 700€ with no headphone jack and spotty support this time…
Bring back jackie or we not talkie!
It kills me that they know they won’t have big market share anyway but then go and give people one less reason to go with them. Same with shiftphone.
That and morons arguing against a jack as if they couldn’t keep using their Bluetooth stuff all the same.
The problem with being such a small producer, is that going too far away from industry standard would make the products a lot more pricy.
Jack is stil an industry standard in all but flqgship phones.
Yeah. The big reason for flagship phones to eliminate the jack, IP-waterproofing, does not apply to this anyway.
I don’t need a headphone jack I need degoogled OS.
Should but to be honest and I will get flak for this but USB-C headphones are really good. I really want a bigger battery even if it’s swappable and a good update sched.
Now, get this: a phone that has both a USB port and a 3.5mm jack 🤯
Seems pointless to add a feature that barely anyone would use, that’s the reality.
…barely anyone would use…
Your honour, this is conjecture! If we’re gonna play this game then I’ll point out that the “barely anyone” who would use such a feature might very much overlap the “barely anyone” who is the target market for a fairphone.
The point is that it can be very costly for a small company like FP to break the mold too much from the industry standards when designing the phone and ordering the parts and assembly. If FP had a bigger volume, they could do it.
I’m sorry but this is a pure BS cop-out.
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Most low-end cheap phones still have a headphone jack, they wouldn’t do this if it was a cost burden.
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A headphone jack plus a driver chip is literally pennies at their production scale. Making the hole in the housing and putting in a gasket after the fact would be more expensive than the headphone jack itself
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They have custom bodies anyway due to their repairability. Changing the body mold to include the hole for the headphone jack is trivial as they already have to make holes for the antennas
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“The standard” of the phone industry literally 5 years ago was that every phone had a headphone jack. Only after Samsung followed apple in 2019 with the note 10 did companies think for the coming years “I can make slightly more profit and sell my wireless earbuds if I remove it”
Guess what year Samsung put out their first wireless earbuds? 2019, the same year they removed the headphone jack
Guess what year Apple removed the headphone jack? The exact same time that they released their wireless earbuds.
Guess what fairphone put out the year they removed the headphone jack? Wireless earbuds.
It is, was, and always has been a money-grubbing ploy to sell wireless earbuds for greater profit. That is just the truth and there is no way to spin it that removes history that the only actual motivation behind it is to sell more wireless accessories.
Most low end phones use completely off the shelf parts. FP is trying to take control of design and materials as much as possible. If you want to do both, that becomes harder and costlier. That’s how China manufacturing works.
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New entrants need to break the mould…or else they are a worse version of market leaders.
You’re arguing that fairphone of all companies won’t or can’t go against industry standards?
I just use a dap since phone 3.5mm jacks are built like shit and break when you listen to music while phone is in your jean pockets.
That way i always have phone or music battery.
That way i can actually store more than just music on my phone.
Why would it have a headphone jack wtf. Is this 2005?
Because Bluetooth headphones just add to the endless pile of non-repairable e-waste once the batteries die in an average of 2-3 years, while my headphones from 2006 still work.
To be fair (no pun intended), Fairphone also sells Fairbuds, which have a replacable battery (and replacable everything else)
So that’s why they removed the jack.
It was never about the technology when others did it, I was wondering why Fairphone went that way.
Ive had my 20€ BT headphones for 8 years now and theyre still working. On the other hand, I ran through around 10 cable headphones in the years before that. The cables broke really fast because I used them daily, even though I stored them in small cases. Seems everyone judges based on their personal experience.
Overears where you can switch the cable might be more sustainable, thats right. Also there are 3.5mm to USB-C adapters for like 1€ so you can still use them without the actual jack, just not while charging.
Buy decent cabled headphones, audio quality is much better than most Bluetooth headphones and they’re built like a tank.
Many years ago I went through multiple wired headphones with price ranging from 20€ to 100€ and they all broke within months. Then I bought nice pair of bluetooth headphones and have been using them for about 7 years now. Never going back.
with decent cabled headphones you can simply buy a new cable
To give users a choice. It doesn’t cost much and it doesn’t take up any room. I have a FP5 and have taken it apart. There is plenty of space where one could be integrated.
- You do have a choice, you can get a USB-C adapter for like 1€ if you really need the jack. A phone really doesnt need more than one port imo.
- It costs materials, which the Fairphone is trying to save. Only a fraction of users would even use it, so why produce the waste.
- Theres not “plenty of space”, you still need the connection to the sound board etc. If there was plenty of space in the FPs case they would have made it thinner, the chunkiness is a major reason for people to not buy it.
- If they include a jack, they need to make it repairable and offer the parts, and it also costs time for designing and stuff. Id rather have them focus on the main features personally.
None of those arguments are very good. Why should they have three sperate cameras? Why should they have a USB-C charging port? Wireless can work as well. Why have a 90Hz display? A 60Hz one would work just as well.
Not only that, there is plenty of space. My BlackBerry Z10 running the BB10 OS (that I could side load Android apps on) had a headphone jack. It was physically smaller, running an SoC built on a much larger manufacturing node with a similar style of swappable battery and enclosure had a headphone jack. I even had to replace it and it cost me less than five dollars at the time.
It costs me less to integrate a headphone jack on a circuit board design than a fingerprint reader.
Also if we are talking about sustainability, Bluetooth earphones have batteries. Most of which can’t be replaced. Weird headphones are literally cheaper and can last longer.
Having worked in this industry, I can’t see any good reason to leave the jack out.
most of this arguments make sense to me, but as the other guy said
If there was plenty of space in the FPs case they would have made it thinner
Also the Argument with wireless charging: Fairphone decided to **not ** support wireless charging because it’s not very energy effective. Furthermore, I think a Phone with no USB-C Charging port would not work because it would violate EU laws.
- Not having competitive cameras gets you off the market immediately
- Fairphone specifically does NOT want wireless charging because it is inefficient and terrible for the battery
- If its so easy for you to design a much thinner phone with completely replacable parts and a jack, you should apply for a job at Fairphone because I think they would pay you a lot for that knowledge
- Fairphone themselves offer sustainable bluetooth headphones
- Like I said, its just extra material and research cost for a feature most users dont need and those that need it can get an adapter with minimal effort and cost. I dont see a reason to include it.
I agree I really don’t like all these different cameras just one or two at most is perfectly fine. Even though I am not interested in a Headphone jack, they could save space by removing one of the cameras and putting a headphone jack instead.
One good camera is enough.
God damn it i just bought the 5
Fairphone has a quite long software support. Your phone won’t be worse with something new. But sometimes they slow with new major updates
I know i bought this thing not intending to replace it for the next decade or two
thanks for your sacrifice.
but that isn’t a problem with faifone, your phone will last a long time
I bought the 4 a few months before they announced the 5. I felt betrayed because I expected them to announce a fairphone 4+, like they did with the 3… I was expecting them to make phones of theseus that you can upgrade for years but that’s clearly not what they are going for :(
I hope that there are components from the 6 that can be used to upgrade the 5
Yeah, same. I have a FP3+ and was hoping to wait until 4+ came out, but I guess not…
Same. If FP6 has a smaller form factor and an amazing camera I will be very annoyed.
Same, but it will be some time until it gets released. The 5 is supported until 2033 I think.
It’s the classic trap.
Wait long enough to be sure that a product is actually good, and poof, the next model comes out.
This is the time for Fairphone.
I recently was looking at upgrades for my s22 and everything so incremental to the point where it feels like smartphones have peaked couple years ago. It’s a great opportunity for Fairphone to catch up now that the moat is mostly gone.
Just wish I could buy one in the US.
Same here in Australia. Let me be ethical!!
I haven’t had a great experience with my fairphone 4. app/phone crashes, ghost touching, now they announced that they’re skipping support for Android 14, technical support has also been rather unresponsive. to top it off, they are usually very late with their security patches and apparently their verified boot implementation is horrible, they use the aosp test keys (which are publicly available) to cryptographically sign their firmware, which completely negates the point of the thing. I guess that’s on par with the software support in general…
so yeah, can’t recommend the company as is unfortunately 😕
Agreed; I don’t hate my FP4, but it’s definitely the least polished phone I’ve ever owned, and it wasn’t cheap for it. The ghosting was a nightmare, but they fixed it (eventually) with a software update…which begs the question why it shipped with a bug like that in the first place.
The company has been around far too long to get away with putting out buggy devices.
And that’s before we get to the failure to update FP4 (let alone FP3+) to Android 14, despite being well within their support period. In theory FP4 will be going straight to Android 15, but FP3+ is effectively grounded at Android 13; which considering their stated goal of reducing e-waste, is really not a good look.
Hopefully they launch with proper security features
Were they lacking in previous models?
Yes, my Fairphone 4 was supposed to get monthly security updates until summer 2024 but in my experience they where always late, sometimes by more than a month. They now also missed the Q1 2025 deadline for the promised upgrade to Android 14.
?? I have the FP4 and I am on android15. I use calyxOS though.
Can recommend it.
Not that I’m aware of
And considering they get Security updates for years, I’m not sure what they’re referring to
Its about getting them on time, getting them consistently, and not using public testing keys for verified boot
Just to add to what the others said:
Security features also means hardware such as google’s titan chip
Glad I wasn’t tempted by the 5, in that case!
I expected them to release new phone in 2028 at earliest
They’ve been on an every-other-year-in-September-ish release cadence since the 3 came out in 2019, so it’s been expected for a while that 2025/09 would be the release of the Fairphone 6. Glad to hear they’re on track for that since I’ve been holding off on replacing my phone in anticipation of the 6.
I mean for something as sustainable as fairphone it doesn’t make sense (at least to me) to release new device every year. I know it’s to keep things fresh and to remind everyone that they exist (and that’s great!) but yearly releases remind me of consumerism like in apple’s way, you know “get a new iphone” way. Good thing FF4 is still a good phone but there will be people who bought FF5 and will buy FF6 because we humans like new things
Counterpoint, if you don’t create a new device at least once every 2 years there will be people who disregard your latest device in their purchase decision because it is so old.
Very true.
I went for the Fairphone 3+ instead of the FP3.
It’s the exact same phone, but a couple of modules were improved.
I wish they were doing this for the FP4 / FP5 instead of a whole new phone
At least used Fairphones may become more affordable this way.
yeah, and it’s crazy how conditioned you can get by consumerism. I bought the Fairphone 4 soon after its release, and the moment I got it, I pretty much stopped following any smartphone news (before that, I used to be a frequent /r/Android poster and commenter a few years ago, and I’ve always been up to date on the latest releases and features), as I was perfectly content with what I got, and knew that with the extended warranty I was set for the next 5 years.
but the very moment the 5 was announced and the 4 wasn’t the Latest Bestest Thing, I started being tempted to upgrade. no particular reason to it, as the biggest change would be an OLED screen and that just isn’t that big deal for me, except for the promise of a bigger newer number. I never upgraded and over three and a half years later, the 4 is still good enough for me, but something’s telling me the announcement of the 6 will be tempting me again, haha. I’ll probably try and wait for the 7, though.
@noname_yet2077 @Squiddlioni there is still a huge additional market potential for sustainable phones. All the people buying new Samsung, Redmi etc crap every other year. This plus maybe people replacing there FF3 should be the target audience.
God I’d love to see people buy Fairphone over big tech brands. Especially elderly folks who don’t need flashy UI and tons of tons of bloat that’s also a spyware. At this point I don’t know who need this anyways 🤷
All and all I like to nerd-out on my friends and family about a phone that’s so easy to repair, made from recycled materials and will last long time. Those surprised faces to the fact such thing exist are priceless.
Hoping to see better support for Linux. The Fairphone team collaborated on the Ubuntu Touch port for the Fairphone 4, but didn’t do the same for the Fairphone 5. It would be great to see VoLTE on Linux on the Fairphone 6.
My phone is nearing end of support next year and I’ve been considering the Fairphone for a while now. I really wanna like it but I’ve seen a lot of people having issues with their software. Hopefully they’ll get better at it, well see.
FP3 user here… 0 issues.
Well, to be 100% honest, I replaced most of the original apps, so maybe they were the problem?
There was an Android update which did something to the camera? (I think), but it’s all fine now
FP3 then FP4 user here. It’s a solid OK phone. Camera has always been just OK and has always been the thing the bothered me the most.
I did get ghost touches now and then. The software updates are fine for me. I don’t care about living in the edge of udates.
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It’s stock Android, I’ve never had any issues. Some people are saying they are late on updates, but I’ve never had issues because of that.
Here’s hoping they’ll continue support for the FP4 until 2028, or I’ll probably have to get the FP7.
lol, that article is brutal
“Yeah, it’s probably not gonna be anything interesting and we hope we don’t have to show up in person, because of traffic.”
Please register with the FCC!
What is this, they need licensing to be sold in the US or to be used?
Just to get 200% tarriffs slapped on them?
Come onnn wireless charging
