The Fairphone 4 costs 649 here in Sweden so it doesn’t seem that different to me. Plus if it too gets 7 years of updates, that doesn’t seem like a bad price to me.
The main reason I moved to iOS over Android is because I hate changing phones every year, not even Google supports their phones as long as Apple does.
This is a good move by Fairphone. Hope they succeed.
I used my OnePlus One (2014) until 2020. Ultimately what made me move away from it was that software support wasn’t there anymore, and having to manually find images, and flash them myself was just too much hassle. I just want something that works.
Here in Sweden, having a phone is almost a necessity. Lots of daily-life infrastructure goes through it. We have a service called BankID which is essentially a digital identification method (where your bank steps in and strengthens your identity) allowing you to do various things on the web.
- Medical services
- Making appointments
- Viewing journals
- Renewing prescriptions
- Transferring money
- Purchasing items
- Managing my account
- at my ISP
- Electricity provider
- Landlord
- Paying bills
- Managing my insurances
Everything here uses bank ID. Up until recently if I wanted to pick up a parcel at the nearby post office, I’d give the clerk a code, and show them my ID. That changed so I can verify my ID using BankID in the app, and they can scan a QR code. Now I just show the QR code to a machine and a robot fetches my parcel for me.
A while ago I called my ISP to cancel a service, and I had to validate my ID using bank ID.
And that’s just one of the online services. My municipal public transport doesn’t let you pay for tickets on the buses anymore. It started with them removing cash (to prevent robberies) to them now just not letting you pay at all. You either buy a card at a store (which you can then add money to either online, using bank ID, or at a store) and pay with that, or you use their app to buy a ticket.
Because of the safety requirements for BankID to work, if your OS drops out of support, and the phone manufacturer doesn’t update it, you’ll need to get a new phone. I work as a software developer and do not want to screw around with tech stuff in my free time, so going with an iPhone was really the way to go for me. It “just works” and Apple provides updates basically forever. The iPhone 6S (2015) received its last major OS update recently, and will likely continue to receive security updates for a while yet. I’ll be surprised if any Android OEM has provided a 12.0 update to any of their phones from 2015.
I never did, but keeping my OnePlus One functional for six years took a lot of manual maintenance which I hated. Particularly the last two years.
My iPhone is super hands-off. I input my pin, click “install update” and put it on the charger for ten minutes or so, it does the rest.
No need to figure out which gapps to get, no need to find a good ROM, no BS with console applications, no hooking it up to the computer, no workarounds with Magisk to restore functionality lost with the flash, etc.
That’s fair. I feel like it’s quite manufacturer dependant now, and unfortunately if you don’t look beforehand you can end up with a bum deal in that regard.
Samsung are good in that they’ll now update their phones with 4 years of Android updates, plus an extra year of security updates. Google are similar, but I believe they do 3 years of Android updates and 1 year of security updates IIRC. Both of these work fine for me as I run a 3 year update cycle, but I’d feel like I got shafted if I got something like the ASUS Zenfone 9 which only has 2 years of updates promised.
It’s no secret why there’s still so many old iPhones kicking about when you consider how they’re still getting updated. I think the difference though is that Apple makes money off of you being in their ecosystem, whereas a manufacturer like Samsung, Asus, etc. make pennies if anything at all.
You should’t change your phone every year. Just but phone with LineageOS support. And reflash it. 3+ years of additional support are yours.
Oh I don’t. Had my OnePlus One for six, and my current iPhone XS is 3. I just don’t like the hassle of flashing ROMs and enabling BS with Magisk and what not. I just want it to work.
Instead of all that, with my iPhone I input my pin, click “install update” and put my phone on the stand for ten minutes. It’s very hands-off.
I also only paid $500 for it so it’s been a value for the money.
My 2016 Xiaomi Mi 4S has received Android 13 update via LineageOS.
PixelExperience 13 is still being released for Redmi 4X, which is a 2016 phone as well
7 years of updates sounds good, but it could also mean anything. They can update localisation files for 5 years
