r/fairphone

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Hi Fairphone team,

I love the idea of Fairphone, especially the repairability and modular design. I wanted to share an idea as someone who is interested in sustainable tech but also cares a lot about personalization and design.

One underused strength of Fairphone is that modularity does not have to be only about repair. It can also help people keep their phones longer by making the phone feel personal, fresh, and exciting without replacing the whole device.

Some accessory ideas:

• clear backplates for DIY decoration
• recycled mosaic or terrazzo-style backplates, where each one is unique
• pastel and seasonal backplates compatible across generations
• built-in charm loops or modular charm anchors
• small recycled plastic charms like turtles, stars, moons, flowers, hearts, and animals
• artist-collab backplates using recycled materials
• modular speaker or dock accessories for long-term media use

I think this could help Fairphone reach more people who want sustainable tech but also want something cute, expressive, and fun to keep for years. Personalization can be part of sustainability because people are more likely to care for and keep devices they feel attached to.

Thank you for reading, and I hope Fairphone explores more joyful and customizable accessories in the future.

Kind regards,
Maya

Hei everyone.

I found the 3d printed model for the backplate of the fairphone 6...

Did anyone try to make a magsafe one?

Thanks!

Hii, I recieved mx FP6 today and it had the android instead of e/os. So I tried to install it with the website, it seemed easy enough. It told me that everything worked, but the phone does not start. It is in bootloader mode and I dont know how to get out of it. No matter what I chose, it just goes back to this fastbooting thing. Sorry for using the wrong words, my english is not so good and after reading in forums I realized that it may be more complicated then I thought.

How can I recover or reinstall something?

Edit: Please, I know its a common issue, but I dont know what to do

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I have a little bit of a complex personal situation that is related to Fairphone in some ways..

Firstly, I would greatly appreciate if anyone can recommend a subreddit that is based around phone ethics in general or the ethics of consumer technology.

I would also love it if anyone can recommend "ethical" phones aside from Fairphone (hard to verify any of them as vegan apparently due to difficulty tracing all the parts that might have animal sourced ingredients, although they probably mostly all are animal free today, but with at least relatively more sustainably sourced materials, fair trade, etc - basically the same kinds of standards and measures that Fairphone takes).

I know this is the Fairphone community which is why I asked for other more neutral communities to avoid bias, since when I've asked these types of questions before on Fairphone forums on a few different platforms I've just gotten defensive responses trying to convince me to use Fairphone. I hope that prefacing this in this way reduces the likelihood of that.....

I should inform you that it's a lost cause trying to convince me to use Fairphone, for multiple reasons it doesn't work for me. And Fairphone as a company could do something about them, but that's not my point. I just want personal solutions so I can make the most ethical smartphone choice given Fairphones are not viable for me. I'll briefly go into those reasons because I know people will want to know.

- I live in Australia and it doesn't work on networks here. From my limited understanding, there is a legal abolishment of all 3G networks, and 4G or 5G are only allowed when the company has specifically engaged with the country's local networks to ensure that Emergency Calls still work even if 5G drops out. Something like that. Fairphone doesnt have business presence in Australia so it's blocked. I believe USA also has different more decentralized networks and laws which is why it works there despite them having similar bans to ensure Emergency Calls work in all cases.

- The headphone jack issue. I'd really rather not talk about this one because it seems to make people very angry and argumentative. I have investigated and tried all solutions you can think of where applicable and they all don't work for me for one reason or another. My reasons are varied and complex. But I will note that, beyond other reasons why I need a headphone jack separate from the USB C port, my situation is unusual because I have a medical ear condition that requires me to use specialized headphones that don't touch the ears at all, and these are so far always wired 3.5mm headphones (would be open to recommendations for headphones that are compatible with my condition, but they are very rare), never wireless and never USB C, though USB C ones also don't work for my use case for other reasons unless there are 2 USB C ports on the phone which there isnt. So yeah. Headphone jack is literally a dealbreaker for me, among other things.

I could say more but would rather not and those are the main kind of disclaimers I should get out of the way.

So I have investigated some phones that

1. Are fairly ethical

2. Work in Australia, specifically on OPTUS

3. Have a headphone jack.

4. Are a high performance / high quality phone.

And maybe some other filters or requirements / tick boxes.

There arent really options so far from what ive seen. Motorola Moto G Power may not work in Australian networks (unclear). I don't know much about these so would love your thoughts. Teracube and Purism apparently dont work in Australia and/or on OPTUS. Shout out to Framework laptop.

I also am aware of the option of buying second hand, which I would try to do unless I want to support the company. I wanted to support Fairphone for example and hoped that if it took sales away from bigger companies it might influence them to implement more ethical policies. I'm not sure if these other phones are available second hand or if I want to support the companies. Notably there are almost no high end smartphones with a headphone jack in general anymore so I'm kind of screwed even if I was going to compromise on getting an ethically made phone and just buy second hand. Sony Xperia has no official support and has compatibility issues in Australia, and Asus Zenphone and Rogphone are being discontinued and also have potential compatibility issues. Redmagic is unknown, they might lack the LTE bands required but no clear information. My use case just doesn't seem to exist anymore. Btw I am using a very crappy old phone I got second hand that barely works. Any help appreciated.

Thanks and sorry for reading

on top of my phone breaking today couple days before my vacation, the shipping in germany is 10 euros????
legit what the helly

Some backstory. I'm not super privacy driven or feel the need to de-google my entire life. However, with the recent news that samsung is gonna be switching to Googles messaging app i'm thinking off getting a fairphone since im tired of google and want less of it. I really only use my phone for calls, message, pics of my dog, doomscroll and discord. Would the fairphone 6 with e/os be good for that? Or should I look at something else?

I've never bought a phone other than samsung or apple so any advice would be good! Thank you.

Hi, does anyone know how to take longer screenshots?

When I want to screenshot a browser page or whatsapp convo, after I take a screenshot with the shortcut buttons, it does not give me the option to "capture more", or scroll the page.

It is really annoying. Can't find anything in settings.

FP5 in perfect condition in original box, transparent version, 8GB/256GB + transparent case and extra screen protectors, both high quality from Amazon DE.

Any idea on how much I could list it for?

There's a lot of posts about how bad their support is, so after having used them myself I feel obligated to say I have no idea what y'all are talking about, fairphone's support is amazing, one of the best customer support experiences I've ever had.

Basically my main microphone wasn't working, people couldn't hear me on calls and voice recordings also weren't working (I bought a transparent FP5 in late 2023 directly from their website and the microphone worked fine for the first 1.5 years). I used the troubleshooter on their website to identify the problem but was hesitating getting it fixed because of all the negative posts about dealing with fair phone support. Finally I decided a phone not being able to call is like a watch that can't tell time. I was a bit unsure if it was really hardware or maybe software, so I used their online chat during business hours to ask. The live chat person wasn't a technician so they didn't know, they made a support ticket for me. I told them my issue and they always responded quickly (within one business day) and clearly. Once they determined it was hardware, they gave me instructions to send it for repair, and less than two weeks later (including shipping) I got my phone back and the microphone is working fine, all for free covered by warranty (fairphone's voluntary 5-year warranty, for me the 2-year legal warranty already passed).

Of course, I was annoyed I got unlucky that the only part that you can't fix yourself was the one that broke for me. Cause a main reasons I got a fairphone was because you can fix it yourself, so hopefully the microphone will become repairable at home with an ifixit screwdriver in a future model. So then the result of not having a phone for two weeks and worrying about backing up my data correctly to restore it (cause they are required to do a factory reset) was a hassle but that's industry standard, not just fairphone. And I did unfortunately loose data in a couple apps despite trying to be really careful with backups and restoring.

Also in general, I've had iPhones and Android phones before Fairphone, and I'm super happy with the fairphone in all aspects, it is absolutely on par with their flagship phones, I don't know what people are talking about. For all the posts here like "just got my Fairphone, is it normal that it's doing X..." No it's not, their factory output isn't yet perfect, get it fixed!

I purchased a Fairphone 6 a few weeks ago in a carrier store in Belgium, and had the carrier unlock the phone. The phone feels incredibly light and the soft-touch plastic is nice, but feels extremely cheap relative to the Pixel a series I have used through several generations.

My initial opinions are not positive. The phone stutters and is noticeably slower than my several year old, midrange Pixel 7a despite being twice as expensive and several years newer. I expected that paying the substantial price premium for the Fairphone would at least provide me performance parity with the previous midrange phones I used, and allow me to support a mission I believe in.

I want to support a European brand and an environmentally conscious mission, but the product needs to be functional, and I am sad to say it really isn't. Apps crash, the phone stutters and most of the features feel extremely subpar. Haptics are bad, audio quality is bad, the camera is bad, and while none of these make the phone impossible to use, it does make it disappointing at €600.

I am not happy with the latest update I installed on my FP6. It has caused my chromium based apps to become laggy (at least I think it's only chromium, everything else seems fine). Is there a way I can roll back to the previous update? Preferably without bricking the phone. Thanks.

My last 3 phones have been pixel phones. Most recent one is Pixel 6a. The reason I've switched phone every time is because of battery issues.

Once again, my Pixel 6a is still holding on well in term of performance, but the battery doesn't even hold half day. Changing batteries, I was quoted €120 and with €180 I can get a new Pixel 6a, so changing batteries makes no sense.

I love the pixels, especially being barebone and having amazing cameras, but I'm thinking of switching to Fairphone simply for avoiding the battery issue. Am I alone in this battery saga?

I have known about Fairphone for some time and always really wanted to support their cause.

My first experience with them was a couple of years ago where I decided to buy the (new) Fairbuds. When they arrived I felt they were ok, I didn't like the eartips included very much but my biggest issue was the connection quality, which proved to be really intermittent. I would connect them to my Garmin watch and go running but the music would constantly drop out.

I contacted customer support who took months to respond to me and issue a refund. I left the experience with a sour taste of the brand.

Last year, my phone fell out of my bag at work onto a hard floor, the screen shattered. I replaced the screen myself with an aftermarket screen. The replacement worked but the phone was never quite right again. Extended uses of the phone would result in the screen heating up and graphical glitches. The replacement screen was obviously not of a good quality.

From this point I needed a new phone, I've always disliked OLED screen phones due to past burn in experiences but my options were quite limited for LCD screen devices with decent specs.

I decided on trying a refurbished Fairphone 5 from a certified eBay store. The device arrived, but had a persistent water damage notification and would not charge. I thought it wasn't a big deal and ordered a new port off the Fairphone website and replaced it, but the issue persisted. I ended up returning the Fairphone 5 and got a refund. I also contacted Fairphone support and within two days they responded and gave me a refund, they said to not send back the replacement port as the carbon footprint of the return outweighs the value of the part. A wholesome response.

From here, I decided I would go for a new Fairphone 6, which I have been using since. Everything has been great with the device since and I have been very happy with it. As someone who has previously always bought Snapdragon 8xx devices, I am pleasantly surprised by the performance from the FP6. I like to emulate games on my phone when I'm out and about and for the titles I'm into, it runs very well. The cameras are better than my previous devices and are good enough for daily photos (mostly of my daughter). I love that it still has an SD card reader, in a world where this is increasingly rare and we have cloud data and expensive storage upgrades.

Overall, I feel that Fairphone has gotten a lot better over time, the phone isn't perfect but it is more than usable and I am happy that I gave them another chance. There are some software bugs but they are all so small that I know that they can be fixed and they don't ruin the experience. For context, I had some really bad bugs with my previous Motorola G100 that would never get fixed as they stopped software support after 2 years.

I'm honestly excited to see Fairphone grow as a brand and fully support their vision now. I'm hoping to keep my Fairphone 6 running for as long as possible and would continue to buy their phones when the time comes.

I have opened in late january/february a support ticket regarding a security issue on the website.

So far I had 2 "reply to the message if you still have issues" and one probably AI response that have nothing to do with the ticket.

How can this support still be a mess, it's been over a year of complaint and it seems that it is run by also no-one, I don't know how they expect people to keep buying their product

Is there anyone who knows how to transfer all the SMS from iphone to not new android? I am still using the android, I just want to transfer all SMS from my iphone to my android then give the iphone to someone.

I had an FP3 for a few years, and at some point lost patience for both its chipset and camera performance, and decided to upgrade into the FP6.

Got my new phone, was generally reasonably happy (note the enthusiasm), absolutely hated the location of the buttons and the resulting stream of undesired screenshots but all in all, was pleased with the device, considering the upside of the raison d'être of Fairphone.

After a few months, my camera started acting up. Main camera was focusing okay in the mid area of the photo but not at all at the non-central thirds of the frame. After some testing (rest of cameras are fine, clear cache/data, trying other cam apps to rule out s/w) I opened a ticket with FP. Then after a few more days, unprovoked, the camera completely stopped focusing (well it does at very short ranges but that's it). Completely unusable. The wide angle and front cameras still function fine.

My ticket with Fairphone was opened more than two weeks ago. Even after a few "reminders" into the ticket, and their bot telling me the ticket is now escalated to high priority, I am yet to receive even a single initial response, acknowledgement, anything, from Fairphone. Complete silence.

This is not another rant about FP Support. The overall experience of the product, design, execution and support, is underwhelming.

They have my money. But this was the last Fairphone for me. Unfortunately, I might add. Great idea, lackluster execution.