Only real unfair comparison I saw being made was the battery removal. Even as someone who likes to tinker around with my laptop/PC, removing the backplate with suction cups and getting the battery out are far, far more annoying and 'sketchy' than just popping off both like you can do with the Fairphone.
Yes, but the Fairphone in exchange doesn't have water resistance in case you drop it in a puddle or something. And besides, if the SOC in a phone isn't top notch today, it won't survive the planned 2031. So even if you can simply change the battery, you'll have an outdated phone. Is that something you can live with? only you can tell.
Think the point was that a removable back isn't really that big of an engineering problem, just a design choice. They have "fixed" that choice but have gone further and started "fixing" engineering problems when the sacrifices are greater than the gains
I swap the sim often, around 6 monthly to stay on rate under a fiver. The hassle of having to find a paper clip or sim remover is more than rebooting phone.
@@subaru4920No, you don't have to. You could just hot swap a sim without rebooting and it will work perfectly (unless it's from some carriers that require their bloatware apps/settings that should be loaded)
2:30 I used to work at walmart around the photo center and have seen tons of sd cards corrupting due to the people not ejecting it in the settings before removing it. Android is outstandingly bad at handling file systems on removable drives. If you make it so you have to power off the phone in order to remove the card then this won't be as much of an issue.
Powering off from the shutdown menu sure, but lots of people will just yank the battery out with the device running causing even more corruption and harm to the OS / phone itself.
It is absolutely insane to even compare the repairability of cutting through adhesive (and don't forget to reapply it properly later) to just popping off the back cover. I can replace the USB C connector on my FP4 in under 5 minutes literally on the side of a road. When I was abroad my USB C connector broke and I simply express shipped a replacement, and when it arrived (pretty quickly) I was able to replace it in under 5 minutes with just a screwdriver. having an easily removable back is the difference between being able to DIY fix it on the road and having to buy a temporary phone (one that supports your SIM card, which is not trivial in some countries) and trying to limp along on it. I'll take the slightly thicker body (which I do not care about at all) and maybe not top of the line performance SoC if I have the power to literally fix nearly any easily breakable component of my phone on the go with minimal effort.
This hardly sounds like an advantage when for the price of a Fairphone 5 you could buy a better phone and still have enough money left for a backup phone.
I've never ever had USB-C broken on me, even under every tough and prolonged abuse. Might it be a case that easily replaceable connector is more prone to failure? Then, it's kinda similar story to screen protectors shuttering from the slightest touch and people bragging how they protect the main glass, when in fact it's just the protector way more fragile, not necessarily meaning that the screen itself would shatter at all under the same conditions.
Which is all kinda moot point when you pay 4x more for a phone than it's actually worth. A budget Samsung A53/A54 will cost a 1/4 price of fairphone and will last longer than you care to keep it for. Why the hell would I be worried about replacing USB-C connector if it's not something that ever failed me??
"After removing the back, it's not that much harder to repair than the Note 5....other than using the isopropyl acohol to remove the adhesive..." Uh yeah....
I have one and have an extra battery to switch to half way though the day like I could with my Nokia in the 00s isoproponol would be a deal breaker for me
8:40 its completely plausible for the phantom headphone to be a soldering defect. The way headphone detection usually works is a physical switch that gets opened/closed when you insert the plug. This signal will be routed to some input pin (on the CPU, or maybe the amp chip or something) which controls where audio is routed. On a phone without a headphone jack, this input will usually be connected to a resistor that forces the "no headphone" mode. If that solder connection to the resistor is flaky, the value of the input may behave erratically. As for why the issue goes away on reboot, the input is probably whats known as Schmitt triggering, which just means it requires the voltage signal to cross over a threshold before the input actually switches. This is quite common for preventing erratic switching if there is noise on the input. What you're probably seeing is a random spike of noise thats enough to flip the input to "headphone connected" mode, but the signal never dips back the other way far enough to switch back to "no headphone" mode. By rebooting the phone you reset the state of the input and the issue goes away. Note that from a software perspective there's no reason why such an input pin needs to exist at all, obviously the mode could just be hard coded in software. It could be that they have prototypes or devboards that include a headphone jack. It could also have been more work to do this in software vs routing a resistor to a dummy input. Maybe they're using an upstream audio driver that needs such an input assigned to it, or maybe this code is shared with older Fairphones that still have a headphone jack. EDIT: as pointed out by @AndrewStrydomBRP, hardware would be necessary to support USB-C audio accessory mode (passive USB-C to headphone jack dongles). Conveniently Fairphone has schematics publicly available (wish Linus mentioned this), where we can see U2602 is an audio/USB2 switch that handles this functionality. Annoyingly the part number listed on the chip appears to be a Fairphone internal part, and they appear to have not provided a BOM like they did with the Fairphone 4 (very cringe). In any case, some googling leads me to believe it's probably an FSA4480, which has a CC_IN pin used to detect whether headphones (or a dongle) is detected, which is presumably where the issue is. For communicating this status upstream to the CPU there's a DET pin and also the I2C interface, not sure which is being used, but the DET pin could also be the issue if that's being used. To Linus, it would be worth checking if the headphone issue can also be resolved by plugging in something into the USB port, like a charger via a C-C cable or a USB-C flash drive/dock, maybe in both orientations.
So basically phones without the headphone jack are phones with the headphone jack but they just closed the hole and jumped the pins for it. Talk about lazy.
Why would they have a headphone detection switch on a device designed not to have a headphone jack? Can understand if they were sharing parts with some other phone (which I don't think is the case here) but if you've using a motherboard that supports headphones why wouldn't you spend the few cents extra and keep the jack as a feature? Only companies doing that are people making money from selling unrepairable earbuds/pods
In my opinion, the price is the biggest problem. And it probably cannot be cheaper. But that's what certified ethically sourced materials get you. And I think it would only be fair to note in EVERY other phone review, that the materials used are probably not ethically sourced, which is why it can be that cheap.
Yeah that's my biggest gripe with the FP5. It's nice that it's ethically sourced, but I'm not paying borderline flagship price for a 2016 device that has numerous software issues. Sure the battery is replaceable and it will get close to a decade of software support, but I'm 100% not going to keep it that long if it annoys me every day...
@@ClawthorneYeah, I feel like it would be easier to swallow paying a premium for a phone with flagship specs and ethically sourced materials, though I understand why they wouldn't go into that market, as way more software improvements are needed for camera performance and features.
ethically sourced doesn't cost that much more, you can easily see this with tons of other products. What does cost more is much much much smaller runs. The scale at which samsung and google ship phones is massive, while the fp5 is probably a tenth of a tenth of a fraction of that. That's why it's more expensive.
I just don't think there is actually a market for what they are trying to sell. I see literally zero excitement about their green and ethics marketing. Basically everyone who is excited is excited about repairability and modularity (tho this is slowly going away). I believe the company owners care deeply about those issues, and the repairability was a way to be more green, but I just don't think that's a markatable point at this level of quality for this price. If it'd be Apple style high end product, yeah, being green can be a selling point for those folks. But it's on the level of tech geeks using old Thinkpads glued together from old IBM parts. It's a product that markets itself to complete opposite spectrum of customers than those who would be actually intersted. And those interested would prefer a wider range of modularity and competetive prices for parts, even if the margin would still be quite large for a phone. But just something that competes with chinese and mid level phones on price, instead of the highest shelf of phones. (And I refuse to treat $600 as anything below top shelf, if you think otherwise are you mad? No, the $1k phones are absurd and basically status symbols with attached phones at this point.)
The pricing of the big makers are cheaper because they have volume and other sources of income. Apple and google make a killing on their appstores and services. Samsung, Huawei, etc get paid to bundle apps you don't want.
I own a FairPhone 5, and I'm not bothered by its size or weight. But I can acknowledge some of the problems Linus described (the terrible auto-dimming for example, which is so annoying that I disabled it). Also, the battery drain is horrendous. I am really lucky if I can get by one day without charging it, and sometimes, even during the night, when the phone isn't used at all, the battery level drops significantly. I even switched from 90 to 60 Hz (something I don't care for anyway) and disabled 5G, which seemed to help a bit. Here's one Linus didn't mention: On rare occasions (maybe once or twice a month) "ghost" touches begin to appear, in pretty quick succession, so much so that it's impossible to reboot the phone. It usually helps to just put the phone to sleep for a moment, but not every time, and then I remove the battery to force restart the phone. I've read online that it may also help to disassemble the phone and put it back together again... But what kind of advice is that? It's not complicated, sure, but who's to say that said disassembly will help or won't introduce other problems? Also, the loading of certain apps takes ages. On the Fairphone, there are one or two where I saw the splash screen for the first time, as it took that long for them to load. All in all, I have to say that on a technical level and daily usability the Fairphone is clearly a setback. The only reason I accept these problems is their mission and their promises of rather long software support. Had it been a regular phone I would have sent it back.
@@finnderp9977First, I wouldn't call it "suffering". It's not as if using the phone is a horrible experience. Actually, most of the time it works just fine. Some of the weird quirks may be resolved with future software-updates and even if there are some pretty annoying things, they're still not a dealbreaker for me. Basically, the (probably provocative) question that everybody needs to answer for themselves is:: Do I want to support a company that actually tries to introduce change to the way things are done or am I just "good" when it doesn't cost me anything. Or even more provocative: Am I able to get by with some small compromises to help make the world a tiny bit more fair or am I so lazy that my morals are nothing bit lip service? While I do criticise the technical quality of the FairPhone, I also do want to support their mission, so I answered that question for me. And I'll be damned if I go back to a regular phone built with materials from who-knows where, produced under horrible circumstances for humans and the environment alike.
@@finnderp9977 Idk what's so unfair about the other phones. I mean sure, they're unrepairable, but if you treat them well, they will last you a LONG time... I'm still using a 6+ year old Note 9 and it works flawlessly, except for Google Play Services draining my battery every two weeks or so, which I don't know how to fix. I guess that's unfair about it lol. I just really appreciate all the other benefits of a sealed, water resistant phone.
@@finnderp9977Hey there! The software is stock Google Android 13 which will receive a ton of updates in the next 8 years! And the shitty touch response could have been caused by the shitty code of Plex, not Google or Fairphone.. Plex is known for making their app terrible.. Even Linus had a bad review for plex, so why the heck he uses it as a demonstration of bad responsivity? Idk honestly, Linus has a bad point from me for this 80% not objective review.
At 12mm it's only 2mm less thicc than my hp ipaq hx4700 pda from 2004! 20 years! No this is not acceptable, especially not what is essentially a budget phone from 5 years ago.
Had my FP5 since October. I didn't experience those audio issues. Though, the first week I've owned it, it did seem a bit fussy about actually transmitting audio through Bluetooth. But even without a software update, that behaviour just stopped. The responsiveness and performance section of this video was very warranted though. But for a different reason. I use it at 90hz, and I really like it. But it feels like sometimes scrolling turns to jelly, and responsiveness worsens, until you toggle the refresh rate down to 60, then back up to 90 (or just toggle the battery saver, it does the same thing). I'm perfectly happy with it's overall day to day performance. But it feels like, every couple of days, it needs to cough up a hairball and be patted on the back, before everything is back to normal. Now that this video is out, I really want to write a big fat review on the Fairphone forums, addressing what I do and don't disagree with from this review. The TLDR, is that fairphone made me dislike stock android, and I gained an appreciation for all the MiUI and Samsung skins out there. How are so many options and features and fixes and quality of life things missing from stock android??? I'd genuinely love to see someone who has more time than me, slap lineage OS on the Fairphone, and daily it for a while, to see how much it is just android holding the FP5 back
As someone with a FP4, yea stock Android really isn't all that great. My biggest pet peeve is the notification vibration noise, it's so damn loud. Edit: Custom ROMs are sadly no option, because my banking apps wouldn't work with that.
Hey, I have been holding out from buying this phone. I generally use phones for about 5 years and repair them quite often, so this seemed like a no brainer. It is a real bummer there are no quality reviews of it else where. If you write yours, please give me a message, I would love to read it!
I haven't watched the review yet, but I assume things haven't gone too well which is a shame cuz FP could've used the popularity boost. 😩 Personally I'd love to hear someone compare Stock with /e/OS which is a de-Googled rom that I've been keeping my eye on as my first smartphone system. I think it's forked off of Lineage or another derivative of it if I remember correctly.
7:38 Isn't that just the vanilla android experience? My Pixel 7 does the same thing. To uninstall you need to drag it up, the uninstall option shows up then
Yes! It's a really strange criticism from Linus to complain about standard Android behavior that one random manufacturer he likes decided to change and this one didn't change. All he complained, not moving the Google widget, not moving the button to the right is all Android standard.
@@PratameshMistry that is such a dumb way to review a phone. "this isn't a samsung, I don't like it" what kind of professional phone reviewer talks like that...
I am a big fan of the Fairphone and I am a first week adopter. I not only switched to the FP5, but also switched from Apple to Android - mostly for sustainability and repairability reasons. They want 120€ for a new battery on an iPhone 12 Pro (lol). Here are some discoveries I made during my time. I see that this phone is way slower than my iPhone. It is sometimes jittery while losing apps, takes a few seconds to switch from landscape to portrait when watching videos and such. That being said, I do not feel like it is a big letdown on day to day. I am not a power user, mostly watching RUclips, messaging and such. I do not feel like it is a big letdown. Most critical, I had issues with the screen just flat out freezing once a week. Everything in the background still worked fine, but sleep and wake did not work. Had to power down the phone and restart to get it to work again. This problem has not appeared for weeks and I guess it was a silent fix in one of the latest updates. Also the auto-dimming is pure dog shit, as Linus said. I turn it down most of the time. Had my screen flicker because of it and had to restart to make it disappear (restarts are a big thing with the FP5) I do not feel the same way about the vibration and I never have my phone on loud. Never had the audio glitch happen to me either. The SD-card is a big let down for me too, because I use the FP5 as a hi res player. I actually love the big size as well as the bezels, since I accidentally pressed something on my iPhone constantly just by holding it and touching the sides of the display. Quick charge is great, though I wished they would just release an external battery charger. This way I could own three batteries and just switching them out while on the go. When taking pictures I was mostly happy with the results, though I rarely use the camera for more than a quick snapshot in Snapchat or WhatsApp. I have a dedicated mirrorless camera for anything serious. The phone had a weird glitch where it takes like 10 seconds to hear someone on the other end of a WhatsApp call initially, though that could be on Metas side. Overall, the FP5 has been getting better with every update and most of the glitches got better or disappeared completely. I expect the phone to become better with time. I really like it and I am looking forward to not paying bullshit prizes when something breaks.
10:31 sorry but that Note 5 battery change still looks like a royal pain in the behind for people not used to doing disassembly steps like this. I find that comment to be really misleading
@@SpaceXplorer13quality assurance on the videos released was subpar leading to active misinformation in them i don’t know if they fixed the issue, it looks like it did this is a few months old
Uhhhh I think all these comments are cope. He’s never had more support. They are RAKING it in, and I GUARANTEE you, if they ever started to struggle a little financially, the community would JUMP to their aid
The long press not presenting an uninstall is a vanilla Android thing starting at 14 I think, same with the Google search bar being permanently locked there. If they are using stock Android, that would explain those two 'pain points' you experienced. For me, as a Pixel user, I have long since grown accustomed to such things.
Yeah, well, not everybody is willing to make that compromise, it sucks. It probably sucks less than having all those Samsung apps installed, but still.
Never understood the chase for ever-thinner phones. I am not advocating for Energizer Power Max thickness, but in general make phones thicker, if that means larger and/or replaceable batteries
I like thicker phones.. it's easier to slide into your jeans? I never had a problem sliding a phone into jeans. And I don't think that should dictate thickness of the phone.. but I never had a battery fail. I think I have five old phones that still have batteries of work..
@@raspas99i think they refer to super slim jeans where you can barely pry your finger in to fish up your wallet. I can see that being a problem if you're into that kind of clothing.
The absolute jumpscare I got from bearded Chad Linus to shaved chud Linus in the sponsor spot was WILD. I know he shaved but this one hit me like a brick wall
@@Jimmy_Joneson wan show he said that he shaved because he and his wife got some fancy facial treatment and they told him they wouldn’t be able to do anything with beard over it but it would cost the same
I don't consider changing the battery on a sealed back phone that's glued to the chassis the same as being able to hot swap a battery in a few seconds. The value add there isn't that you can replace the battery when its end of life. Its that you can replace it with a hot spare on the go and never be left with a flat battery. I used to carry a spare battery handy when I had an S4. Swapping it on the go was awesome.
@@deadlykiller27 Right, changing a battery in a sealed/glued together phone is on a whole other level than just flipping off the back and replacing a battery. Linus is making a mistake when he thinks that is even remotely comparable. Which, ironically, is proven by the video, showing these specialised plastic pieces to lift up the back cover. That is not something, 90 percent of the regular people would have in their possession, let alone *knowing* what is needed to open the phone. Not even to mention the glue to put everything back together again...
uhh why not have a soft pack battery that would last longer there for no need to hot swap to begin with... thats just doing to much and we literally have battery packs for the same purpose.. the only benefit is not having to be plugged in
@stephanhuebner4931 no one said its the same? you're hot swaping batteries on the fp5 every other 4-5hrs mean while softpack battery will give you all day battery life and if you need more juice just use a battery pack... Softpack batteries only need to be replaced every 4-5yrs and it is NOT hard to replace them EVEN on recent samsung flagships especially since they have pull tabs wich eliminates the need for alcohol..
side power button finger print sensors are the biggest thing i miss in phones. even if face id or in screen fingerprint sensors are instantaneous, i can have a phone with a side (or back) button fingerprint sensor on before its even out of my pocket simply by locating the button by feel
never had issues with the on screen FP other than being hard to find and having to have on screen blueprint for it. But IMHO FP should be removed from phones anyway because you giving everyone your FP.
@@ChrisWijtmansthats not how it works lol @OP, i miss having the FP sensor on the back of phones tbh. best position imo, even better than in the power switch.
Love the side button/FP sensor, my previous phone (One Plus 7t pro) had an in screen and even though it usually works fine, i don't find it that practical. Used to have a Mate 9 with a rear FP sensor, great when you're holding the phone, not great when it's laying on a table. I've got a Poco F5 now that has a side FP
I absolutely loath thin phones, and cases do a bad job at thickening them in the right way. I want more depth screen to back, but cases that add bulk seems to just make the phone wider.
@@rusinsr My last phone was an LG V20 with the 10,000mah battery extension, and seeing as I don't wear skinny jeans, I miss that near 1 inch thick brick of a phone.
@@rusinsr I own a Fairphone 4 and after some initial getting used to it, it doesn't even register to me anymore. I've held a Fairphone 5 and its even lighter and thinner, so in the real world its completely fine.
I would love to see a follow up in lets say a whole or half a year to see what kind of changes they did to the software and or hardware to address the mentioned issues.
Bro, in my point of view, the phone is bad for two reasons: - You can support it for a long time but if the processor is slow by the time it has been 3/4 years old it will be unusable - The price is too expensive, you could literally spend $300 every two years to get a second-hand mid-range from last year and you would have a better experience The battery, bugs and everything else can be solved with software
@@segiraldoviSpeaking about it being expensive, and keeping aside the fact that it is made for a really long haul, and it is better for planet, and blah blah blah, I think the positive cost delta is also due to PCR plastics and Fair Trade Certified materials. They're damn expensive man. But you could at least be satisfied knowing a guy isn't getting screwed over in a dark mine somewhere, and even if he's getting screwed, then he is being compensated for it handsomely.
@@segiraldovithis is where I am torn. So the Pixel 8 and 8a now come with 7 years software. These run about $500. The battery will definitely need to be replaced at least once to get those years out of it. So let's say $100 to replace the battery. So now we are at $600 total for 7 years. Now let's use the Samsung A35 as an example. They can be purchased for about $300. They come with 5 yrs of updates. But for the money you saved, you could simply buy the A39 version in 4 years when the battery is toast, and for another $300, you get another 4 years of phone use. By then the processor will also be faster likely than the current Pixel 8 you will be stuck with for 7 years. It seems cheaper throw away phones will likely be the overall better deal.
Also, that active apps feature in the notification shade is just a new Android feature, not a Fairphone feature. My Pixel 4a running Android 13 has it.
No uninstall button on long tap is also a stock android issue. No ability to swap back button position is also a stock android issue. Kinda disappointed Linus blamed this on Fairphone when they really just ship stock android
Shocking reality: Stock Android is actually horrendous. What ships with Pixel (and Pixel emulators) is far from stock. Google removed most parts of AOSP to make things modular for everyone (including themselves), leaving AOSP extremely barebones. You would be surprised how many things you don't have in AOSP. They rarely update core apps (like Dialer) to barely make a call (if it even works). Moving the Back key to left requires a whole overlay for System UI. So most people who think they like Stock Android, actually just like Pixel or what custom ROM developers cook. Actual stock Android is basically a flavourless cake (heh, dessert joke on Android).
That's because AOSP isn't actually an operating system. It's a kernel and set of basic tools. A bit like Linux in that regard. GNU/Linux is just a kernel with a bunch of basic tools and a shell it's not an operating system in itself. All Android operating systems are based on AOSP to some degree, it's just each "distro" brings it's own opinionated garbage to the table to complete their it's own feature set in a bid to be unique...hardly any of them contribute back upstream though, which is why Android has an awful hellscape of closed drivers and locked bootloaders that prevent you buying the hardware you want, but loading the software you like. There is absolutely no reason why most functions on a flagship phone can't work to some degree on any Android compatible phone other than vendor lock, closed drivers and locked bootloaders...all Android phones use what is essentially the same chipsets, the only major hardware differences are the screens, bodies and batteries and to a lesser extent camera sensors...if all of these things were modular, it would be possible to pick and choose the hardware components you want, but thanks to proprietary cable interfaces and once again, closed drivers, this is still a dream.
Right, I actually needed to learn that recently. After starting my smartphone use with a Windows Phone many years back, I realized Windows Phone is garbage and got a Galaxy Note 4 and later Note 8, which I still use as daily driver. I always thought, that is stock Android. Last year I got a replacement phone for the Note 8 from a small manufacturer, who uses stock Android. The Note 8 is still fine, I just wanted to have a replacement ready at the very moment the Note 8 might randomly die after many years of constant use. Which is why I customized that other phone - and boy was it not a great experience. It's certainly fine enough, but Samsung does a good job making the Android experience a lot better. So I believe it's also Samsung's effort, that you can actually add folders from a memory card or something to the home screen and easily access those in a file browser. It turned me crazy, that such a simple thing is not possible on stock Android. And that you need to work yourself an annoying process and navigate to respective folders every time again you want to look at the content in a bare fashion, not through some app and it's own file browser. So even though Samsung as a company is also rather questionable these days, following Apple on their quest against repair and stripping away features, I will consider another Samsung phone, if my experience with the replacement phone will continue to be bad after the Note 8 will not be usable anymore (it already got a replacement battery)
Google didn’t remove those things to “make it modular”. They replaced those parts with closed source alternatives that can collect data on you. ;) AOSP used to have a lot more in it until Google ransacked it.
Yes. I desperately wanted to support their mission and I have low requirements. I experience a few bugs and I am quite happy. The display brightness is smooth usually, but I too found a consistently jump between the lowest and next setting. And flipping between them sure will be annoying, although I never experienced that. I am happy and looking forward to years of upgrades.
"To be fair, they're the final prototypes" I don't know, I don't think we should excuse that as standard practice. Just like you talked about with Framework on WAN, they should really be sending out the same unit the customer gets.
It definitely seems disingenuous to send reviewers products you know you aren't going to ship to consumers, as it just ends up ruining both your own reputation and the reputation of the reviewers when they leave a bad review of a "final prototype" of a product. @@fjjwfp7819 yes, that's what OP means, Framework just did this and just got pretty criticized for it.
The difference in thickness can likely be attributed to the screen technology (OLED vs LCD) and the fact that the battery is a "hard-pack" battery. The Samsung has a "soft-pack" battery, which means it is not designed to be easily removed and kept elsewhere. Soft packs are easily damaged and are not designed to be removed and re-inserted. Phones only started to get slim when these types of batteries started to get used widely. All phones with removable batteries are thick. It's an unavoidable compromise. On another note - I've worked for Android phone manufacturers before. A lot of the random software buginess will be down to their ODM and the fact that it's using stock Android, which almost no phone uses. We also used to have issues with minimum volume and dodgy screen brightness etc, but with enough effort these can be easily resolved in software. It's either not been tested properly, or they've prioritised fixing other larger bugs. The issue is they're likely paying someone else to do the software for them, and that gets expensive. They could fix it in a software update though. What they can't fix is the Google widget. This again comes back to the stock Android piece. Google mandates the placement and you can't change it. A disagree with some of the other points. For example - Who cares if you have to turn the phone off to insert an SD card? How often are you going to removing and re-inserting one? Also, do you really care about bezels that much?
I think it's more about the fact that you pay a lot for a big, slow, ancient looking buggy af phone. The fault being on Google or on the state of hard pack batteries etc is irrelevant. He has to decide whether it's a good choice for users and he suspects it'll be better to spend less to buy a faster, older phone that will perform and look and handle better. Can't say I disagree. This thing has great intentions behind it but what does it actually do better than anything else? It looks like shit tbh lol
the thick ass bezels just reminds me of how mid of a phone this is for the price... like are you serious? I can pick up an s21+ or s22+ that will do WAY better for like 300$ in excellent condition😭.. it seems stupid to buy FP5 when its so lacking for the price JUST FOR its REPAIRABILITY. so what if its easily repairable. That isn't gonna stop me from not having a good software experience, especially when you can do such much more to save the earth by buying it used. and for the comment below me: Why would you make such a trade off when you can do the EXACT SAME THING BY BUYING AN OLD FLASHSHIP PHONE FOR HALF THE PRICE😭
A flagship is not meant for basic needs(you pay more, but you also get better experience) and a budget phone that is for basic needs is cheap. Nice try, but you really need to get a fairphone, if your needs are basic and you like spending more money xD
But it could break, thats why they removed it. How would you repair that in a phone, that is designed to be repairable? Lets make sure the next version removes more parts that "can break". I would suggest starting with the battery and screen.
@@donkey7921 The first part no, the second part maybe. I sincerely invite you to use a search engine of your choice and query it for "fairphone 4 headphone jack removal". See, if you find the original statements from them, about why they removed it. The reasons were water ingress and durability of the jack. I think they removed a lot from their pages, but there is still enough discussions about that out there. Also the Fairphone 5 support page mentions the lack in the new model and why they decided against bringing it back (oUr PhOne WoUlD bEcOmE ToO tHiCk).
@@donkey7921 It seems RUclips has blocked my previous answer, so I will try again (without link and explanation): No, I was not sarcastic (at least in the first part).
1:45 True. My dad just bought Samsung A25 and I noticed he has fingerprint sensor in the power button. He used to be against using fingerprint for unlocking phone since `quote` "My fingers/hands get hurt all the time, and it won't work most of the time" but then I told him "yeah don't worry, if it won't work it doesn't change anything and you'll just use your pin like always, but if it works then you unlocked your phone immediately... and you touch the power button with that finger anyway so what's the difference" and since then I always see him not even pressing the button but just `delicately` scanning his fingerprint 😂
Once you go power button fingerprint scanner, you can never return. It's just so convenient. On my Redmi Note 12, the included case has a small curve that allows you to just slide your finger right onto the scanner, and BAM, sub 1 second unlock.
@@doggo_woohonestly, with a GOOD under display sensor, it's better. I daily drive the s series, and having the fingerprint scanner where my finger usually hovers above the screen anyway makes it more comfortable to unlock since I don't have to switch my grip (I'm a leftie). Also, the ultrasonic sensor on the s series (s24U currently) is wicked fast. It's definetly sub milisecond, and i could honestly say it's right around 0.2-0.3 seconds. It takes a real effort to touch it so fast it doesn't work. I'd still choose a power button sensor over an optical under display one tough. Those are terrible to use when you're already in bed, and some light shines around your fingerprint and blinds you.
@@vargabazsaa 99% of in-display sensors are placed way too low to naturally rest any finger on that spot in a one handed grip. Unlike with a side or rear mounted one you basically HAVE to use two hands.
@@vargabazsaaHuawei p9 has had my favourite fingerprint scanner, inset in the back right where my index finger goes when I pull it out my pocket. Would be open before I even saw the screen everytime. Only pain is if the phone was already face up on the table or smt.
My old S10e had a side fingerprint sensor and it was amazingly fast, especially compared to the under screen fingerprint sensors of its day. My S23 Ultra's under screen sensor does come pretty close to matching it though.
Bro gets a pre-release device > Has a couple of issues > Gives it negative ratings all across the board... Yeah nah sorry Linus but that was nothing...
On the wind show after the tech shop video was uploaded, Linus said that the videos can take multiple weeks to get through the editing queue if they're just put in to the normal Q and not rushed for whatever reason because say it's an embargoed product and the embargo gets lifted a week after they finished filming so the video just jumps the line
The beard was more of a well-kept stylish one, not like he hadn't trimmed it for all this time. Probably less than a month to get it back to normal again. 🧔
For an audience that mainly comes from North America and cannot buy the phone at all, it is mainly entertainment. In Europe, the Fairphone has been available for almost half a year and there are already many comprehensive reviews
Yea, they drop the videos with a more clickable title for the initial majority of the views the video will get, then not long after change the title to be more descriptive and searchable. Most of the money comes from the first couple of days or weeks as youtube recommends the video. But then it makes more sense for people to find the video themselves after that's over.
They do that for the first week (maybe more or less, I can't remember if they've mentioned an exact timing) of the video for clicks, then adjust the title later for better records. They've been pretty transparent about this practice and it's something they do to appease the algorithm.
@@krustykrabbulus5210 But also for an entertainment perspective. We open on Linus saying "Before you grab your pitchforks...." and the title itself should instill immediate rage I guess? I don't know what I'm supposed to be mad about yet! So I am mad about the title! Arrrghh!!
How is it that a leading tech review platform doesn't mention some glaring features , such as native support for alternative Operating Systems ( e/OS/)
I bought the Fairphone 4 mere weeks before the 5 was announced, so I won't be getting it, but I can vouch for the Fairphone 4. I put CalyxOS on it because I'm very privacy-centric, and I've been daily driving that for months now. And as a casual phone user (no gaming on my phone), I love it. It works almost perfectly, with some annoyances which are on CalyxOS rather than the Fairphone itself, and that I'm more than willing to work around for the privacy I get back. Apart from that, it's worked perfectly for me. I love the thought that if something does eventually break I can repair it easily, and while I realise that not everyone is in a financial situation where they can do this, as someone who is, I do not mind paying a little extra for a device from a smaller company that's climate-conscious and open in their design. I truly hope people will keep supporting Fairphone. They are doing important work and they deserve it.
I've had the 4 since it came out. "if something does eventually break I can repair it easily" this is exactly it! But it does mean I'll be using it for a long while or it can become my backup phone that I know can still be relied on. I had cheaper phones too and they become expensive to life when they break on you suddenly so it's not really paying extra either. Overall also I trust the company won't ever actively decide to do anything nasty and that's more reliable to be a customer of for an important device.
I have also been using FP 4 with /e/OS for over a year, and the only issues I had was the GPS being very slow (I sent it to be serviced and got fixed), the drop-down menu was glitching often for a few weeks between OS updates, and one of my banking apps didn't work at all between 2 other OS updates. Other than that, it is perfect. I never game on my phone, I have a laptop for that, so I don't need 16 Gb of RAM or whatever modern phones have. I mostly use it for internet, mail, calls, navigation and reading books. And the thickness is just right for my hand and for my finger to fit on the fingerprint sensor; why would it need to be any thinner ?
Do you know why the s22 Ultra no longer has it? Edit: Turns out if you add 2 extra digits to the pin, you can can select the skip pressing ok button and then before confirming delete the 2 added ones and then it works.
Agreed, my pixel 7 requires this extra key press too, it also has the unmoveable google bar and doesn't give an uninstall option when I long press on an app. I feel like this video really wasn't very fair and someone at LTT should have clocked that a lot of these shortcomings were from Android. That said, fairphone is known to has a non-existant software department and oursources most of it which seems unwise as a phone manufacturer
The minimum ringtone volume seems like the easiest problem to fix with a software update. It astonishes me to learn that the Fairphone 4 supposedly had the same issue.
I'm surprised you compare and completely dismiss removing the back of the Note 5 as a simple hassle.... YOU NEED A FLIPPIN HEAT GUN!!!! on top of the Isopropyl alcohol and the adhesive to put it back together. I'd argue you are skimming over the Fairphone's main selling point. No normal user is going to have a heat gun or change the Note 5 battery on their own. To change the battery on the Fairphone you need a battery... and a fingernail...
@@heinrich27 That's weird. It would mean that Google implemented the required added press for Android and then implemented the option to disable it for Pixel. We may be starting to see the start of the conflict between making Android overall better and making their own Pixel version better
Oh, is it the same as I remember? Where you hold, drag and then hold at the top until Remove turns to Uninstall? I found that infinitely more obvious than holding the icon for a sub-menu. I really got used to the option of tapping to add it to home screens then moving it around afterwards too. I forgot how much other launchers mess with things. Time to see how ADW launcher is now!
Yes. The FF4 had the same problem and we fixed it by setting a ringtone that was less loud. You will lose some top volume with that way, but that has so far not even come to my mind as a problem.
For the battery, this was more important when phone batteries were worse, but an easy replaceable one means you can have a hot spare. For vacations, having a tiny battery which immediately gives 100% with no cables is an amazing feeling. Instead of a big power bank I just slide it into my backpack (cover up the electrical pads)
I have an old dell latitude laptop and the power to simply swap batteries in the middle of a lecture with no power sockets is amazing. The fact that this is not a standard capability in devices now is such a downgrade. I honestly could not give less of a shit about my gadget being a couple mm thicker and couple grams heavier if it means i can swap out the battery.
Field replacing batteries is a great way to break the clips that hold the back on. It also forces a reboot which takes a minute or so and evicts all your apps and browser tabs from memory.
@@callum177 The broken clip problem is real, and I Do Not Want to deal with it again. I would put my phone away before dead phone became a realistic possibility, which would be several hours longer than a phone with a field-replaceable battery, due to the 3 extra layers of casing (internal back, compartment, battery side 1, side 2) that can be eliminated from a phone designed for bench replacement only. And FWIW, it'll be a cold day in hell before I use Chrome.
Not that it matters but just FYI this would be a cold spare not hot. Hot would mean it's in the device and can be switched to in software. While it's "hot" in the sense of being charged. It's cold in the sense of being stored outside of the device.
I would like to point out that getting a second-hand phone probably even better than getting a Fairphone from an eco-perspective, but you will not get updates for that phone! Also: It is not only the battery, also, for example, the fragile screen that can be easily exchanged on a fairphone. I am pretty sure that that is a different story for a 5-year old samsung device as well. The value proposition is very very different for Fairphones. I am using a Fairphone 3 for years already and I only switched from my fairphone 2 when I could not watch youtube videos on it anymore in ~2020 because of software issues that required a factory reset - at which point it was 5 years old and I treated myself to a new phone. 600 bucks / 5 years is typically better ratio than 600 bucks / 2 years - however, I realize that the big manufacturers also offer longer warranties etc nowadays!
@@michaelchristianrusso I am gonna blow your mind right now..... Fairphones are especially capable of running alternative OS, and are very easy to switch around. None of the issues mentioned in the video exists anymore, and even though I use a 4 as my work phone, my company is giving out the 5 as work phone now.... and it is AWESOME. it is reliable, never has any app crashes (kinda big deal when you have to depend on it for a lot of our crucial work apps, especially when we are offsite or on the move) and lasts ages with heavy usage. I manage to charge mine maybe once every 3-4 days at worst.
@@michaelchristianrusso if you knew all that, then you could also just use that knowledge to deduce that because they have been out for so less time and aren't going around in great volumes... you won't get them for $100 used. Instead, you should buy one and keep reusing it till it goes out of promised updates and then repurpose it. Most people/businesses are still using their 3's and 4's, let alone the 5's. You pretty much commented that you can't find a used S21 for $100.... well, yeah, that's the thing with more modern, longer running products. They hold their value. You might, however, want to buy a Pixel 3 or 4 for that kinda price at amazon retourenkauf.
@@AnujeetRoy09 I have always used my cell phones for about 5 years before I gave them up. And my current one has cost me sub 100 EUR (which is about 110 USD). Then again, there are days where I hardly use it at all, since I am not doing unnecessary browsing or even gaming and I am doing most of my stuff on the PC anyway. May be that is why they endure for so long. Which is also why I will just go for a cheap one again I guess...
With this review I honestly think that linus should try a stock android phone like a pixel at some point to actually notice how many of his pros and cons are just an android thing and not a phone specific thing
Exactly my thoughts when Linus started talking about that he does not like how "they" solve specific things within "their" Android. That is just stock Android being stock Android as far as I can see.
Even if it's just stock android it's still a valid criticism. Any rom maker or manufacturer has the ability to modify aosp in anyway they want. So its on the manufactures if there are missing features or bugs.
@@RAH012it's valid in a vacuum but not fair in comparison to other phones, even the latest Pixel 8 that he used as a competitor, has the exact same software "issues", he should have just mentioned that.
@@Adem92Foster Except for the fact that the Fairphone was much worse than a Pixel 8 and more expensive, to make it as good as a Pixel 8, it will be much more expensive than a Pixel 8, which makes getting it stupid, unless you like spending money.
@@Ghettofinger Ok thank you for agreeing with me ? The fact is the phone being much worse than the Pixel 8 has absolutely nothing to do with the phone being more ethical and repair friendly. If Google with its ressources wanted to make the Pixel 8 like the fairphone at the same price point, they easily could.
@@Adem92Foster That's the problem, Google has the resources to make a more polished phone and sell a lot to reduce the costs of development, Fairphone has not.
You measure the wrong things. Break the screen of all your test phones, and measure the time to repair each. I replaced my screen in 5 minutes with ease. Doing it on most other phones takes much longer and harder to do
@@muizzyit's not. The fairphone also isn't just about daily use. It's about keeping the same device for years and producing as little e-waste as possible. If you're not the type of person to care about producing landfill changing your phone every year or two years then you're not the type of person to understand the appeal of this. Sorry to replay to a 2 month old comment lol
It also have great battery life since you can have multiple batteries with ease and swap between them in 10 seconds. You can also always have a fresh battery even after 5 years since it cost 30$ to switch to a new fresh one if your old battery would age /Written on my 5 year old Fairphone3 which has had screen replaced and battery replaced so it lasts a full day and still works like a new phone after 5 years
@@kelper205at this point I'd rather have 2x 200$ phones (switch to the second after 2 years) than buy the replacement parts and I would still get better overall experience.
as an FP4 owner, I think it gets VERY obvious how tiny this company is. Most bugs I experienced got fixed with software updates, but some were still present 2 years after launch. So, they'll eventually come around to fix software problems, but it can take until the next iteration with new problems releases :/ I think it's completely fine for most users, especially older or younger folks who don't really care about top notch performance, but it is a far cry away from being usable for enthusiasts or professional users. The thing I probably hate most about it is the camera. The sensor is actually pretty good (as far as I can tell) but the software is actually utter garbage compared to the competition from years ago. The price is also too high but I for my part am supporting the idea with at least 40% of the price (which would still make it more expensive than most comparable phones nowadays, btw)
To be fair, the latest update has _definitely_ ironed out some bugs. I was experiencing lockups ehich were often needing a hard power cycle to clear about once a week but haven't had any since the February update. I absolutely take your point that it's tough to recommend though. I don't need much out of my phone as I usually have a laptop or PC close by, so I took the plunge. Might have been nice to mention some of those "mission statement" aspects - ie: finding conflict-free suppliers for almost all the controversial materials found in modern phones. Agreed the ambient light sensor is whacko though!
@@me2olive I think mine was triggered by always on lock screen and device rotation occasionally trying to update simultaneously. I'd get stuck with a slightly broken looking lock screen that wouldn't update. I could hear the unlock sound but invariably I had to hold down power and vol+ to reset
i think this conflict free materials is mostly bogus anyway. A very very small amount of it is unethically sourced in the first place and most of the time its blocked from ending up in the pile anyway. now there is something to be said about chinese cheap labour but as you saw in the video the hardware is from samsung or some other company anyway so there is very little difference to warrant a buggy phone that ends up being shite anyway because they remove the jack anyway and introduced bluetooth earbuds that have no replacable battery, going gainst their own mission.
Many of the skin/software issues are also present on the Pixel 8 (no uninstall, no sound on youtube video, confirm button in SIM and device PIN entry). So I think it's actually android
It's not a skin thing. It's the lack of the phone using the UI Linus is used to. This is just stock android lightly tweaked, and everything he mentioned is simply part of stock android. You'll have similar issues on Motorola, Sony, Pixel, even some stock based ROMS don't bother changing those features.
@@rulercostax Yeah and what's your point? We all know that. Some people prefer clean and stock Android ROMS, some people prefer the Samsung approach with TouchWiz and One UI. Linus really should know the difference considering how much of the latest tech he has access to.
He also doesn't get that using an old supported phone is defeating the point. Fairphone 5 stands for long term DIY repair, hardware AND software support. No other supplier does this.
Anybody truly putting their money where their mouth is, and *REALLY* is serious about ecology and and the environmnet, should look into old used phones. No exceptions. Custom ROMS = privacy and control + latest features and security updates. There's just no excuse. Fairphone should become a phone refurbishing company.
@@卛 Yea there are kind of a few excuses, I tried using my old oneplus for as long as possible but at some point my banking apps were just not cool with it anymore, even custom roms failed me and I don't have most of the day to tinker around and re-setup everything. I think buying a phone that will be officially supported for the time I'll reasonably own it is a compromise.
That's very cool, but kind of a niche feature. Most people wouldn't be doing that. And maybe most of the ones who would, have no problems prying off the back of the phone and using alcohol to remove the battery. I feel like these people are not the target audience of this phone.
@@leifrie8877But they don't allow custom avb keys and relocking with a custom ROM anymore. Also this might all change since China is cracking down on bootloader unlocking.
@@crashnielswhy would that affect the rest of the world? For example, US-samsung devices have a locked bootloader, while european and most asian devices have unlockable bootloaders. Region locks are already a thing here.
@@AbRaSkZo Asus for example has removed their bootloader unlock claiming "technical reasons" and "they are working on it". They said that a year ago. Newer Xiaomi and other Chinese brands have had problems with their bootloader unlocking since around the same time.
I really wish that reviewers would stop going on about how thinner is better. This stupid "requirement" means that we now don't have removeable batteries and batteries that can't last more than a working day away from the wall. Bezels are good as well, as they allow you to hold the phone securely without having to risk touching the screen or creating that stupid fad of those holders that people used to stick on the back of their phones, just to be able to hold the phone without risk of dropping it.
Ok so, I was still kinda on board until it didn't have a headphone jack ngl. Only real issue that might impact me significantly before that was responsiveness, but honestly that probably wouldn't be a deal breaker. May keep an eye out for older models I guess.
What was always a deal-breaker for me since the Fairphone 2 was the fact you cannot buy a new motherboard for those phones. The moment this one breaks you basically have a expensive paperweight. I seen posts where they replaced the motherboard under warranty and posts where they did not replace them, which turned the phone into the mentioned paperweight. Idk how much it changed nowadays, but even current posts suggest ongoing issues, like charging port and charging issues seem to be quite frequent across all models. While I love the concept (I also have a framework and did not regret it), I just do not feel like its worth paying the price for it.
Should have compared to the Galaxy XCover 6 Pro, both have user replaceable batteries, SD card & SIM slots, side mounted dedicated fingerprint readers & are comparably priced. The XCover does retain it's water resistance and headphone jack though.
If you do that, you'll either end up with double log scale or stretch them out to be linear again. Since the ear is perceiving loudness logarithmically too, using dB as is being used here creates a much more accurate impression of perception. Also, if you look at pretty much any graph that uses dB for an axis, you'll find that axis to be "linear" too. We use dB precicely because it allows us to not having to squash our graphs more than necessary (and makes some calculations easier).
I'm on an S23 and and I don't have to do that. Is this like a localization thing where they "have" to have it like that to pass certain privacy and security laws or something?
The SD card is positioned like that on purpose. Unfortunately, the average phone user might rip out the SD card without ejecting it causing potential data integrity issues. It's annoying but there is a reason.
I miss plastic backed phones so much. The Nexus 6 is possibly the most comfortable and enjoyable phone I've ever used. And, honestly, I miss thicc phones too. And, to be honest, it seems the leading problem with this phone isn't the phone itself, or even FairPhone's design ideas. It's squarely on Qualcomm refusing to support a phone CPU more than 3 years.
I've never understood the rational for making glass backs - What's the best way to make the phone lighter and better at dissipating heat, I know a useless piece of heavy glass that's really good at trapping heat in.
@@lefear2 Glass will generally wear better, look better over time, and all glass will increase the general efficiency and antenna performance a little (including better wireless charging, that is already subject to insane efficiency loss just as a part of the technology itself). Of course it does come at the increased risk of major damage, so you have to be more careful.
that last point is a really fair point. buying a older or used phone would have the same, if not better enviomental impact that buying a new fairphone, and you don't even meed to go as far back to a note 5, you could just buy more recent phone with even better performance. having said that, how many people are willing to buy an used phone?
Maybe that could be a new video, "Is buying used really that worse than buying new?". He's done similar videos before with stuff like GPUs so it's not completely out of left field.
I buy used phones. Just make sure you can return it if there are any issues. If it's been used with a protector and cover, it's been hermetically sealed its whole life, so it'll be like new underneath. Anything newer than about 6 years isn't realistically going to have performance issues that most people would care about. I'm not Marques Brownlee, I don't care if the swipe speed is 6ms quicker on this year's model, or if it's a hair's breadth thinner. Battery life can be a concern, which is why it was nice when they were swappable, but 'new enough' batteries these days are pretty good anyway.
What I found out from this video, that Linus just doesn't like stock Android, because most of the software features that he pointed out are stock Android "things" .
For me the main reason to get the FP5 honestly was the long term support an 5 years warranty. My past 3 Phones that I used (S4 Mini, Xperia Compact, A30s) I intended to use as long as possible and they all randomly died after 2 to 3 years without obvious damage (S4 was just crashing randomly, Xperia the antenna for cell service died, A30s: random as crashes sometimes the whole day without proper booting up). So I now hope all the downpointa the FP5 has in software will get fixed eventually and it serves me as long as possible. Regarding the switchable site for the back button: Missed it a lot, now my habits changed and switching back to the other way around would be as annoying as when I switched to the FP5.
@@joeykeilholz925You've said this a lot, i think you never actually used a budget Samsung in your life. I have set up multiple Galaxy A series phones for my family and they are SLOW af Out of the box with so. Much. Bloat! 360 cleaner baked in to settings, 300 apps pre installed, 2 app stores. The A23 of my grandpa couldn't even scroll smoothly in a web browser after installing all his socials. The screen looks like TN LCD junk. Only redeeming quality is the excellent battery life, ill give it that.
@@me2oliveSamsung and Google now offer almost the same duration of software support but for phones that aren't big blocky slow and this buggy. Oh, and cheaper
I think 5 is smaller than 10... And the other companys still have to deliver on that promise (especially Google) while the FP-Company already over-delivered for 2 of their devices. @@HotdogSosage
@@joeykeilholz925 I've got a mid-range samsung, 3 years in and the vibration doesn't work, headphone jack is worn out to the point it can't actually keep a connection to half my plugs and the battery is half the life it started with
I've had the Fairphone 4 for 2 or 3 years now. I've broken and replaced the screen (extremely easy, and comparatively cheap, to do). I am using it with no noticeable issues for standard phone stuff + watching movies on an external screen + a whole bunch of smart device control. I have taken maybe 10 photos with it, which I've looked at twice. I have had minimal issues with the software. The truth is that unless you game, shoot photo/video professionally or have some other niche and demanding use for it, a Fairphone or a similar device is likely more than enough for you. To me, the choice when buying remains between: 1. Giving way too much money to a trashy company like Apple, who will pressure you with FOMO each year by introducing marginal improvements, and gatekeeping; 2. Giving extra (but still less than 1.) money to a small company that advocates for repairability, sustainability and privacy. The Fairphone is not perfect in any of these parameters, by their own admission, but the point is more to signal to the industry what their priorities should be, rather than being a Fairphone (or any other brand) fanboy.
to be honest, i can run minecraft, star rail and genshin impact just fine on my FP4. it has just enough power for my use case. but the battery life is a bummer if you don't carry around a power bank or have a second battery which you can somehow charge externally. i've built my own charger for that, and it's available on thangs (shameless self-plug)
The review is actually fair. I've been daily driving an FP5 since its release day now. It's a high-price middle-tier phone, it's a statement on its own. But yeah, it's not a great phone, thats for sure. I haven't experience the audio issues on my release model, aside from the low-end level.
As a Fairphone 4 user on 2+ years of use, I can only say, being able to order a new screen for €80, receive it within a week, and change it out with a screwdriver and a guide for reference, in less than 10 minutes, has been a game-changer. The "extra mile" was worth it IMO. The thickness and build quality gives a phone that is rock solid. I have not used a case on mine at all, and all is well. The screen shattered, yes, but that would have happened with a case as well in that situation.. I think the main point of getting a phone like this is more for people that want to have a phone that does what a phone should do, be stable, rugged and dependable for a LONG time. I intend to have my phone for at least 5 years, more if possible. And being able to buy parts, change what is broken this easily only serves to lower the barrier to entry for repairs. You can repair anything without having to buy other than the part itself and having a right size screwdriver (All screws are the same size phillips, except on the core which uses torque heads).. With other phones you need new glue strips and one has to have the know-how to actually work on it without damaging fragile parts, even if it is relatively easy. Fairphone sidesteps all those requirements for a no-nonsense and straight forward approach. I dislike Linus not mentioning the option to swap batteries on the fly. Battery life is not good, and is definitely one of the weaker points of the phone, however, I can buy a spare and have it with me if i need it (I do not), and just swap over. Or if I buy a new battery to replace a tired one, I just keep the old for emergency power.. The critiques the I do agree with is some of the choices with the skin... It is kinda annoying, but it is really minor stuff on the whole. Software updates have been amazing too. Mostly focused on stability and functionality improvements, not so much features. This review feels, at least in my view, a little disconnected with what people actually want a phone to do. Most people do not need a super performant and fancy phone with a bazillion features you almost never use anyway. I'm not saying those fancy features and nice to haves aren't useful for someone, they surely are, but most people I know just wan a decent phone that lasts a long time. And Fairphone delivers perfectly on that.
I think the price is the problem, and because you are paying an e-premium, although a replacement display seems cheap, you have already paid for the excess it would cost on, say, a Samsung because of the ludicrous pricing. This is a £300 phone; if Apple tried to charge £700 for this, they would get smacked!
I have to disagree. I have worked in mobile retail for the last 10+ years, and people started to actually use their smartphones to ther potential. As everyrhing nowdays works online, and needs an app (loyalty programs, school grades, e-meetings, group chat for every imaginable social circle you have) people with low-end hardware tend to struggle. I use a samsung but for elderly people starting out, i always recommended apple products, since they're more straightfoward, and if they mess something up, they know it was them, and not the phone. When you're learning to use devices, it shortens the learning curve when something is repeatable. If they press something and the same thing happens over and over again. On lower end androids, apps can crasg for no reason, making them feel insecure about doing things. Fairphone is a good alternative for someone who knows what they're doing and who can trade a few quirks for repairability. But for uncle joe, who goes to a repair center for a battery swap, it doesn't matter if they got the fairphone from the family for christmas, or and iphone or a samsung. The service center will still bill them 10 bucks for the swap, it doesn't matter if they need to remove an adhesive and a ribbon cable or not. Apple has 5 years of support, and samsung now has 7 (starting with the s24 series), and phones tend to die by then because the hardware gets so outdated anyway. An iot chip will still struggle with the demand of the newly made apps, it won't matter how good it temperature management is. As louis rossman put it "right to repair doesn't mean you have to repair it yourself. It means that people can do it for you without getting sued" or something along these lines. Not having to get proprietary first party charging cables, or oem screens, means you can keep your device alive longer. And fairphone is doing just that which is great. But having the illusion that you *should* do everything by yourself is stupid. People will still break their devices because someone in an ad said that they can do it. It's stupid.
@@andyH_England Agreed. the FP5 is too expensive. But it will drop in price to a more reasonable level. The price is also due to the longevity of the device. My FP4 was €450, and to me, that seems a good deal for a phone I am far more sure will last till the SoC is incapable of what it needs to do. Since I do not game, that could be a long time.
@@andyH_England To play devil's advocate, the easiest way to justify the price would be to work out what it would be per year, over the expected lifetime of the phone. I bought a Framework laptop when they released the Gen12 intel mainboards, and it was quite a bit more expensive than laptops of comparable spec. But I expect to be able to keep most of the laptop for the next decade, with maybe only one or two mainboard upgrades and the occasional part for repair. That takes it from ~£1.6k sale price to maybe ~£180 per year. My mother-in-law burns through laptops unbelievably quickly, because she buys machines in the £300-£400 price bracket and they die due to daft stuff like a broken charger socket (2 laptops), a broken screen (with repair cost approaching the cost of the laptop) and similar issues. She probably buys a new one every couple of years, and they're all worse than the Framework. Of course, that mindset only works if the Fairphone is something you'd be happy to use for that length of time...
@@vargabazsaa I think you are reading too much into it, honestly. The SoC choice is what it is, and I do concede, that this seems to be a bit on the slow side for longevity, however see how apple is handling their silicon. They all are functional 5 years plus, even on anaemic hardware. The phones usually break before the SoC becomes problematic. The most problematic issues I had with phones performance not keeping up before my current phone has been memory.. I am not too worried. For all the apps you mention, the requirements have not gone up that much over time. Usually it is mostly memory usage that increases more than throughput. Most tasks are not that intensive, even video-calls. If your device can encode and decode 1080p video as well as handle UI smoothly while doing that, you are fine. If the UI doesn't get in your way with sluggishness (in the long term), you are fine. If you do not need a fancy camera, you are fine. Requirements keep increasing, yes, but for MOST tasks, those requirements have plateaued. Just look at laptops and how they changed.. A 5 year old laptop today is usually still totally serviceable for most non-gaming workloads. A 5 year old laptop in 2010 would be a struggle. Hell, even the memory requirement increases for phones i mentioned above have tapered off. Look. Yes. The FP5 is too expensive, So is the FP4 for that matter, but less so. (I see the 4 has gone up in price since I bought it.) (Also, society is used to insanely cheap consumer goods, so when things actually cost what it costs to produce in a fair manner (pun intended), sticker shock usually sets in) And yes, Louis Rossman is exactly right. I have not opposed that, or stated that repair needs to be this accessible to the end user. But I look at any utilitarian investment much like i would with a car. Need to haves, nice to haves. How much do I expect to spend maintaining it? Do I need more space? Or is less enough. Depreciation, servicing, etc. etc. Here, since I am a tech guy, I like tinkering, and hence, a stable platform that I can service myself? Hell yeah. That is the crux of my point. The review comes out rather negative. While a lot of the critiques are valid, it also kinda emphasises issues that aren't really that big an issue when you consider what it is designed for. Usually Linus is good at bringing this sort of point into the conclusion on a 'meh' to negative review, but not this time. A shame. And yeah, you are right in recommending iOS to non-tech-litterate people. It was designed for them....... Apple gets hate for not being customizable or walled garden etc. But it is also one of its greatest strengths! That sort of balance felt lacking in this review. A no frills phone that will last you a long time with a low running cost, but a rather steep initial cost. Kinda "Meh" in some areas, 10 across the board on others.
5:20 The reason is very probably Qualcomm's restriction to working with smaller OEMs. I've tried to work with them, they just refuse. We can get Qualcomm chips if you work with approved partners, but even then you cannot get the chip you want. Power consumption is worse, features are worse, but.... that's all you can get your hands on.
@@zahedchowdhury0 Thanks, although I've had Freescale redirect me towards industrial SoCs, citing longer support, but the reason is in face that they internally don't want smaller clients on cutting edge SoCs because of the added support. But you might be right. I just know Qualcomm is a nightmare to work with.
True, but the only reason I moved off my OnePlus 7t to the fair phone 5 was because they'd stopped releasing security updates for it. The hardware was all still fine for my needs, but running a phone with no security updates when it holds my 2fa keys and my credit card details is a no go.
Yes, but the issues with old phones being hard to maintain and repaired is getting greater every year, so at one point there won't be much difference in buying new or used
@@yuriserigne5524 and that's what confuses me about the target demographic of the fairphone, it's like they are selling to those who care enough about sustainability to pay a much higher price but not enough to overcome their used-device-allergy.
You literally have a Pixel phone for comparison in the video and yet fail to mention that many of the issues you had with the UI on the Fairphone are also present on the Pixel (e.g. search bar and back button not movable). Because that is just the stock Android experience and unrelated to the Fairphone specifically. Classic LTT review 👌
I bought the FP5 around launch, because if I would divide the cost by the software support it would be cheaper than new oneplus, samsung and pixel phones I looked at. The FP5 also comes with the advantage of never having problems with an old battery because of the replaceable battery. So when I was looking around there was no better option for me. When using it I did also have the problem with the screen autoadjusting brightness and as someone else has pointed out a wierd thing with 90fps slowing down the phone after a week which would be fixed by changing it back and forth between 90fps and 60fps. There might potentially be community made fixes for these problems because you're allowed to install other versions of android if you want. Other than that the phone has done everything it needs to for me and the convenience of not having to swap in the next 8-10 years is really nice.
@@Dranzell I'm still using the same phone I had 4 years ago and have no intention of swapping any time soon. I don't see how it'd be harder with a newer phone.
So samsung offers now 7 years of software and changing the battery after warranty in non Samsung shop is like 20 euro for the battery and 20 euro work worst case + 10 euro back glass if it breaks. Worst case repair is about 100 euro with 7 years of upgrades for an actual phone with great display, camera, speakers, vibration motor, fingerprint sensor etc. I don't really see your point here. I'm still using my S22U that I got for 900 euro and will change battery in 6 months to 1 year and use it for 2 years more...
@@Dranzell I used my previous phone the OnePlus 6 for 5 years and the reason I had to swap was only because of battery and security updates. So when I decided on a phone I was just looking at my current phone usage and how I expect that to change in the next 10 years which is mostly just basic social media apps and browser stuff so I expect it to go just fine, but I of course can't predict the future. It also has de added bonus of being from a company that stands for stuff I can get behind.
@@jimhuper when I bought the phone Samsung did not have 7 years of software support and I did not need the extra features that a Samsung has. For audio I have headphones and earbuds, it still has a finger print scanner and at the 8-10 years of software support for €700 it was at the time a better deal and it still seems like a good deal to me now
Frankly I'm 100% NOT interested in Fairphone anything WITHOUT a 3.5mm/headphone jack. There's no good reason for a product line like this to just ditch that. Bluetooth is great, but there's things it just literally cannot do, like operate without batteries because it's physically connected via cable to the device producing audio. I skipped the Fairphone 4 because they released it without 3.5mm/headphone jack, and it was (as far as I could tell) the #1 reason people were unhappy with the Fairphone 4. So to see them keep it off for the Fairphone 5, to me, is frankly them ignoring their actual audience. And I don't have time for that. Right now I'll just keep rocking my "Xcover6 Pro" (which has a 3.5mm/headphone jack) which I picked up instead of the Fairphone 4 _for the sole reason of the 3.5mm/headphone jack_. These other things that Linus raise, valid concerns, but just more things Fairphone needs to get sorted. And I really don't ever see myself even _considering_ anything of theirs without a 3.5mm/headphone jack.
@@BloodyIronthat's because they aren't allowed to be sold there. Long time ago they didn't even work there because particularly American carriers wouldn't allow a non subscription phone to connect.
- fairphone 5 doesn't have an official build of lineage yet - yes, all his pet peeves with the *software* - keyword being software here, would've been fixed
I dont think wireless charching or the thickness of the phone should be an issue neither that it feels like the note 9. It's about it being able to be produced without being expensive, using materials that are bad for the environment. They could work on bumping the specs but it's main goal is not the be the best, the fastest etc. It's about being content with a phone that just works well for basic needs. You're really asking things this phone is not designed for, nor it's intent You're only thinking about yourself in this phone, it's really first world problems. While Fairphone is thinking about the people who make your phone.
"It's about it being able to be produced without being expensive, using materials that are bad for the environment." -- if the main goal is to satisfy basic needs.. as the video says, you are better off buying an older phone used and remove that from the e-waste pile..a phone that makes this many compromises but is designed for the basics doesn't need to exist when phones being THROWN AWAY already meet and exceed those same needs.
Why contribute to the problem by buying a new fairphone that barely works and is overpriced for its performance and longevity instead of buying a 1-2 yr old phone that'll be cheaper, better performing and no new negative impact on the environment generated...
Thickness I agree. Wireless charging should be an option at this price point. It's not black magic. Also how in the hell is there no headphone jack? A phone that is geared towards sustainability doesn't support the most sustainable headphone? Wtf?!
@@skifree0yes Fairphone themselves say use old phone > buy used phone > buy Fairphone. The thing is that almost nobody wants to buy a used phone. Particularly in Europe where this phone is mostly sold.
Sadly, back button on the left side, is the android default placement. I can't change it on my Pixel 7 either, which is sooo bad. It would take a dev 3 minutes, to implement an option to swap positions.
I might be in the minority, but I couldn't ever get used to the recents-home-back layout. I agree though that it shouldn't be too difficult to add a toggle in settings like Samsung has to swap back and recents.
@@BryanBlumerYeah exactly. I mean there're tons of custom roms out there, where you get the option to switch the buttons. Since the positioning is really bad, i switched to gestures after a while. Took me 2-3 weeks, until i got used to it, but now it works okayish. But i still have problems to hit the "recents" gesture consistantly
We got so spoiled that having a phone a little bit thicker and heavier is reason to make it fun of it, even thou it compensate but facilitating maintenance. The SOC and performance I'll agree that is complicated to reason about it as well as issues with the software, which are what makes the Fair 5 a no go to me. Really looking forward for the version with this points solved.
I own a Fairphone 5 and have never had the audio issue that Linus speaks about, not sure if it's some weird prototype issue. I also don't mind the weird processor, they were criticized on the Fairphone 4 for not being able to keep up with processor security updates, and unfortunately, fairphone isn't big enough to have their own custom chip. So this chip is the compromise that they came up with. And if I am going to be keeping this phone for seven years, not having a top of the line chip isn't going to be a buyers top priority in the first place.
But that's the issue. What ages better, Samsung Galaxy S series or A series? A weaker chip will show its age way sooner, and that means you'll be banging your head against the wall for all the struggles this phone will face long before it's close to 7 years old.
This could all be fixed if Google forced chip makers to use uefi like Microsoft did. I can grab a Windows 10 iso and slap it on my old ThinkPad but I can't grab an Android iso and put it on a phone. Old phones are still very capable and so are old laptops.
@@joeykeilholz925 supporting older chips is more difficult. Qualcomm doesn't provide updates so Fairphone has to hack together bad Qualcomm code and hope it works. With LTS chips it is easier and if there are issues Qualcomm has to fix them. These chips are supported for 10-15 years by Qualcomm.
That’s literally the exact opposite line of thinking you’re supposed to have. People always say “who cares about the benchmarks of the A16 no one is video editing on their phone”, not realizing that the extra headroom they build for themselves allows them to support their phones tor so much longer. Any piece of hardware that receives software updates will get slower over time, that’s just how it works, so if you buy a phone today and it’s a bit slow, what on earth makes you think it will even be usable in 7 years? If “oh it’s a small company” is your excuse then I’m sorry, it’s a bad one. They’re a small company yes, but they’re competing in the big leagues! Apple, Samsung, Google, and others have already found out, through trial and error, what works for consumers and don’t, that’s why phones have looked the same for the past half-decade. Me being a consumer, why would I choose to be a guinea pig when I can have a device that I don’t need to worry about?
Pixel 8 Pro doesn't show uninstall when you long press an app, you have to go into app info, and the passcode to unlock device also requires a proceed step.
2:37 SD Card rant. Meh Been like this in 90% of phones with SD Card slots. You either have to remove the sim Tray with SD Card slot or remove the battery because it "protects" the MicroSD Card from falling out. Removing the sim while the phone is on causes problems, too. Sometimes Having to mention that you have to turn off a phone for what? a minute or 2?, just to change the SD Card is just, Looking for the hair in the soup... Been like this with LG, Sony, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung phones all the time... And HEY! SD Card as an option is nothing you find on most of the mainstream brands... Looking at you @Samsung @Apple
Linus shooting at Fairphone for stock Android stuff is interesting, perhaps it's time you guys did a comparison between stock Android and other Android skins
7:55 is literally just how base Android does it. You have to click the tick to sign in using a PIN on a Pixel 7a as well. Samsung skinned it to not require it.
They added an option to change it in Android 14, right? It's in Settings > Security and Privacy > Device Unlock > Press the cog next to PIN unlock > Auto confirm unlock. It only works for PINs ≥ 6 digits.
You are absolutely correct. I will say that I have never used a pin longer than 4 digits though. Part of me thinks Linus never does either. FP5 should also have that same 6 digit auto unlock PIN. Also the hold to uninstall is not a thing in raw android. He really needs to make sure he or his staff writers actually look at the base feature set before critiquing this stuff. Super misleading.
I don't want to defend him, but I don't think he ever said that base Android was different, he just said this is not how it should be. I'm guessing he's used to the Samsung UI which works differently.
@@marcellkovacs5452when base android does it like this, this is how it should be. linus commenting on this is just plain dumb anyway because you can change it
I find the sim placement criticism unfair - I suspect the great majority of people swap sim/sd only when they get new phones. And even if that is incorrect, FP should at least get a praise for making that process tool-less. Not everyone wants to carry around a sim swap tool
Finally a fair review of a fairphone. I really support the goal of the company but using their products is just frustating at times. My main problem is the many quality of life features that are missing. Not only with the phone but with their headphones as well. Repairability and sustainability is good, but when you make a product which you have to replace after a year or 2 anyway, what's the point?
Framework okey, but fairphone just create more ewaste. Just buy an old Samsung phone if you want to be resourceful. Just because it can easy swap parts doesn’t mean it’s good for the world. Old Samsung phone or iPhone phones can easy be repaired at home.
@@adwaawddw4730 I have owned an iPhone since 10years back. The only issues I had is with screen or battery. Battery is easily changed. Even with someone with less experience. Even tho I do repair quite much, I often hand it to Apple to change this parts for a bit more money. Since they then do it with genuine parts. All other flagship phones, is easy to change part. So why is this needed? It solves no problem. It only sells low performance phones which you need to change out more, which creates more ewaste. If this phone was something that people really wished for, it would be a top selling phone.
How often will you need to remove the sim or SD card so I don't think having to remove the battery to do it is a problem. I've been using the FP5 for 3 months, and i've only had to remove the battery once, when putting the sim and SD card in.
I use my phone for pretty basic things. When you are competeing against giants I can see how compremises need to be made. That said, I'm going to seriously check this out as an option when I upgrade next.
I have it since December and had not encountered most of these problems. Yes, the screen brightness flickers in some situations and the stock launcher is lacking. But I just installed a different launcher and everything is perfect
Most of the criticism was fair, but half your software issues were just stock android things. And if thats the price of not having to live with samsungs bloatware...i'll take it in a heartbeat.
Only real unfair comparison I saw being made was the battery removal. Even as someone who likes to tinker around with my laptop/PC, removing the backplate with suction cups and getting the battery out are far, far more annoying and 'sketchy' than just popping off both like you can do with the Fairphone.
You could even have a second battery and switch it on field for extra battery life (although power banks are a thing now)
Yes, but the Fairphone in exchange doesn't have water resistance in case you drop it in a puddle or something. And besides, if the SOC in a phone isn't top notch today, it won't survive the planned 2031. So even if you can simply change the battery, you'll have an outdated phone. Is that something you can live with? only you can tell.
@@Xyler94FP5 is water resistant.
My old S5 was waterproof and had a removable back. Why can't we have both again?
Think the point was that a removable back isn't really that big of an engineering problem, just a design choice. They have "fixed" that choice but have gone further and started "fixing" engineering problems when the sacrifices are greater than the gains
seeing un bearded linus insponsor segments gives me chills
Fr the apocalypse is coming
He looks so much better with a beard
True. lol xD
is that an AI edit or he did shaved lol i can't tell the difference
Yea it took long time from the actual video to the sponsor 😂
To be fair, 90% of people put one sim card and a 128gb sdcard for the entire duration of owning the phone
I swap the sim often, around 6 monthly to stay on rate under a fiver. The hassle of having to find a paper clip or sim remover is more than rebooting phone.
And you should reboot your phone when installing a sim card anyway.
@@subaru4920No, you don't have to. You could just hot swap a sim without rebooting and it will work perfectly (unless it's from some carriers that require their bloatware apps/settings that should be loaded)
@@subaru4920There's no real reason to do that
no lmao, no one uses SD cards
2:30 I used to work at walmart around the photo center and have seen tons of sd cards corrupting due to the people not ejecting it in the settings before removing it. Android is outstandingly bad at handling file systems on removable drives. If you make it so you have to power off the phone in order to remove the card then this won't be as much of an issue.
Powering off from the shutdown menu sure, but lots of people will just yank the battery out with the device running causing even more corruption and harm to the OS / phone itself.
I always shut down my phone before doing anything with it, old or new, i thought everyone did tbis😂
@@PadraigDorannobody would do that shi come on
@@RRareGamingYou’re overestimating the thinking of normal users
yet another reason to ditch slow, error-prone SD cards in phones for good.
It is absolutely insane to even compare the repairability of cutting through adhesive (and don't forget to reapply it properly later) to just popping off the back cover. I can replace the USB C connector on my FP4 in under 5 minutes literally on the side of a road. When I was abroad my USB C connector broke and I simply express shipped a replacement, and when it arrived (pretty quickly) I was able to replace it in under 5 minutes with just a screwdriver. having an easily removable back is the difference between being able to DIY fix it on the road and having to buy a temporary phone (one that supports your SIM card, which is not trivial in some countries) and trying to limp along on it. I'll take the slightly thicker body (which I do not care about at all) and maybe not top of the line performance SoC if I have the power to literally fix nearly any easily breakable component of my phone on the go with minimal effort.
This hardly sounds like an advantage when for the price of a Fairphone 5 you could buy a better phone and still have enough money left for a backup phone.
“Maybe not top of the line soc” is a crazy understatement lmao. It’s like calling the 1050ti “adequate for modern gaming”
I've never ever had USB-C broken on me, even under every tough and prolonged abuse. Might it be a case that easily replaceable connector is more prone to failure? Then, it's kinda similar story to screen protectors shuttering from the slightest touch and people bragging how they protect the main glass, when in fact it's just the protector way more fragile, not necessarily meaning that the screen itself would shatter at all under the same conditions.
Which is all kinda moot point when you pay 4x more for a phone than it's actually worth. A budget Samsung A53/A54 will cost a 1/4 price of fairphone and will last longer than you care to keep it for. Why the hell would I be worried about replacing USB-C connector if it's not something that ever failed me??
They didn't compare the two, they said apart from cutting the adhesive and the iso it is easy. Did you not listen?
"After removing the back, it's not that much harder to repair than the Note 5....other than using the isopropyl acohol to remove the adhesive..."
Uh yeah....
I have one and have an extra battery to switch to half way though the day like I could with my Nokia in the 00s isoproponol would be a deal breaker for me
Memeber when Gamers Nexus destroyed him about his ethical and other bullshit.. yeah
Galaxy S4 is as easy to repair as the FP 5.
8:40 its completely plausible for the phantom headphone to be a soldering defect.
The way headphone detection usually works is a physical switch that gets opened/closed when you insert the plug. This signal will be routed to some input pin (on the CPU, or maybe the amp chip or something) which controls where audio is routed.
On a phone without a headphone jack, this input will usually be connected to a resistor that forces the "no headphone" mode.
If that solder connection to the resistor is flaky, the value of the input may behave erratically.
As for why the issue goes away on reboot, the input is probably whats known as Schmitt triggering, which just means it requires the voltage signal to cross over a threshold before the input actually switches. This is quite common for preventing erratic switching if there is noise on the input. What you're probably seeing is a random spike of noise thats enough to flip the input to "headphone connected" mode, but the signal never dips back the other way far enough to switch back to "no headphone" mode. By rebooting the phone you reset the state of the input and the issue goes away.
Note that from a software perspective there's no reason why such an input pin needs to exist at all, obviously the mode could just be hard coded in software. It could be that they have prototypes or devboards that include a headphone jack. It could also have been more work to do this in software vs routing a resistor to a dummy input. Maybe they're using an upstream audio driver that needs such an input assigned to it, or maybe this code is shared with older Fairphones that still have a headphone jack.
EDIT: as pointed out by @AndrewStrydomBRP, hardware would be necessary to support USB-C audio accessory mode (passive USB-C to headphone jack dongles).
Conveniently Fairphone has schematics publicly available (wish Linus mentioned this), where we can see U2602 is an audio/USB2 switch that handles this functionality. Annoyingly the part number listed on the chip appears to be a Fairphone internal part, and they appear to have not provided a BOM like they did with the Fairphone 4 (very cringe). In any case, some googling leads me to believe it's probably an FSA4480, which has a CC_IN pin used to detect whether headphones (or a dongle) is detected, which is presumably where the issue is. For communicating this status upstream to the CPU there's a DET pin and also the I2C interface, not sure which is being used, but the DET pin could also be the issue if that's being used.
To Linus, it would be worth checking if the headphone issue can also be resolved by plugging in something into the USB port, like a charger via a C-C cable or a USB-C flash drive/dock, maybe in both orientations.
I theorise it might work this way (in software) for the USB C headphone output, so there could be a soldering defect there.
Really wrote a whole paragraph? Dam
So basically phones without the headphone jack are phones with the headphone jack but they just closed the hole and jumped the pins for it.
Talk about lazy.
Could also be a Kernel issue? Possible, however unlikely.
Why would they have a headphone detection switch on a device designed not to have a headphone jack? Can understand if they were sharing parts with some other phone (which I don't think is the case here) but if you've using a motherboard that supports headphones why wouldn't you spend the few cents extra and keep the jack as a feature? Only companies doing that are people making money from selling unrepairable earbuds/pods
In my opinion, the price is the biggest problem. And it probably cannot be cheaper.
But that's what certified ethically sourced materials get you.
And I think it would only be fair to note in EVERY other phone review, that the materials used are probably not ethically sourced, which is why it can be that cheap.
Yeah that's my biggest gripe with the FP5. It's nice that it's ethically sourced, but I'm not paying borderline flagship price for a 2016 device that has numerous software issues. Sure the battery is replaceable and it will get close to a decade of software support, but I'm 100% not going to keep it that long if it annoys me every day...
@@ClawthorneYeah, I feel like it would be easier to swallow paying a premium for a phone with flagship specs and ethically sourced materials, though I understand why they wouldn't go into that market, as way more software improvements are needed for camera performance and features.
ethically sourced doesn't cost that much more, you can easily see this with tons of other products. What does cost more is much much much smaller runs. The scale at which samsung and google ship phones is massive, while the fp5 is probably a tenth of a tenth of a fraction of that. That's why it's more expensive.
I just don't think there is actually a market for what they are trying to sell. I see literally zero excitement about their green and ethics marketing. Basically everyone who is excited is excited about repairability and modularity (tho this is slowly going away). I believe the company owners care deeply about those issues, and the repairability was a way to be more green, but I just don't think that's a markatable point at this level of quality for this price. If it'd be Apple style high end product, yeah, being green can be a selling point for those folks. But it's on the level of tech geeks using old Thinkpads glued together from old IBM parts. It's a product that markets itself to complete opposite spectrum of customers than those who would be actually intersted. And those interested would prefer a wider range of modularity and competetive prices for parts, even if the margin would still be quite large for a phone. But just something that competes with chinese and mid level phones on price, instead of the highest shelf of phones. (And I refuse to treat $600 as anything below top shelf, if you think otherwise are you mad? No, the $1k phones are absurd and basically status symbols with attached phones at this point.)
The pricing of the big makers are cheaper because they have volume and other sources of income. Apple and google make a killing on their appstores and services. Samsung, Huawei, etc get paid to bundle apps you don't want.
I own a FairPhone 5, and I'm not bothered by its size or weight. But I can acknowledge some of the problems Linus described (the terrible auto-dimming for example, which is so annoying that I disabled it). Also, the battery drain is horrendous. I am really lucky if I can get by one day without charging it, and sometimes, even during the night, when the phone isn't used at all, the battery level drops significantly. I even switched from 90 to 60 Hz (something I don't care for anyway) and disabled 5G, which seemed to help a bit.
Here's one Linus didn't mention: On rare occasions (maybe once or twice a month) "ghost" touches begin to appear, in pretty quick succession, so much so that it's impossible to reboot the phone. It usually helps to just put the phone to sleep for a moment, but not every time, and then I remove the battery to force restart the phone. I've read online that it may also help to disassemble the phone and put it back together again... But what kind of advice is that? It's not complicated, sure, but who's to say that said disassembly will help or won't introduce other problems?
Also, the loading of certain apps takes ages. On the Fairphone, there are one or two where I saw the splash screen for the first time, as it took that long for them to load.
All in all, I have to say that on a technical level and daily usability the Fairphone is clearly a setback. The only reason I accept these problems is their mission and their promises of rather long software support. Had it been a regular phone I would have sent it back.
Honestly I don't like the idea of suffering bad software 10 years of my life, rather buy unfair phones..
@@finnderp9977First, I wouldn't call it "suffering". It's not as if using the phone is a horrible experience. Actually, most of the time it works just fine. Some of the weird quirks may be resolved with future software-updates and even if there are some pretty annoying things, they're still not a dealbreaker for me.
Basically, the (probably provocative) question that everybody needs to answer for themselves is:: Do I want to support a company that actually tries to introduce change to the way things are done or am I just "good" when it doesn't cost me anything. Or even more provocative: Am I able to get by with some small compromises to help make the world a tiny bit more fair or am I so lazy that my morals are nothing bit lip service?
While I do criticise the technical quality of the FairPhone, I also do want to support their mission, so I answered that question for me. And I'll be damned if I go back to a regular phone built with materials from who-knows where, produced under horrible circumstances for humans and the environment alike.
@@finnderp9977
Idk what's so unfair about the other phones. I mean sure, they're unrepairable, but if you treat them well, they will last you a LONG time...
I'm still using a 6+ year old Note 9 and it works flawlessly, except for Google Play Services draining my battery every two weeks or so, which I don't know how to fix. I guess that's unfair about it lol.
I just really appreciate all the other benefits of a sealed, water resistant phone.
@@finnderp9977Hey there! The software is stock Google Android 13 which will receive a ton of updates in the next 8 years! And the shitty touch response could have been caused by the shitty code of Plex, not Google or Fairphone.. Plex is known for making their app terrible.. Even Linus had a bad review for plex, so why the heck he uses it as a demonstration of bad responsivity? Idk honestly, Linus has a bad point from me for this 80% not objective review.
At 12mm it's only 2mm less thicc than my hp ipaq hx4700 pda from 2004! 20 years! No this is not acceptable, especially not what is essentially a budget phone from 5 years ago.
Had my FP5 since October. I didn't experience those audio issues. Though, the first week I've owned it, it did seem a bit fussy about actually transmitting audio through Bluetooth. But even without a software update, that behaviour just stopped.
The responsiveness and performance section of this video was very warranted though. But for a different reason. I use it at 90hz, and I really like it. But it feels like sometimes scrolling turns to jelly, and responsiveness worsens, until you toggle the refresh rate down to 60, then back up to 90 (or just toggle the battery saver, it does the same thing). I'm perfectly happy with it's overall day to day performance. But it feels like, every couple of days, it needs to cough up a hairball and be patted on the back, before everything is back to normal.
Now that this video is out, I really want to write a big fat review on the Fairphone forums, addressing what I do and don't disagree with from this review.
The TLDR, is that fairphone made me dislike stock android, and I gained an appreciation for all the MiUI and Samsung skins out there. How are so many options and features and fixes and quality of life things missing from stock android??? I'd genuinely love to see someone who has more time than me, slap lineage OS on the Fairphone, and daily it for a while, to see how much it is just android holding the FP5 back
As someone with a FP4, yea stock Android really isn't all that great. My biggest pet peeve is the notification vibration noise, it's so damn loud.
Edit: Custom ROMs are sadly no option, because my banking apps wouldn't work with that.
Hey, I have been holding out from buying this phone. I generally use phones for about 5 years and repair them quite often, so this seemed like a no brainer.
It is a real bummer there are no quality reviews of it else where. If you write yours, please give me a message, I would love to read it!
I haven't watched the review yet, but I assume things haven't gone too well which is a shame cuz FP could've used the popularity boost. 😩
Personally I'd love to hear someone compare Stock with /e/OS which is a de-Googled rom that I've been keeping my eye on as my first smartphone system. I think it's forked off of Lineage or another derivative of it if I remember correctly.
They can push some minor updates through the Play Store now, so you might have just missed it.
i found you in the comment section lmao
7:38 Isn't that just the vanilla android experience? My Pixel 7 does the same thing. To uninstall you need to drag it up, the uninstall option shows up then
These all things are standard on samsung. He used samsung for long time.
Indeed, that's why I use nova launcher
The same on my Pixel 8 there's no way to move Google search bar from the main screen or remove it 7:25
Yes! It's a really strange criticism from Linus to complain about standard Android behavior that one random manufacturer he likes decided to change and this one didn't change. All he complained, not moving the Google widget, not moving the button to the right is all Android standard.
@@PratameshMistry that is such a dumb way to review a phone.
"this isn't a samsung, I don't like it" what kind of professional phone reviewer talks like that...
I am a big fan of the Fairphone and I am a first week adopter. I not only switched to the FP5, but also switched from Apple to Android - mostly for sustainability and repairability reasons. They want 120€ for a new battery on an iPhone 12 Pro (lol).
Here are some discoveries I made during my time. I see that this phone is way slower than my iPhone. It is sometimes jittery while losing apps, takes a few seconds to switch from landscape to portrait when watching videos and such. That being said, I do not feel like it is a big letdown on day to day. I am not a power user, mostly watching RUclips, messaging and such. I do not feel like it is a big letdown.
Most critical, I had issues with the screen just flat out freezing once a week. Everything in the background still worked fine, but sleep and wake did not work. Had to power down the phone and restart to get it to work again. This problem has not appeared for weeks and I guess it was a silent fix in one of the latest updates.
Also the auto-dimming is pure dog shit, as Linus said. I turn it down most of the time. Had my screen flicker because of it and had to restart to make it disappear (restarts are a big thing with the FP5)
I do not feel the same way about the vibration and I never have my phone on loud. Never had the audio glitch happen to me either.
The SD-card is a big let down for me too, because I use the FP5 as a hi res player.
I actually love the big size as well as the bezels, since I accidentally pressed something on my iPhone constantly just by holding it and touching the sides of the display.
Quick charge is great, though I wished they would just release an external battery charger. This way I could own three batteries and just switching them out while on the go.
When taking pictures I was mostly happy with the results, though I rarely use the camera for more than a quick snapshot in Snapchat or WhatsApp. I have a dedicated mirrorless camera for anything serious.
The phone had a weird glitch where it takes like 10 seconds to hear someone on the other end of a WhatsApp call initially, though that could be on Metas side.
Overall, the FP5 has been getting better with every update and most of the glitches got better or disappeared completely. I expect the phone to become better with time. I really like it and I am looking forward to not paying bullshit prizes when something breaks.
10:31 sorry but that Note 5 battery change still looks like a royal pain in the behind for people not used to doing disassembly steps like this. I find that comment to be really misleading
To be fair Linus made himself unpopular way before this review
What happened?
@@SpaceXplorer13quality assurance on the videos released was subpar leading to active misinformation in them
i don’t know if they fixed the issue, it looks like it did
this is a few months old
Uhhhh I think all these comments are cope. He’s never had more support. They are RAKING it in, and I GUARANTEE you, if they ever started to struggle a little financially, the community would JUMP to their aid
all eyes on rafah
From the river to the sea Al Jazeera must speak free.
The long press not presenting an uninstall is a vanilla Android thing starting at 14 I think, same with the Google search bar being permanently locked there. If they are using stock Android, that would explain those two 'pain points' you experienced. For me, as a Pixel user, I have long since grown accustomed to such things.
These all things are standard on samsung. He used samsung for long time.
dont use stock android then.. it's too googled.
@@beardsntoolsAnd on fairphone you can always root and use a other rom, it is open and they even provide help doing it.
@@PratameshMistry He used a Note 9 before this, which is stuck on Android 10. So this issue doesn't exist.
Yeah, well, not everybody is willing to make that compromise, it sucks. It probably sucks less than having all those Samsung apps installed, but still.
Never understood the chase for ever-thinner phones. I am not advocating for Energizer Power Max thickness, but in general make phones thicker, if that means larger and/or replaceable batteries
it's a bajillion times easier to slot a thin phone into slim jeans.
you can have an 8 inch screen but if it's thin you can stick it anywhere
I like thicker phones.. it's easier to slide into your jeans? I never had a problem sliding a phone into jeans. And I don't think that should dictate thickness of the phone.. but I never had a battery fail. I think I have five old phones that still have batteries of work..
I used to put a Nokia 9210i communicator into my jean pockets. Look it up, it's not small.
@@raspas99i think they refer to super slim jeans where you can barely pry your finger in to fish up your wallet. I can see that being a problem if you're into that kind of clothing.
@@Lighthammer18 I guess so. I never had any of those clothes to be honest.
The absolute jumpscare I got from bearded Chad Linus to shaved chud Linus in the sponsor spot was WILD. I know he shaved but this one hit me like a brick wall
hi
Yeah that was rough. Scary thing is that he looks older shaved now, those few years have been a lot of work it seems.
@jurriaandejongh8677 Which is funny because the reason he shaved was to reduce the look of age.
@@Jimmy_Joneson wan show he said that he shaved because he and his wife got some fancy facial treatment and they told him they wouldn’t be able to do anything with beard over it but it would cost the same
I didn’t even notice. Y’all are weird.
I don't consider changing the battery on a sealed back phone that's glued to the chassis the same as being able to hot swap a battery in a few seconds. The value add there isn't that you can replace the battery when its end of life. Its that you can replace it with a hot spare on the go and never be left with a flat battery. I used to carry a spare battery handy when I had an S4. Swapping it on the go was awesome.
yes on my Note 4 I never charged it directly, I always just charged batteries and swapped them. Was great.
@@deadlykiller27 Right, changing a battery in a sealed/glued together phone is on a whole other level than just flipping off the back and replacing a battery. Linus is making a mistake when he thinks that is even remotely comparable. Which, ironically, is proven by the video, showing these specialised plastic pieces to lift up the back cover. That is not something, 90 percent of the regular people would have in their possession, let alone *knowing* what is needed to open the phone. Not even to mention the glue to put everything back together again...
uhh why not have a soft pack battery that would last longer there for no need to hot swap to begin with... thats just doing to much and we literally have battery packs for the same purpose.. the only benefit is not having to be plugged in
@stephanhuebner4931 no one said its the same? you're hot swaping batteries on the fp5 every other 4-5hrs mean while softpack battery will give you all day battery life and if you need more juice just use a battery pack...
Softpack batteries only need to be replaced every 4-5yrs and it is NOT hard to replace them EVEN on recent samsung flagships especially since they have pull tabs wich eliminates the need for alcohol..
@@stephanhuebner4931the difference being you're doing this every 4-5yrs compared to the fp5..
side power button finger print sensors are the biggest thing i miss in phones. even if face id or in screen fingerprint sensors are instantaneous, i can have a phone with a side (or back) button fingerprint sensor on before its even out of my pocket simply by locating the button by feel
never had issues with the on screen FP other than being hard to find and having to have on screen blueprint for it. But IMHO FP should be removed from phones anyway because you giving everyone your FP.
@@ChrisWijtmansthats not how it works lol
@OP, i miss having the FP sensor on the back of phones tbh. best position imo, even better than in the power switch.
Sony still stick with this standard just as an FYI.
Love the side button/FP sensor, my previous phone (One Plus 7t pro) had an in screen and even though it usually works fine, i don't find it that practical.
Used to have a Mate 9 with a rear FP sensor, great when you're holding the phone, not great when it's laying on a table.
I've got a Poco F5 now that has a side FP
I like the side ones too but I hate that cases got to have a cut out for it and not fully covered
I never got the whole thickness thing - like I’ve never bought a phone based on it being thinner then the rest
Right, but the fairphone is REALLY heavy and thick compared to anything else. Try one in real life and you'll see why it can be a legitimate issue.
It is really heavy. Thickness is similar to others with protection cases....
I absolutely loath thin phones, and cases do a bad job at thickening them in the right way.
I want more depth screen to back, but cases that add bulk seems to just make the phone wider.
@@rusinsr My last phone was an LG V20 with the 10,000mah battery extension, and seeing as I don't wear skinny jeans, I miss that near 1 inch thick brick of a phone.
@@rusinsr I own a Fairphone 4 and after some initial getting used to it, it doesn't even register to me anymore. I've held a Fairphone 5 and its even lighter and thinner, so in the real world its completely fine.
I would love to see a follow up in lets say a whole or half a year to see what kind of changes they did to the software and or hardware to address the mentioned issues.
Bro, in my point of view, the phone is bad for two reasons:
- You can support it for a long time but if the processor is slow by the time it has been 3/4 years old it will be unusable
- The price is too expensive, you could literally spend $300 every two years to get a second-hand mid-range from last year and you would have a better experience
The battery, bugs and everything else can be solved with software
@@segiraldoviSpeaking about it being expensive, and keeping aside the fact that it is made for a really long haul, and it is better for planet, and blah blah blah, I think the positive cost delta is also due to PCR plastics and Fair Trade Certified materials.
They're damn expensive man.
But you could at least be satisfied knowing a guy isn't getting screwed over in a dark mine somewhere, and even if he's getting screwed, then he is being compensated for it handsomely.
@@segiraldovithis is where I am torn. So the Pixel 8 and 8a now come with 7 years software. These run about $500. The battery will definitely need to be replaced at least once to get those years out of it. So let's say $100 to replace the battery. So now we are at $600 total for 7 years. Now let's use the Samsung A35 as an example. They can be purchased for about $300. They come with 5 yrs of updates. But for the money you saved, you could simply buy the A39 version in 4 years when the battery is toast, and for another $300, you get another 4 years of phone use. By then the processor will also be faster likely than the current Pixel 8 you will be stuck with for 7 years. It seems cheaper throw away phones will likely be the overall better deal.
Also, that active apps feature in the notification shade is just a new Android feature, not a Fairphone feature. My Pixel 4a running Android 13 has it.
It turns out if you sell a phone with stock Android your Phone comes with stock Android.
No uninstall button on long tap is also a stock android issue. No ability to swap back button position is also a stock android issue. Kinda disappointed Linus blamed this on Fairphone when they really just ship stock android
This video is full of wrong information
What the fuck.... How much update u got lol.... It's like 2018 phone
@@premprakash2297pixel 4a is a 2019 phone and yeah you get a lot of updates with newer pixels. Pixel 8:gets 7 years of updates
Shocking reality: Stock Android is actually horrendous. What ships with Pixel (and Pixel emulators) is far from stock.
Google removed most parts of AOSP to make things modular for everyone (including themselves), leaving AOSP extremely barebones. You would be surprised how many things you don't have in AOSP. They rarely update core apps (like Dialer) to barely make a call (if it even works). Moving the Back key to left requires a whole overlay for System UI.
So most people who think they like Stock Android, actually just like Pixel or what custom ROM developers cook. Actual stock Android is basically a flavourless cake (heh, dessert joke on Android).
which is why i hope fairphone is open to people unlocking the bootloader
That's because AOSP isn't actually an operating system. It's a kernel and set of basic tools. A bit like Linux in that regard. GNU/Linux is just a kernel with a bunch of basic tools and a shell it's not an operating system in itself. All Android operating systems are based on AOSP to some degree, it's just each "distro" brings it's own opinionated garbage to the table to complete their it's own feature set in a bid to be unique...hardly any of them contribute back upstream though, which is why Android has an awful hellscape of closed drivers and locked bootloaders that prevent you buying the hardware you want, but loading the software you like. There is absolutely no reason why most functions on a flagship phone can't work to some degree on any Android compatible phone other than vendor lock, closed drivers and locked bootloaders...all Android phones use what is essentially the same chipsets, the only major hardware differences are the screens, bodies and batteries and to a lesser extent camera sensors...if all of these things were modular, it would be possible to pick and choose the hardware components you want, but thanks to proprietary cable interfaces and once again, closed drivers, this is still a dream.
Right, I actually needed to learn that recently. After starting my smartphone use with a Windows Phone many years back, I realized Windows Phone is garbage and got a Galaxy Note 4 and later Note 8, which I still use as daily driver. I always thought, that is stock Android. Last year I got a replacement phone for the Note 8 from a small manufacturer, who uses stock Android. The Note 8 is still fine, I just wanted to have a replacement ready at the very moment the Note 8 might randomly die after many years of constant use. Which is why I customized that other phone - and boy was it not a great experience. It's certainly fine enough, but Samsung does a good job making the Android experience a lot better.
So I believe it's also Samsung's effort, that you can actually add folders from a memory card or something to the home screen and easily access those in a file browser. It turned me crazy, that such a simple thing is not possible on stock Android. And that you need to work yourself an annoying process and navigate to respective folders every time again you want to look at the content in a bare fashion, not through some app and it's own file browser.
So even though Samsung as a company is also rather questionable these days, following Apple on their quest against repair and stripping away features, I will consider another Samsung phone, if my experience with the replacement phone will continue to be bad after the Note 8 will not be usable anymore (it already got a replacement battery)
TBF, not using gestures over the buttons is criminal anyways imo
Google didn’t remove those things to “make it modular”. They replaced those parts with closed source alternatives that can collect data on you. ;) AOSP used to have a lot more in it until Google ransacked it.
Yes. I desperately wanted to support their mission and I have low requirements. I experience a few bugs and I am quite happy.
The display brightness is smooth usually, but I too found a consistently jump between the lowest and next setting. And flipping between them sure will be annoying, although I never experienced that.
I am happy and looking forward to years of upgrades.
"To be fair, they're the final prototypes" I don't know, I don't think we should excuse that as standard practice. Just like you talked about with Framework on WAN, they should really be sending out the same unit the customer gets.
The frame work was also a final production prototype no?
Than Fairphone should not send around unfinished devices. It is absolutely fine to use them for a review.
@@fjjwfp7819 Correct, that's why I said it.
It definitely seems disingenuous to send reviewers products you know you aren't going to ship to consumers, as it just ends up ruining both your own reputation and the reputation of the reviewers when they leave a bad review of a "final prototype" of a product.
@@fjjwfp7819 yes, that's what OP means, Framework just did this and just got pretty criticized for it.
Most issues were software and this phone had the lastest updates.
The difference in thickness can likely be attributed to the screen technology (OLED vs LCD) and the fact that the battery is a "hard-pack" battery. The Samsung has a "soft-pack" battery, which means it is not designed to be easily removed and kept elsewhere. Soft packs are easily damaged and are not designed to be removed and re-inserted. Phones only started to get slim when these types of batteries started to get used widely. All phones with removable batteries are thick. It's an unavoidable compromise.
On another note - I've worked for Android phone manufacturers before. A lot of the random software buginess will be down to their ODM and the fact that it's using stock Android, which almost no phone uses. We also used to have issues with minimum volume and dodgy screen brightness etc, but with enough effort these can be easily resolved in software. It's either not been tested properly, or they've prioritised fixing other larger bugs. The issue is they're likely paying someone else to do the software for them, and that gets expensive. They could fix it in a software update though. What they can't fix is the Google widget. This again comes back to the stock Android piece. Google mandates the placement and you can't change it.
A disagree with some of the other points. For example - Who cares if you have to turn the phone off to insert an SD card? How often are you going to removing and re-inserting one? Also, do you really care about bezels that much?
I think it's more about the fact that you pay a lot for a big, slow, ancient looking buggy af phone.
The fault being on Google or on the state of hard pack batteries etc is irrelevant. He has to decide whether it's a good choice for users and he suspects it'll be better to spend less to buy a faster, older phone that will perform and look and handle better.
Can't say I disagree. This thing has great intentions behind it but what does it actually do better than anything else? It looks like shit tbh lol
the thick ass bezels just reminds me of how mid of a phone this is for the price... like are you serious? I can pick up an s21+ or s22+ that will do WAY better for like 300$ in excellent condition😭.. it seems stupid to buy FP5 when its so lacking for the price JUST FOR its REPAIRABILITY. so what if its easily repairable. That isn't gonna stop me from not having a good software experience, especially when you can do such much more to save the earth by buying it used.
and for the comment below me:
Why would you make such a trade off when you can do the EXACT SAME THING BY BUYING AN OLD FLASHSHIP PHONE FOR HALF THE PRICE😭
@@Quan5021"just for repairability" = just for mother earth.
just for ethically sourced materials = just for the wellbeing of your fellow human.
The lg V20 is quite thin in direct comparison and it has a hard pack swappable battery
@@zeroa69 I've got one of those but I can feel it getting old..
"Unless your needs are basic and you like spending more money"
What, like replacing your flagship every 2 years?
You don't have to do that ._.
I know many people who have had their phones for over 5 years, flagship or not, updates or not.
Yeah, which will actually give you a flagship experience, not a "budget xiaomi" feel for the price of a good phone
A flagship is not meant for basic needs(you pay more, but you also get better experience) and a budget phone that is for basic needs is cheap. Nice try, but you really need to get a fairphone, if your needs are basic and you like spending more money xD
I'm still not happy that they removed the headphond jack.
But it could break, thats why they removed it. How would you repair that in a phone, that is designed to be repairable?
Lets make sure the next version removes more parts that "can break". I would suggest starting with the battery and screen.
I didn't expect something like that frmo them lol.
@@higihups you're being sarcastic right? The whole point of this is to be able to remove breaking parts, so why would they care if it "breaks?"
@@donkey7921 The first part no, the second part maybe.
I sincerely invite you to use a search engine of your choice and query it for "fairphone 4 headphone jack removal".
See, if you find the original statements from them, about why they removed it. The reasons were water ingress and durability of the jack. I think they removed a lot from their pages, but there is still enough discussions about that out there.
Also the Fairphone 5 support page mentions the lack in the new model and why they decided against bringing it back (oUr PhOne WoUlD bEcOmE ToO tHiCk).
@@donkey7921 It seems RUclips has blocked my previous answer, so I will try again (without link and explanation):
No, I was not sarcastic (at least in the first part).
1:45 True. My dad just bought Samsung A25 and I noticed he has fingerprint sensor in the power button. He used to be against using fingerprint for unlocking phone since `quote` "My fingers/hands get hurt all the time, and it won't work most of the time" but then I told him "yeah don't worry, if it won't work it doesn't change anything and you'll just use your pin like always, but if it works then you unlocked your phone immediately... and you touch the power button with that finger anyway so what's the difference" and since then I always see him not even pressing the button but just `delicately` scanning his fingerprint 😂
Once you go power button fingerprint scanner, you can never return. It's just so convenient. On my Redmi Note 12, the included case has a small curve that allows you to just slide your finger right onto the scanner, and BAM, sub 1 second unlock.
@@doggo_woohonestly, with a GOOD under display sensor, it's better. I daily drive the s series, and having the fingerprint scanner where my finger usually hovers above the screen anyway makes it more comfortable to unlock since I don't have to switch my grip (I'm a leftie). Also, the ultrasonic sensor on the s series (s24U currently) is wicked fast. It's definetly sub milisecond, and i could honestly say it's right around 0.2-0.3 seconds. It takes a real effort to touch it so fast it doesn't work. I'd still choose a power button sensor over an optical under display one tough. Those are terrible to use when you're already in bed, and some light shines around your fingerprint and blinds you.
@@vargabazsaa
99% of in-display sensors are placed way too low to naturally rest any finger on that spot in a one handed grip. Unlike with a side or rear mounted one you basically HAVE to use two hands.
@@vargabazsaaHuawei p9 has had my favourite fingerprint scanner, inset in the back right where my index finger goes when I pull it out my pocket. Would be open before I even saw the screen everytime.
Only pain is if the phone was already face up on the table or smt.
My old S10e had a side fingerprint sensor and it was amazingly fast, especially compared to the under screen fingerprint sensors of its day. My S23 Ultra's under screen sensor does come pretty close to matching it though.
Bro gets a pre-release device > Has a couple of issues > Gives it negative ratings all across the board...
Yeah nah sorry Linus but that was nothing...
The fact that bearded linus is still in the main videos really shows how long they take to make
no XD ur so off
On the wind show after the tech shop video was uploaded, Linus said that the videos can take multiple weeks to get through the editing queue if they're just put in to the normal Q and not rushed for whatever reason because say it's an embargoed product and the embargo gets lifted a week after they finished filming so the video just jumps the line
The first one will probably be the Apple Vidion Pro because they are rushing the pipeline. We may get no beard, and then the beard returns.
It's not so much that they take a long time. They have many videos in the queue. A video could be done for over a week before getting published.
The beard was more of a well-kept stylish one, not like he hadn't trimmed it for all this time. Probably less than a month to get it back to normal again. 🧔
I kinda don't like that the product isn't named in the title or clearly readable in the thumbnail
If you know the phone you can see it in the thumbnail, and I think they do update the titles later so it's easier to see what the topic is
For an audience that mainly comes from North America and cannot buy the phone at all, it is mainly entertainment. In Europe, the Fairphone has been available for almost half a year and there are already many comprehensive reviews
Yea, they drop the videos with a more clickable title for the initial majority of the views the video will get, then not long after change the title to be more descriptive and searchable. Most of the money comes from the first couple of days or weeks as youtube recommends the video. But then it makes more sense for people to find the video themselves after that's over.
They do that for the first week (maybe more or less, I can't remember if they've mentioned an exact timing) of the video for clicks, then adjust the title later for better records. They've been pretty transparent about this practice and it's something they do to appease the algorithm.
@@krustykrabbulus5210 But also for an entertainment perspective. We open on Linus saying "Before you grab your pitchforks...." and the title itself should instill immediate rage I guess? I don't know what I'm supposed to be mad about yet! So I am mad about the title! Arrrghh!!
How is it that a leading tech review platform doesn't mention some glaring features , such as native support for alternative Operating Systems ( e/OS/)
I bought the Fairphone 4 mere weeks before the 5 was announced, so I won't be getting it, but I can vouch for the Fairphone 4. I put CalyxOS on it because I'm very privacy-centric, and I've been daily driving that for months now. And as a casual phone user (no gaming on my phone), I love it. It works almost perfectly, with some annoyances which are on CalyxOS rather than the Fairphone itself, and that I'm more than willing to work around for the privacy I get back. Apart from that, it's worked perfectly for me. I love the thought that if something does eventually break I can repair it easily, and while I realise that not everyone is in a financial situation where they can do this, as someone who is, I do not mind paying a little extra for a device from a smaller company that's climate-conscious and open in their design. I truly hope people will keep supporting Fairphone. They are doing important work and they deserve it.
I've had the 4 since it came out. "if something does eventually break I can repair it easily" this is exactly it! But it does mean I'll be using it for a long while or it can become my backup phone that I know can still be relied on. I had cheaper phones too and they become expensive to life when they break on you suddenly so it's not really paying extra either. Overall also I trust the company won't ever actively decide to do anything nasty and that's more reliable to be a customer of for an important device.
I have also been using FP 4 with /e/OS for over a year, and the only issues I had was the GPS being very slow (I sent it to be serviced and got fixed), the drop-down menu was glitching often for a few weeks between OS updates, and one of my banking apps didn't work at all between 2 other OS updates.
Other than that, it is perfect. I never game on my phone, I have a laptop for that, so I don't need 16 Gb of RAM or whatever modern phones have. I mostly use it for internet, mail, calls, navigation and reading books. And the thickness is just right for my hand and for my finger to fit on the fingerprint sensor; why would it need to be any thinner ?
This is really strange to me. If privacy is that much of a concern to you, why not just get an iphone and just forget all about it?
Oooh scary big corporation knowing your data as if they don't already know everything about you and you're intentionally handicapping yourself
@@ivanpopov4872 proprietary software written by trillion dollar corporations is inherently not private
The extra keystrokes when entering the pin is an Android thing. Samsung changed that but the pixel still has that feature and so does my AOSP rom.
no? my Pixel 6 doesn't have it (everything is stock)
Do you know why the s22 Ultra no longer has it? Edit: Turns out if you add 2 extra digits to the pin, you can can select the skip pressing ok button and then before confirming delete the 2 added ones and then it works.
Agreed, my pixel 7 requires this extra key press too, it also has the unmoveable google bar and doesn't give an uninstall option when I long press on an app. I feel like this video really wasn't very fair and someone at LTT should have clocked that a lot of these shortcomings were from Android. That said, fairphone is known to has a non-existant software department and oursources most of it which seems unwise as a phone manufacturer
Neither Xiaomi nor real me has this drawback. Hell I didn't even know about the extra button press. Talk about a time machine
@@dominicburns9989 nah bruv, not an android thing, a certain skins thing, maybe. Realme here and i dont have them, nor my old honor 9 had them
The minimum ringtone volume seems like the easiest problem to fix with a software update. It astonishes me to learn that the Fairphone 4 supposedly had the same issue.
It does. I have recently picked up a FP4 and quickly ended up trying to lower the ringtone volume. It's not set to minimum, but it's very loud, still.
I'm surprised you compare and completely dismiss removing the back of the Note 5 as a simple hassle.... YOU NEED A FLIPPIN HEAT GUN!!!! on top of the Isopropyl alcohol and the adhesive to put it back together.
I'd argue you are skimming over the Fairphone's main selling point. No normal user is going to have a heat gun or change the Note 5 battery on their own. To change the battery on the Fairphone you need a battery... and a fingernail...
Thank you - finally someone said it.
The Uninstall and At-A-Glance Widget issues are due to the Stock launcher. Uninstall can for examplr be performed by dragging the icon to the top.
A lot of the complaints are actually due to stock Android. It's the same for the back button and the extra button press on the PIN.
@@loicvanderwielenat least on Pixel Launcher, there exists the Option to disable this extra button press tho 🤷♂️
@@heinrich27 That's weird. It would mean that Google implemented the required added press for Android and then implemented the option to disable it for Pixel.
We may be starting to see the start of the conflict between making Android overall better and making their own Pixel version better
Oh, is it the same as I remember? Where you hold, drag and then hold at the top until Remove turns to Uninstall? I found that infinitely more obvious than holding the icon for a sub-menu. I really got used to the option of tapping to add it to home screens then moving it around afterwards too. I forgot how much other launchers mess with things. Time to see how ADW launcher is now!
@@heinrich27 on pixel phones you need to have a pin with atleast 6 digits in order for it to auto unlock tho
6:30 I like people being very serious about minimum ringer volume
Yes. The FF4 had the same problem and we fixed it by setting a ringtone that was less loud. You will lose some top volume with that way, but that has so far not even come to my mind as a problem.
10:08 Pretty sure that's an Android 14 feature, looks exactly the same on my Nothing Phone (2)
Same on my pixel 7 pro, quite a few of the pros and cons seem to be decisions Google made with Android than with the skin fair phone is using.
Android 14 isn't out yet for the fairphone
I have it on Android 13 ColorOS
My stock Android 13 Lava Blaze has it.
@@washuaibut it doesn't matter whose fault it is.
The only thing that matters is how it is on the phone that he is reviewing.
For the battery, this was more important when phone batteries were worse, but an easy replaceable one means you can have a hot spare. For vacations, having a tiny battery which immediately gives 100% with no cables is an amazing feeling. Instead of a big power bank I just slide it into my backpack (cover up the electrical pads)
I have an old dell latitude laptop and the power to simply swap batteries in the middle of a lecture with no power sockets is amazing. The fact that this is not a standard capability in devices now is such a downgrade. I honestly could not give less of a shit about my gadget being a couple mm thicker and couple grams heavier if it means i can swap out the battery.
Field replacing batteries is a great way to break the clips that hold the back on. It also forces a reboot which takes a minute or so and evicts all your apps and browser tabs from memory.
@@Vegemeister1 sure, but would you prefer to clear your chrome tabs or have a dead phone?
@@callum177 The broken clip problem is real, and I Do Not Want to deal with it again. I would put my phone away before dead phone became a realistic possibility, which would be several hours longer than a phone with a field-replaceable battery, due to the 3 extra layers of casing (internal back, compartment, battery side 1, side 2) that can be eliminated from a phone designed for bench replacement only.
And FWIW, it'll be a cold day in hell before I use Chrome.
Not that it matters but just FYI this would be a cold spare not hot.
Hot would mean it's in the device and can be switched to in software.
While it's "hot" in the sense of being charged. It's cold in the sense of being stored outside of the device.
I would like to point out that getting a second-hand phone probably even better than getting a Fairphone from an eco-perspective, but you will not get updates for that phone! Also: It is not only the battery, also, for example, the fragile screen that can be easily exchanged on a fairphone. I am pretty sure that that is a different story for a 5-year old samsung device as well. The value proposition is very very different for Fairphones. I am using a Fairphone 3 for years already and I only switched from my fairphone 2 when I could not watch youtube videos on it anymore in ~2020 because of software issues that required a factory reset - at which point it was 5 years old and I treated myself to a new phone. 600 bucks / 5 years is typically better ratio than 600 bucks / 2 years - however, I realize that the big manufacturers also offer longer warranties etc nowadays!
If you can get an unlocked phone, you can always just flash LineageOS onto it for security enhancements and a new user experience.
@@michaelchristianrusso I am gonna blow your mind right now..... Fairphones are especially capable of running alternative OS, and are very easy to switch around. None of the issues mentioned in the video exists anymore, and even though I use a 4 as my work phone, my company is giving out the 5 as work phone now.... and it is AWESOME. it is reliable, never has any app crashes (kinda big deal when you have to depend on it for a lot of our crucial work apps, especially when we are offsite or on the move) and lasts ages with heavy usage. I manage to charge mine maybe once every 3-4 days at worst.
@@AnujeetRoy09 I mean, I know all that, but you can't buy one used for 100 USD.
@@michaelchristianrusso if you knew all that, then you could also just use that knowledge to deduce that because they have been out for so less time and aren't going around in great volumes... you won't get them for $100 used. Instead, you should buy one and keep reusing it till it goes out of promised updates and then repurpose it. Most people/businesses are still using their 3's and 4's, let alone the 5's.
You pretty much commented that you can't find a used S21 for $100.... well, yeah, that's the thing with more modern, longer running products. They hold their value.
You might, however, want to buy a Pixel 3 or 4 for that kinda price at amazon retourenkauf.
@@AnujeetRoy09 I have always used my cell phones for about 5 years before I gave them up. And my current one has cost me sub 100 EUR (which is about 110 USD). Then again, there are days where I hardly use it at all, since I am not doing unnecessary browsing or even gaming and I am doing most of my stuff on the PC anyway. May be that is why they endure for so long. Which is also why I will just go for a cheap one again I guess...
With this review I honestly think that linus should try a stock android phone like a pixel at some point to actually notice how many of his pros and cons are just an android thing and not a phone specific thing
Exactly my thoughts when Linus started talking about that he does not like how "they" solve specific things within "their" Android. That is just stock Android being stock Android as far as I can see.
Even if it's just stock android it's still a valid criticism. Any rom maker or manufacturer has the ability to modify aosp in anyway they want. So its on the manufactures if there are missing features or bugs.
@@richie_k no such thing as stock android
He also said that he is comparing against the samsung interface because his last phones were samsung, and he is replacing a samsung phone
@@RAH012it's valid in a vacuum but not fair in comparison to other phones, even the latest Pixel 8 that he used as a competitor, has the exact same software "issues", he should have just mentioned that.
people finding out that a push towards a clean and ethical future is in fact expensive if you want to maintain your current consumption is very funny
No ? That's completely irrelevant to most of the video, a majority of the issues can be fixed just by making a better phone
@@Adem92Foster Except for the fact that the Fairphone was much worse than a Pixel 8 and more expensive, to make it as good as a Pixel 8, it will be much more expensive than a Pixel 8, which makes getting it stupid, unless you like spending money.
@@Ghettofinger Ok thank you for agreeing with me ? The fact is the phone being much worse than the Pixel 8 has absolutely nothing to do with the phone being more ethical and repair friendly. If Google with its ressources wanted to make the Pixel 8 like the fairphone at the same price point, they easily could.
@@Adem92Foster That's the problem, Google has the resources to make a more polished phone and sell a lot to reduce the costs of development, Fairphone has not.
@@bastienx8 Ok but that's still far from the original point being that the phones issue are all based on it being a repairable and ethical phone.....
You measure the wrong things. Break the screen of all your test phones, and measure the time to repair each. I replaced my screen in 5 minutes with ease. Doing it on most other phones takes much longer and harder to do
@@muizzyit's not. The fairphone also isn't just about daily use. It's about keeping the same device for years and producing as little e-waste as possible. If you're not the type of person to care about producing landfill changing your phone every year or two years then you're not the type of person to understand the appeal of this. Sorry to replay to a 2 month old comment lol
It also have great battery life since you can have multiple batteries with ease and swap between them in 10 seconds. You can also always have a fresh battery even after 5 years since it cost 30$ to switch to a new fresh one if your old battery would age
/Written on my 5 year old Fairphone3 which has had screen replaced and battery replaced so it lasts a full day and still works like a new phone after 5 years
@@PhillipLoughney If we're looking at it from the perspective of e-waste, isn't buying used a way better approach?
@@kelper205at this point I'd rather have 2x 200$ phones (switch to the second after 2 years) than buy the replacement parts and I would still get better overall experience.
as an FP4 owner, I think it gets VERY obvious how tiny this company is. Most bugs I experienced got fixed with software updates, but some were still present 2 years after launch. So, they'll eventually come around to fix software problems, but it can take until the next iteration with new problems releases :/
I think it's completely fine for most users, especially older or younger folks who don't really care about top notch performance, but it is a far cry away from being usable for enthusiasts or professional users. The thing I probably hate most about it is the camera. The sensor is actually pretty good (as far as I can tell) but the software is actually utter garbage compared to the competition from years ago.
The price is also too high but I for my part am supporting the idea with at least 40% of the price (which would still make it more expensive than most comparable phones nowadays, btw)
Completely fine isn’t something I would say. Most users HATE bugs.
The under the battery sim slot and microsd slot is one thing from that era of smartphones I DON'T want back.
Even with removable battery I would still rather a pin design, as it is well thought enough.
How often are you changing your SIM card?
Why? How often do people switch sd-cards in their phones?
why?
@@ajbp95 my thought is probably not that often, curious why it's a point of contention to have it in this location.
Complaining about having to remove the easily removed battery to replace a SD/SIM card feels... odd. It's so easy.
To be fair, the latest update has _definitely_ ironed out some bugs. I was experiencing lockups ehich were often needing a hard power cycle to clear about once a week but haven't had any since the February update. I absolutely take your point that it's tough to recommend though. I don't need much out of my phone as I usually have a laptop or PC close by, so I took the plunge. Might have been nice to mention some of those "mission statement" aspects - ie: finding conflict-free suppliers for almost all the controversial materials found in modern phones.
Agreed the ambient light sensor is whacko though!
I wonder why some users experienced lockups and others don't? I got my FP5 at launch and haven't had a single one. Silicon lottery maybe?
@@me2olive I think mine was triggered by always on lock screen and device rotation occasionally trying to update simultaneously. I'd get stuck with a slightly broken looking lock screen that wouldn't update. I could hear the unlock sound but invariably I had to hold down power and vol+ to reset
i think this conflict free materials is mostly bogus anyway. A very very small amount of it is unethically sourced in the first place and most of the time its blocked from ending up in the pile anyway. now there is something to be said about chinese cheap labour but as you saw in the video the hardware is from samsung or some other company anyway so there is very little difference to warrant a buggy phone that ends up being shite anyway because they remove the jack anyway and introduced bluetooth earbuds that have no replacable battery, going gainst their own mission.
@@ChrisWijtmans The earbuds do have replaceable batteries. Both the earbuds and the case.
Many of the skin/software issues are also present on the Pixel 8 (no uninstall, no sound on youtube video, confirm button in SIM and device PIN entry). So I think it's actually android
Yeh it's a skin thing but it's also a valid criticism some skins may have it others may not.
Yeah, it's with stock android. My Sony xperia 1 v has some of the same issues.
It's not a skin thing. It's the lack of the phone using the UI Linus is used to. This is just stock android lightly tweaked, and everything he mentioned is simply part of stock android. You'll have similar issues on Motorola, Sony, Pixel, even some stock based ROMS don't bother changing those features.
Custom ROMS and OEM ROMS like OneUI have more features than AOSP,
@@rulercostax Yeah and what's your point? We all know that. Some people prefer clean and stock Android ROMS, some people prefer the Samsung approach with TouchWiz and One UI. Linus really should know the difference considering how much of the latest tech he has access to.
He also doesn't get that using an old supported phone is defeating the point. Fairphone 5 stands for long term DIY repair, hardware AND software support. No other supplier does this.
Anybody truly putting their money where their mouth is, and *REALLY* is serious about ecology and and the environmnet, should look into old used phones. No exceptions.
Custom ROMS = privacy and control + latest features and security updates.
There's just no excuse. Fairphone should become a phone refurbishing company.
Fairphone is atleast doing what others aren't. Kudos guys
@@卛 Yea there are kind of a few excuses, I tried using my old oneplus for as long as possible but at some point my banking apps were just not cool with it anymore, even custom roms failed me and I don't have most of the day to tinker around and re-setup everything. I think buying a phone that will be officially supported for the time I'll reasonably own it is a compromise.
FairPhone is the only few phone manufacturers who makes is easy to install Alternative Android OS (like eOS, Leanage OS), I think. That's a plus.
Have you taken Oneplus into consideration? They don't even invalidate your warranty for chaning and Rooting your phone, which many other Companies do.
That's very cool, but kind of a niche feature. Most people wouldn't be doing that. And maybe most of the ones who would, have no problems prying off the back of the phone and using alcohol to remove the battery. I feel like these people are not the target audience of this phone.
@@leifrie8877But they don't allow custom avb keys and relocking with a custom ROM anymore. Also this might all change since China is cracking down on bootloader unlocking.
@@crashnielswhy would that affect the rest of the world?
For example, US-samsung devices have a locked bootloader, while european and most asian devices have unlockable bootloaders.
Region locks are already a thing here.
@@AbRaSkZo Asus for example has removed their bootloader unlock claiming "technical reasons" and "they are working on it". They said that a year ago. Newer Xiaomi and other Chinese brands have had problems with their bootloader unlocking since around the same time.
critisizm is valid but a lot of this video is complaining about stock android expirience, for example pixels cant move that dumbass google widget too
I really wish that reviewers would stop going on about how thinner is better. This stupid "requirement" means that we now don't have removeable batteries and batteries that can't last more than a working day away from the wall. Bezels are good as well, as they allow you to hold the phone securely without having to risk touching the screen or creating that stupid fad of those holders that people used to stick on the back of their phones, just to be able to hold the phone without risk of dropping it.
Ok so, I was still kinda on board until it didn't have a headphone jack ngl. Only real issue that might impact me significantly before that was responsiveness, but honestly that probably wouldn't be a deal breaker. May keep an eye out for older models I guess.
What was always a deal-breaker for me since the Fairphone 2 was the fact you cannot buy a new motherboard for those phones. The moment this one breaks you basically have a expensive paperweight. I seen posts where they replaced the motherboard under warranty and posts where they did not replace them, which turned the phone into the mentioned paperweight. Idk how much it changed nowadays, but even current posts suggest ongoing issues, like charging port and charging issues seem to be quite frequent across all models.
While I love the concept (I also have a framework and did not regret it), I just do not feel like its worth paying the price for it.
Honestly, if they made the individual components into modules like a PC, I would be super excited. That's something we need.
No we dont
@@naturalcauses1695 Okay, fair. But I sure as hell want it. Call it an emotional need.
Should have compared to the Galaxy XCover 6 Pro, both have user replaceable batteries, SD card & SIM slots, side mounted dedicated fingerprint readers & are comparably priced. The XCover does retain it's water resistance and headphone jack though.
6:31 - can we have future dB graphs be logarithmic since dB is a logarithmic scale? Showing it as a linear scal is unfair to reality.
If you do that, you'll either end up with double log scale or stretch them out to be linear again. Since the ear is perceiving loudness logarithmically too, using dB as is being used here creates a much more accurate impression of perception. Also, if you look at pretty much any graph that uses dB for an axis, you'll find that axis to be "linear" too. We use dB precicely because it allows us to not having to squash our graphs more than necessary (and makes some calculations easier).
The hold app and not have uninstall option right there is a stock android thing (I currently have a pixel 8 pro). Have to click app info first.
Having to press OK after inputting your pin is fairly common still... my S23 makes me do it. Some of these tests seem unfair.
My A04s as well.
Are u sure? My note20u and s24u have the option to not press the OK button.
My A12 let me to change that in settings, you must check
I'm on an S23 and and I don't have to do that. Is this like a localization thing where they "have" to have it like that to pass certain privacy and security laws or something?
since you compare it to the very old note 5, maybe a comparison to the previous Fairphone 4 would also be great
The ringtone that the fairphone makes at 6:34 is the same sound the sainsbury's smartshop scanners make when you scan your nectar card
The SD card is positioned like that on purpose. Unfortunately, the average phone user might rip out the SD card without ejecting it causing potential data integrity issues. It's annoying but there is a reason.
I miss plastic backed phones so much. The Nexus 6 is possibly the most comfortable and enjoyable phone I've ever used. And, honestly, I miss thicc phones too.
And, to be honest, it seems the leading problem with this phone isn't the phone itself, or even FairPhone's design ideas. It's squarely on Qualcomm refusing to support a phone CPU more than 3 years.
Samsung are supporting Snapdragon phones for more than 3 years.
My Realme 11 pro back is plastic
I've never understood the rational for making glass backs - What's the best way to make the phone lighter and better at dissipating heat, I know a useless piece of heavy glass that's really good at trapping heat in.
@@lefear2 Glass will generally wear better, look better over time, and all glass will increase the general efficiency and antenna performance a little (including better wireless charging, that is already subject to insane efficiency loss just as a part of the technology itself).
Of course it does come at the increased risk of major damage, so you have to be more careful.
that last point is a really fair point. buying a older or used phone would have the same, if not better enviomental impact that buying a new fairphone, and you don't even meed to go as far back to a note 5, you could just buy more recent phone with even better performance. having said that, how many people are willing to buy an used phone?
Maybe that could be a new video, "Is buying used really that worse than buying new?". He's done similar videos before with stuff like GPUs so it's not completely out of left field.
I buy used phones. Just make sure you can return it if there are any issues. If it's been used with a protector and cover, it's been hermetically sealed its whole life, so it'll be like new underneath. Anything newer than about 6 years isn't realistically going to have performance issues that most people would care about. I'm not Marques Brownlee, I don't care if the swipe speed is 6ms quicker on this year's model, or if it's a hair's breadth thinner. Battery life can be a concern, which is why it was nice when they were swappable, but 'new enough' batteries these days are pretty good anyway.
Me if i would know for sure that the battery is new...i would buy even a old phome
What I found out from this video, that Linus just doesn't like stock Android, because most of the software features that he pointed out are stock Android "things" .
He should really complain to Google about it. He might be the only one Google might actually listen to.
For me the main reason to get the FP5 honestly was the long term support an 5 years warranty. My past 3 Phones that I used (S4 Mini, Xperia Compact, A30s) I intended to use as long as possible and they all randomly died after 2 to 3 years without obvious damage (S4 was just crashing randomly, Xperia the antenna for cell service died, A30s: random as crashes sometimes the whole day without proper booting up). So I now hope all the downpointa the FP5 has in software will get fixed eventually and it serves me as long as possible. Regarding the switchable site for the back button: Missed it a lot, now my habits changed and switching back to the other way around would be as annoying as when I switched to the FP5.
@@joeykeilholz925 The phone gets regular fixes and updates, more than my last Samsung did in fact.
@@joeykeilholz925You've said this a lot, i think you never actually used a budget Samsung in your life. I have set up multiple Galaxy A series phones for my family and they are SLOW af Out of the box with so. Much. Bloat! 360 cleaner baked in to settings, 300 apps pre installed, 2 app stores. The A23 of my grandpa couldn't even scroll smoothly in a web browser after installing all his socials. The screen looks like TN LCD junk. Only redeeming quality is the excellent battery life, ill give it that.
@@me2oliveSamsung and Google now offer almost the same duration of software support but for phones that aren't big blocky slow and this buggy.
Oh, and cheaper
I think 5 is smaller than 10... And the other companys still have to deliver on that promise (especially Google) while the FP-Company already over-delivered for 2 of their devices. @@HotdogSosage
@@joeykeilholz925 I've got a mid-range samsung, 3 years in and the vibration doesn't work, headphone jack is worn out to the point it can't actually keep a connection to half my plugs and the battery is half the life it started with
I've had the Fairphone 4 for 2 or 3 years now. I've broken and replaced the screen (extremely easy, and comparatively cheap, to do). I am using it with no noticeable issues for standard phone stuff + watching movies on an external screen + a whole bunch of smart device control. I have taken maybe 10 photos with it, which I've looked at twice. I have had minimal issues with the software.
The truth is that unless you game, shoot photo/video professionally or have some other niche and demanding use for it, a Fairphone or a similar device is likely more than enough for you.
To me, the choice when buying remains between:
1. Giving way too much money to a trashy company like Apple, who will pressure you with FOMO each year by introducing marginal improvements, and gatekeeping;
2. Giving extra (but still less than 1.) money to a small company that advocates for repairability, sustainability and privacy. The Fairphone is not perfect in any of these parameters, by their own admission, but the point is more to signal to the industry what their priorities should be, rather than being a Fairphone (or any other brand) fanboy.
to be honest, i can run minecraft, star rail and genshin impact just fine on my FP4. it has just enough power for my use case.
but the battery life is a bummer if you don't carry around a power bank or have a second battery which you can somehow charge externally.
i've built my own charger for that, and it's available on thangs (shameless self-plug)
The review is actually fair.
I've been daily driving an FP5 since its release day now.
It's a high-price middle-tier phone, it's a statement on its own.
But yeah, it's not a great phone, thats for sure.
I haven't experience the audio issues on my release model, aside from the low-end level.
As a Fairphone 4 user on 2+ years of use, I can only say, being able to order a new screen for €80, receive it within a week, and change it out with a screwdriver and a guide for reference, in less than 10 minutes, has been a game-changer. The "extra mile" was worth it IMO. The thickness and build quality gives a phone that is rock solid. I have not used a case on mine at all, and all is well. The screen shattered, yes, but that would have happened with a case as well in that situation..
I think the main point of getting a phone like this is more for people that want to have a phone that does what a phone should do, be stable, rugged and dependable for a LONG time. I intend to have my phone for at least 5 years, more if possible. And being able to buy parts, change what is broken this easily only serves to lower the barrier to entry for repairs. You can repair anything without having to buy other than the part itself and having a right size screwdriver (All screws are the same size phillips, except on the core which uses torque heads).. With other phones you need new glue strips and one has to have the know-how to actually work on it without damaging fragile parts, even if it is relatively easy.
Fairphone sidesteps all those requirements for a no-nonsense and straight forward approach.
I dislike Linus not mentioning the option to swap batteries on the fly. Battery life is not good, and is definitely one of the weaker points of the phone, however, I can buy a spare and have it with me if i need it (I do not), and just swap over. Or if I buy a new battery to replace a tired one, I just keep the old for emergency power..
The critiques the I do agree with is some of the choices with the skin... It is kinda annoying, but it is really minor stuff on the whole.
Software updates have been amazing too. Mostly focused on stability and functionality improvements, not so much features.
This review feels, at least in my view, a little disconnected with what people actually want a phone to do. Most people do not need a super performant and fancy phone with a bazillion features you almost never use anyway. I'm not saying those fancy features and nice to haves aren't useful for someone, they surely are, but most people I know just wan a decent phone that lasts a long time. And Fairphone delivers perfectly on that.
I think the price is the problem, and because you are paying an e-premium, although a replacement display seems cheap, you have already paid for the excess it would cost on, say, a Samsung because of the ludicrous pricing. This is a £300 phone; if Apple tried to charge £700 for this, they would get smacked!
I have to disagree. I have worked in mobile retail for the last 10+ years, and people started to actually use their smartphones to ther potential. As everyrhing nowdays works online, and needs an app (loyalty programs, school grades, e-meetings, group chat for every imaginable social circle you have) people with low-end hardware tend to struggle. I use a samsung but for elderly people starting out, i always recommended apple products, since they're more straightfoward, and if they mess something up, they know it was them, and not the phone.
When you're learning to use devices, it shortens the learning curve when something is repeatable. If they press something and the same thing happens over and over again. On lower end androids, apps can crasg for no reason, making them feel insecure about doing things.
Fairphone is a good alternative for someone who knows what they're doing and who can trade a few quirks for repairability. But for uncle joe, who goes to a repair center for a battery swap, it doesn't matter if they got the fairphone from the family for christmas, or and iphone or a samsung. The service center will still bill them 10 bucks for the swap, it doesn't matter if they need to remove an adhesive and a ribbon cable or not. Apple has 5 years of support, and samsung now has 7 (starting with the s24 series), and phones tend to die by then because the hardware gets so outdated anyway. An iot chip will still struggle with the demand of the newly made apps, it won't matter how good it temperature management is.
As louis rossman put it "right to repair doesn't mean you have to repair it yourself. It means that people can do it for you without getting sued" or something along these lines. Not having to get proprietary first party charging cables, or oem screens, means you can keep your device alive longer. And fairphone is doing just that which is great. But having the illusion that you *should* do everything by yourself is stupid. People will still break their devices because someone in an ad said that they can do it. It's stupid.
@@andyH_England Agreed. the FP5 is too expensive. But it will drop in price to a more reasonable level. The price is also due to the longevity of the device. My FP4 was €450, and to me, that seems a good deal for a phone I am far more sure will last till the SoC is incapable of what it needs to do. Since I do not game, that could be a long time.
@@andyH_England To play devil's advocate, the easiest way to justify the price would be to work out what it would be per year, over the expected lifetime of the phone. I bought a Framework laptop when they released the Gen12 intel mainboards, and it was quite a bit more expensive than laptops of comparable spec. But I expect to be able to keep most of the laptop for the next decade, with maybe only one or two mainboard upgrades and the occasional part for repair. That takes it from ~£1.6k sale price to maybe ~£180 per year. My mother-in-law burns through laptops unbelievably quickly, because she buys machines in the £300-£400 price bracket and they die due to daft stuff like a broken charger socket (2 laptops), a broken screen (with repair cost approaching the cost of the laptop) and similar issues. She probably buys a new one every couple of years, and they're all worse than the Framework.
Of course, that mindset only works if the Fairphone is something you'd be happy to use for that length of time...
@@vargabazsaa I think you are reading too much into it, honestly.
The SoC choice is what it is, and I do concede, that this seems to be a bit on the slow side for longevity, however see how apple is handling their silicon. They all are functional 5 years plus, even on anaemic hardware. The phones usually break before the SoC becomes problematic. The most problematic issues I had with phones performance not keeping up before my current phone has been memory..
I am not too worried.
For all the apps you mention, the requirements have not gone up that much over time. Usually it is mostly memory usage that increases more than throughput. Most tasks are not that intensive, even video-calls. If your device can encode and decode 1080p video as well as handle UI smoothly while doing that, you are fine. If the UI doesn't get in your way with sluggishness (in the long term), you are fine.
If you do not need a fancy camera, you are fine.
Requirements keep increasing, yes, but for MOST tasks, those requirements have plateaued.
Just look at laptops and how they changed.. A 5 year old laptop today is usually still totally serviceable for most non-gaming workloads.
A 5 year old laptop in 2010 would be a struggle.
Hell, even the memory requirement increases for phones i mentioned above have tapered off.
Look. Yes. The FP5 is too expensive, So is the FP4 for that matter, but less so. (I see the 4 has gone up in price since I bought it.) (Also, society is used to insanely cheap consumer goods, so when things actually cost what it costs to produce in a fair manner (pun intended), sticker shock usually sets in)
And yes, Louis Rossman is exactly right. I have not opposed that, or stated that repair needs to be this accessible to the end user.
But I look at any utilitarian investment much like i would with a car. Need to haves, nice to haves.
How much do I expect to spend maintaining it? Do I need more space? Or is less enough. Depreciation, servicing, etc. etc.
Here, since I am a tech guy, I like tinkering, and hence, a stable platform that I can service myself? Hell yeah.
That is the crux of my point. The review comes out rather negative. While a lot of the critiques are valid, it also kinda emphasises issues that aren't really that big an issue when you consider what it is designed for. Usually Linus is good at bringing this sort of point into the conclusion on a 'meh' to negative review, but not this time. A shame.
And yeah, you are right in recommending iOS to non-tech-litterate people. It was designed for them.......
Apple gets hate for not being customizable or walled garden etc. But it is also one of its greatest strengths!
That sort of balance felt lacking in this review. A no frills phone that will last you a long time with a low running cost, but a rather steep initial cost. Kinda "Meh" in some areas, 10 across the board on others.
Note 9 is super cheap on Ebay and it's one of the best phones ever made.
5:20 The reason is very probably Qualcomm's restriction to working with smaller OEMs. I've tried to work with them, they just refuse. We can get Qualcomm chips if you work with approved partners, but even then you cannot get the chip you want. Power consumption is worse, features are worse, but.... that's all you can get your hands on.
Nope
They did use snapdragon 6xx chips before.
The reason they use this chip is for the extended updates.
@@zahedchowdhury0 Thanks, although I've had Freescale redirect me towards industrial SoCs, citing longer support, but the reason is in face that they internally don't want smaller clients on cutting edge SoCs because of the added support. But you might be right. I just know Qualcomm is a nightmare to work with.
I'd also add that however sustainable a new phone can be, it still can't be more sustainable than using an old phone.
this is what fairphone themselves tell you: use your old phone > buy used > buy fairphone
Yep!
True, but the only reason I moved off my OnePlus 7t to the fair phone 5 was because they'd stopped releasing security updates for it. The hardware was all still fine for my needs, but running a phone with no security updates when it holds my 2fa keys and my credit card details is a no go.
Yes, but the issues with old phones being hard to maintain and repaired is getting greater every year, so at one point there won't be much difference in buying new or used
@@yuriserigne5524 and that's what confuses me about the target demographic of the fairphone, it's like they are selling to those who care enough about sustainability to pay a much higher price but not enough to overcome their used-device-allergy.
You literally have a Pixel phone for comparison in the video and yet fail to mention that many of the issues you had with the UI on the Fairphone are also present on the Pixel (e.g. search bar and back button not movable). Because that is just the stock Android experience and unrelated to the Fairphone specifically.
Classic LTT review 👌
The stock Google widget being stuck is Google's fault. That's Pixel Launcher standard.
I bought the FP5 around launch, because if I would divide the cost by the software support it would be cheaper than new oneplus, samsung and pixel phones I looked at. The FP5 also comes with the advantage of never having problems with an old battery because of the replaceable battery. So when I was looking around there was no better option for me. When using it I did also have the problem with the screen autoadjusting brightness and as someone else has pointed out a wierd thing with 90fps slowing down the phone after a week which would be fixed by changing it back and forth between 90fps and 60fps. There might potentially be community made fixes for these problems because you're allowed to install other versions of android if you want. Other than that the phone has done everything it needs to for me and the convenience of not having to swap in the next 8-10 years is really nice.
You should make an update in 2030 and see if you still use the FP5. Because I really, really, really doubt you will.
@@Dranzell I'm still using the same phone I had 4 years ago and have no intention of swapping any time soon. I don't see how it'd be harder with a newer phone.
So samsung offers now 7 years of software and changing the battery after warranty in non Samsung shop is like 20 euro for the battery and 20 euro work worst case + 10 euro back glass if it breaks. Worst case repair is about 100 euro with 7 years of upgrades for an actual phone with great display, camera, speakers, vibration motor, fingerprint sensor etc. I don't really see your point here. I'm still using my S22U that I got for 900 euro and will change battery in 6 months to 1 year and use it for 2 years more...
@@Dranzell I used my previous phone the OnePlus 6 for 5 years and the reason I had to swap was only because of battery and security updates. So when I decided on a phone I was just looking at my current phone usage and how I expect that to change in the next 10 years which is mostly just basic social media apps and browser stuff so I expect it to go just fine, but I of course can't predict the future. It also has de added bonus of being from a company that stands for stuff I can get behind.
@@jimhuper when I bought the phone Samsung did not have 7 years of software support and I did not need the extra features that a Samsung has. For audio I have headphones and earbuds, it still has a finger print scanner and at the 8-10 years of software support for €700 it was at the time a better deal and it still seems like a good deal to me now
Frankly I'm 100% NOT interested in Fairphone anything WITHOUT a 3.5mm/headphone jack. There's no good reason for a product line like this to just ditch that. Bluetooth is great, but there's things it just literally cannot do, like operate without batteries because it's physically connected via cable to the device producing audio.
I skipped the Fairphone 4 because they released it without 3.5mm/headphone jack, and it was (as far as I could tell) the #1 reason people were unhappy with the Fairphone 4.
So to see them keep it off for the Fairphone 5, to me, is frankly them ignoring their actual audience. And I don't have time for that. Right now I'll just keep rocking my "Xcover6 Pro" (which has a 3.5mm/headphone jack) which I picked up instead of the Fairphone 4 _for the sole reason of the 3.5mm/headphone jack_.
These other things that Linus raise, valid concerns, but just more things Fairphone needs to get sorted. And I really don't ever see myself even _considering_ anything of theirs without a 3.5mm/headphone jack.
Also, not available in North America? JFC get it together Fairphone.
@@BloodyIronthat's because they aren't allowed to be sold there. Long time ago they didn't even work there because particularly American carriers wouldn't allow a non subscription phone to connect.
Since you put linage on the note I wouldn't have minded seeing it on the fairphone and see if it fixed the software issues
- fairphone 5 doesn't have an official build of lineage yet
- yes, all his pet peeves with the *software* - keyword being software here, would've been fixed
I dont think wireless charching or the thickness of the phone should be an issue neither that it feels like the note 9. It's about it being able to be produced without being expensive, using materials that are bad for the environment. They could work on bumping the specs but it's main goal is not the be the best, the fastest etc. It's about being content with a phone that just works well for basic needs. You're really asking things this phone is not designed for, nor it's intent
You're only thinking about yourself in this phone, it's really first world problems. While Fairphone is thinking about the people who make your phone.
"It's about it being able to be produced without being expensive, using materials that are bad for the environment." -- if the main goal is to satisfy basic needs.. as the video says, you are better off buying an older phone used and remove that from the e-waste pile..a phone that makes this many compromises but is designed for the basics doesn't need to exist when phones being THROWN AWAY already meet and exceed those same needs.
Why contribute to the problem by buying a new fairphone that barely works and is overpriced for its performance and longevity instead of buying a 1-2 yr old phone that'll be cheaper, better performing and no new negative impact on the environment generated...
Thickness I agree. Wireless charging should be an option at this price point. It's not black magic.
Also how in the hell is there no headphone jack? A phone that is geared towards sustainability doesn't support the most sustainable headphone? Wtf?!
@@skifree0yes Fairphone themselves say use old phone > buy used phone > buy Fairphone.
The thing is that almost nobody wants to buy a used phone. Particularly in Europe where this phone is mostly sold.
Sadly, back button on the left side, is the android default placement. I can't change it on my Pixel 7 either, which is sooo bad. It would take a dev 3 minutes, to implement an option to swap positions.
I might be in the minority, but I couldn't ever get used to the recents-home-back layout. I agree though that it shouldn't be too difficult to add a toggle in settings like Samsung has to swap back and recents.
@@BryanBlumerYeah exactly. I mean there're tons of custom roms out there, where you get the option to switch the buttons. Since the positioning is really bad, i switched to gestures after a while. Took me 2-3 weeks, until i got used to it, but now it works okayish. But i still have problems to hit the "recents" gesture consistantly
We got so spoiled that having a phone a little bit thicker and heavier is reason to make it fun of it, even thou it compensate but facilitating maintenance. The SOC and performance I'll agree that is complicated to reason about it as well as issues with the software, which are what makes the Fair 5 a no go to me. Really looking forward for the version with this points solved.
I own a Fairphone 5 and have never had the audio issue that Linus speaks about, not sure if it's some weird prototype issue. I also don't mind the weird processor, they were criticized on the Fairphone 4 for not being able to keep up with processor security updates, and unfortunately, fairphone isn't big enough to have their own custom chip. So this chip is the compromise that they came up with. And if I am going to be keeping this phone for seven years, not having a top of the line chip isn't going to be a buyers top priority in the first place.
But that's the issue. What ages better, Samsung Galaxy S series or A series? A weaker chip will show its age way sooner, and that means you'll be banging your head against the wall for all the struggles this phone will face long before it's close to 7 years old.
This could all be fixed if Google forced chip makers to use uefi like Microsoft did. I can grab a Windows 10 iso and slap it on my old ThinkPad but I can't grab an Android iso and put it on a phone. Old phones are still very capable and so are old laptops.
@@joeykeilholz925 supporting older chips is more difficult. Qualcomm doesn't provide updates so Fairphone has to hack together bad Qualcomm code and hope it works. With LTS chips it is easier and if there are issues Qualcomm has to fix them. These chips are supported for 10-15 years by Qualcomm.
@@joeykeilholz925 well Qualcomm does not support it's mainline snapdragon SOCs for all that long, at least if my quick search is to be believed.
That’s literally the exact opposite line of thinking you’re supposed to have.
People always say “who cares about the benchmarks of the A16 no one is video editing on their phone”, not realizing that the extra headroom they build for themselves allows them to support their phones tor so much longer. Any piece of hardware that receives software updates will get slower over time, that’s just how it works, so if you buy a phone today and it’s a bit slow, what on earth makes you think it will even be usable in 7 years?
If “oh it’s a small company” is your excuse then I’m sorry, it’s a bad one. They’re a small company yes, but they’re competing in the big leagues! Apple, Samsung, Google, and others have already found out, through trial and error, what works for consumers and don’t, that’s why phones have looked the same for the past half-decade. Me being a consumer, why would I choose to be a guinea pig when I can have a device that I don’t need to worry about?
Pixel 8 Pro doesn't show uninstall when you long press an app, you have to go into app info, and the passcode to unlock device also requires a proceed step.
The idea of this company is awesome. I hope they can keep up with the leaders and make these continue to exist.
Honestly, I couldn't care less about phone thickness and weight. I still use my Asus Zenfone 7 Pro and I never had any problems with it being heavy.
$750 for a terrible phone and they removed the headphone jack. The beginning of the end
2:37 SD Card rant.
Meh
Been like this in 90% of phones with SD Card slots.
You either have to remove the sim Tray with SD Card slot or remove the battery because it "protects" the MicroSD Card from falling out.
Removing the sim while the phone is on causes problems, too. Sometimes
Having to mention that you have to turn off a phone for what? a minute or 2?, just to change the SD Card is just,
Looking for the hair in the soup...
Been like this with LG, Sony, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung phones all the time...
And HEY!
SD Card as an option is nothing you find on most of the mainstream brands... Looking at you @Samsung @Apple
yeah and how often do you change the micro and sim card? One time at beginning and one time after using the phone?
Linus shooting at Fairphone for stock Android stuff is interesting, perhaps it's time you guys did a comparison between stock Android and other Android skins
for the size, actually a phone made of plastic doesn't need a case
7:55 is literally just how base Android does it. You have to click the tick to sign in using a PIN on a Pixel 7a as well. Samsung skinned it to not require it.
They added an option to change it in Android 14, right? It's in Settings > Security and Privacy > Device Unlock > Press the cog next to PIN unlock > Auto confirm unlock. It only works for PINs ≥ 6 digits.
You are absolutely correct. I will say that I have never used a pin longer than 4 digits though. Part of me thinks Linus never does either. FP5 should also have that same 6 digit auto unlock PIN. Also the hold to uninstall is not a thing in raw android. He really needs to make sure he or his staff writers actually look at the base feature set before critiquing this stuff. Super misleading.
I don't want to defend him, but I don't think he ever said that base Android was different, he just said this is not how it should be. I'm guessing he's used to the Samsung UI which works differently.
and?
@@marcellkovacs5452when base android does it like this, this is how it should be.
linus commenting on this is just plain dumb anyway because you can change it
Now I want a FairPhone, at least to try. But the Catapillar C62 *Pro* has unmatched features, seriously. Try one.
I find the sim placement criticism unfair - I suspect the great majority of people swap sim/sd only when they get new phones. And even if that is incorrect, FP should at least get a praise for making that process tool-less. Not everyone wants to carry around a sim swap tool
Finally a fair review of a fairphone. I really support the goal of the company but using their products is just frustating at times. My main problem is the many quality of life features that are missing. Not only with the phone but with their headphones as well. Repairability and sustainability is good, but when you make a product which you have to replace after a year or 2 anyway, what's the point?
Kudos for supporting products like Fairphone and Framework, but also be fair to them. Great work!
Framework okey, but fairphone just create more ewaste. Just buy an old Samsung phone if you want to be resourceful. Just because it can easy swap parts doesn’t mean it’s good for the world. Old Samsung phone or iPhone phones can easy be repaired at home.
@@chrispy.critter You're insane if you think that the repairability of an iphone is at all comparable to a fairphone or even a samsung.
@@adwaawddw4730 I have owned an iPhone since 10years back. The only issues I had is with screen or battery. Battery is easily changed. Even with someone with less experience. Even tho I do repair quite much, I often hand it to Apple to change this parts for a bit more money. Since they then do it with genuine parts. All other flagship phones, is easy to change part. So why is this needed? It solves no problem. It only sells low performance phones which you need to change out more, which creates more ewaste. If this phone was something that people really wished for, it would be a top selling phone.
How often will you need to remove the sim or SD card so I don't think having to remove the battery to do it is a problem. I've been using the FP5 for 3 months, and i've only had to remove the battery once, when putting the sim and SD card in.
Yeah idk why he's making such a big deal about it. Not like you have to pull the SD card out to access it in your PC like the olden days...
7:35 there is no uninstall button on long press on lineage either...
There is no uninstall button on stock Android.
or pixels
I use my phone for pretty basic things. When you are competeing against giants I can see how compremises need to be made. That said, I'm going to seriously check this out as an option when I upgrade next.
I have it since December and had not encountered most of these problems.
Yes, the screen brightness flickers in some situations and the stock launcher is lacking.
But I just installed a different launcher and everything is perfect
What stock launcher did you install?
Most of the criticism was fair, but half your software issues were just stock android things. And if thats the price of not having to live with samsungs bloatware...i'll take it in a heartbeat.