While they were happy with what the fairphone 4 brought to the table, they seem to like what was changed for the fairphone 5.
What are you guys’ opinions on this? A welcome change? would you get one if your phone died within the next year?
Too bad they don’t sell them in the US. I would buy one immediately.
they’re selling the 4 with degoogled OS in the US, so perhaps they’ll do the same with the 5 at some point.
Amazing.
I’m sick of buying a new phone every three years because the battery is dead or the processor is slow, nothing can be replaced without it being wildly expensive and now it’s a paperweight.
To be fair, I don’t think the Fairphone will help much with outdated processors. You can’t upgrade the processor inside, and it comes with a relatively slow processor from day one.
This phone is not for people that need performance; it’s a very basic phone for people that value an ethical supply chain and repairability.
For me, the problem was that they don’t support the right bands for US carriers.
I’m able to use Mint Mobile here in the States on my Fairphone 4. I believe 5 would also be compatible.
I appreciate you mentioning that, thats how I’m considering using the 5 if it ends up as my phone replacement, but I have a hard time interpreting the info around wireless frequency bandwidths supported 🙃 I like pretty user interfaces, networking hurts my brain
I’ve being following Fairphone since 2013, waiting for them to sell to Taiwan. After a years of waiting, in 2019 I just said fk it and bought one from official store, ship it with international packaging forwarding service. Couldn’t be happier with my Fairphone ever since.
I generally try to check every few years to see if they sell to the US yet. Last I checked they would finally ship FP4 to the US, but it will only work on T-Mobile :/ gonna check back in a few more years.
And I give it a 0/10 on having a 3.5mm connector
There is an adapter, buttt yeah I would really miss being able to just plug in a pair of headphones.
If they gave us a second usb-c port instead I wouldn’t complain so much. So dumb that I have to choose between charging and audio
A second or dual charger and you can do both anyway with wireless headsets.
Yes, the 3.5mm jack is more durable than USB-C (since it is rotationally symmetric twisting doesn’t apply force to the connector), it maintains compatibility with billions of audio devices and doesn’t block your charging port if you use it.
See, you just described a thing and made a statement, but I don’t buy that one bit. I’ve broken several 3.5mm plugs but never once a USB-C.
I’m on the side of 3.5mm in phones, but there’s a reason XLR and 1/4" are the industry standards for audio.
They could just make magnetic connectors with a shallow socket. But those would last longer and you wouldn’t need to keep buying new stuff.
CC: @Petter1@lemm.ee
I’m sorry what? The 3.5mm is better because it’s rotational symmetrical?
Thats a minor win. You rarely really need that rotation capability, and what little you need can be made up with thinner cables (which is easier with a digital signal and DACs in the headphone, which can’t be done compatibly with 3.5mm and people are dumb) The you also have to sacrifice connection friction to gain rotation, and that has tradeoffs, especially when that friction is caused by a spring-loaded conductor (which also means more friction likely means fewer insertion cycles before friction starts dropping off).
It also really sucks at strain relief without massive dookie springs or rubber butts…and the bigger the strain relief, the more subjective it is to perpendicular force, which is really easy to do on a 3.5mm diameter cylinder of gold-plated iron/tin alloy with the fulcrum also being at the base of the cylinder.
Other cool thing about what could be done with USB-C headphones. A lot of companies put lead weights full-sized headphones for balance or comfort (more weight makes it feel more secure). Good Modern drivers don’t need to be as heavy as they used to be. How bout instead of weights, they use lipos? Now your headphones can charge your phone (when in wired mode, hell, I’m talking about fictional mid/high-end cans, they could have Bluetooth and ANC while we’re at it since they have power), and your charger port point is essentially moot.
3.5 jack port is definitely not more durable than USB-C. If you have good headphones, the change that the 3.5 plug is gigantic in length and the cable thicc AF which causes a lot of stress in the plug due to very large leverage. Additionally, I prefer to use the DAC integrated in my headphones rather than using the low quality tiny DAC in my phone. And in digital, the cable thickness does not matter really.
I don’t get why you get so much downvotes, because it’s not as obvious as people make it out to be and there are plenty of adapters. So it’s a good question.
But yes. The 3.5mm jack had the thing companies say they are striving for: simplicity.
DACs are nice and everything but the phone can just decide to not connect properly. The DAC can decide it had enough of your phone. In either case you’d need to reconnect them. And that means unlocking your phone, because a secure phone will block streaming to ‘unknown’ USB-C devices, unless it’s unlocked during the negotiation phase. And if your connectors have become wonky for whatever reason: Well, no music for you.
And then there’s the issue where you have to have them at hand when you need them. In your car, on your person, while at work.
3.5mm is great because it actually “just works”. One of the few things that can claim such thing.
I recently bought a phone that lacked a 3.5mm jack, so I bought a splitter with a USBC charging port and a headphone jack. The problem I encountered was that the splitter reported to the phone that headphones were connected even if they were not. I was used to unplugging the headphones and have playback automatically pause, and resume when the headphones were put back in. With the splitter I was no longer able to do that. I don’t know if I bought a cheap ass splitter or if that’s the normal behavior for these things.
Negotiation is a thing for sure. It is possible, though I haven’t ever seen it implemented, that digital audio over USB-C or bluetooth can be blocked by DRM. It would seem business suicide to do something like limiting audio output to certain audio products but I wouldn’t put it past any short term minded profit seeking enterprise.
Yes, I should be able to play music, AND charge the phone without a 9 wire adapter like those universal charger plugs from 10 years ago. Wild concept. I wonder when phone tech will be able to support such a thing
Yes, it’s fucking ridiculous! My cans are now either useless or cumbersome and everything else sounds awful! It’s like you people who just want some noise have never even heard decent audio!
I’ve got the Bose QC 45 headphones which can do both Bluetooth and 3.5 mm. The audio quality is the same between the two delivery methods. The only difference I’ve noticed is an occasional video/audio synching issue with Bluetooth which quickly corrects itself and is usually only an issue with older devices. It’s my understanding that this and the audio lag issue have been solved recently in newer devices.
I personally think Bluetooth is a shit standard that has slowly been fixed over the years, but it’s pretty much 100% there at this point
The real question I have is: is a decent DAC that hard to find? I bought a shit one because it’s only a back-up option for me, but I can’t imagine the good ones are scarce.
my issue right now is that i use one of those charging + 3.5mm splitters in the car, but when they’re both connected there’s a loud ass buzz. a 3.5mm ground loop isolator works but made bass sound terrible. i’m probably gonna get an old phone just for music in the car 🤦🏽♂️
Just get a new car pleb.
Honestly Bluetooth in a car has been a must for me for like 10 years now. And having experienced CarPlay, that’s def next (especially for cars that support wireless and have a Qi spot. Thats practically magic)
Give it a year or two and most headphones will come with USB-C plugs. You’ll have to adapt back to the antiquated 3.5mm.
As it’s now, most things that you would plug a pair of headphones into (or their current-generation equivalent) has USB-C (or USB-A), aside from home theater/pro audio equipment
High end ones will even have their own DACs and amps, and you’ll regret ever missing 3.5mm
First, same was said years ago, yet 3,5mm is still there in many modern phones - and I for one am happy about it.
Second, if we were to move our audio to usb-c (why, though?), please make two ports instead of one. Forcing everything through one physical port adds a lot of everyday inconveniences and reduces reliability.
As well as a 5.25" floppy disc drive and betamax, you call that a phone?!? No thank you, I’ll stick with my x-phone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nezImUP0w
People complaining about 3.5mm jacks remind of the people who complained about how the iMac G3 didn’t have a 3.5" floppy drive. At first yeah it was weird to leave it out, but it’s been 9 years since the first smartphone launched without a 3.5mm jack (the OPPO R5 in 2014).
If you want ancient tech then your options will be limited.
Ancient tech? Looks at literally every laptop and desktop sold.
Headphone jack removal is anti-consumer and any device without one is missing a key component. Why would I buy a device missing a key component?
Plus you can find wired headphones EVERYWHERE. Walk into any gas station and pick up replacements for $10. Sure they may not be the best quality, but they work. Also, no charging, just plug them into your device. Also, no setup, just plug it in.
Ancient tech? Looks at literally every laptop and desktop sold.
I can’t tell you if any of my laptops have a 3.5mm jack. If they do, I’d rather have another USB-C port instead. And arguing that just because it’s still used in desktop computers, then it can’t be ancient, I’d like to draw your attention toward the rs232 port that still isn’t phased out entirely.
Why would I buy a device missing a key component
In case I missed it, would you like to point out where exactly you’re being forced to buy a specific phone?
I happen to be writing this on an android 13 phone with a 3.5mm jack (I had to check, but it’s there), it’s not like you can’t get a phone with the connector.
i actually find this argument flawed. Bluetooth is great but does not provide feature parity. correct me if I’m wrong but aptX was supposed to be lossless audio, but it has been shown that it has compression artifacts. I’ll be happy with Bluetooth only if we can have absolutely lossless audio
If you can tell the difference between well-compressed, high bitrate audio and lossless audio played on the same equipment, then you’re in the minority. However it’s pretty easy to accidentally end up with a combo of phone / app / app settings / headphones that results in a suboptimal listening experience, either because you’re using a bad codec (like SBC on any device or AAC on many Android phones) or because your music is being compressed twice. You can avoid the latter issue by streaming uncompressed music or by using a combo that doesn’t recompress your music (like Apple Music -> iPhone -> Airpods Pro/Max).
It’s also possible that the reason Bluetooth headphones sound worse isn’t because of losing information but because the headphones just aren’t as good as your wired ones. If you get a portable Bluetooth DAC like the Qudelix 5k, you can connect it to your phone and connect your wired headphones to it.
You don’t have to be happy with Bluetooth. You can buy a USB-C DAC for like $10. Apple’s “USB C to 3.5mm Headphone Jack Adapter” is 9 USD direct from Apple and it tested extremely well. You can use it on any modern phone or on your laptop or tablet, too. (You can also use the Qudelix 5k this way.)
If that adapter isn’t good enough (maybe it doesn’t output enough power for your high impedance headphones), then most phone’s built-in DACs + headphone adapters would have the same problem. Basically only Sony and LG (RIP) phones ever had especially good onboard DACs and amps, and even with them it would often make more sense to get a dedicated portable setup.
For anyone who is happy with Bluetooth, though, they don’t have to worry about all this and they get to reap the advantages of the headphone jack’s removal. The extra space can be used for more battery, if nothing else, and it’s easier to prevent dust/water ingress when you eliminate the headphone jack.
Also, I think you’re thinking of LDAC (by Sony), not aptX (by Qualcomm). LDAC is not lossless, either, but it’s much higher bitrate than anything other than the very recently introduced aptX Lossless, which - under ideal conditions - features lossless compression.
So, the smaller version of the connector that studios use to this day is ancient, huh?
Actually it’s even older. And it’s also not used in a phone.
The argument that 3.5mm jacks are somehow superior to a digital stream is so laughably flawed. The 3.5mm jack is a shit connector, always has been. It got its success from being paired with the original walkman, not exactly hifi equipment. The durability of the jack is wanting and a few specks of dust in the socket and you’re getting static when you move about.
I don’t know how many sockets I’ve had to replace over time because a male jack broke off in the socket. It’s one thing that the jack is so thin that it can break in your pocket. But when manufacturers then mount sockets, that doesn’t allow you to push the broken part out, and also uses some weird one-hung-low socket with a weird footprint that you can’t source with less than a 5k MOQ, and that is only after searching for an hour. Which then leaves you having to do all sorts of weird cowboy tricks in order to have a working sound output… Then you will get to my level of annoyance with the 3.5mm jack.
All those problems are not really a thing with 6.3mm jacks, but, by all means, keep believing that 3.5mm is superior because professionals use something that looks like it, and disregard everything else.
This is not a well thought out response.
The things you mention had workable replacements and/or were the loser in a standards war. Bluetooth headphones have weaker audio, battery limitations on the headphones and the streaming device and the argument for removing them is just not justified outside of forced path to profits for proprietary headphone sales. Also, there are USB-c headphone options and problems are two fold - clunky, costly adapters and increased stress on the phone’s main charging port.
It’s not even close to ancient and you’re argument is extremely weak.
You’re basically making the exact same Betamax vs VHS argument. The only different is Apple is the Porn industry embracing Bluetooth in favor of wired products.
Bluetooth headphones have weaker audio
Please define “weaker”.
forced path to profits for proprietary headphone sales
What are you talking about? How are you forced to buy some specific BT headphones for your phone?
And the argument about USB-C headphones being clunky? Sure, it may not be optimal, but you could always just buy a phone with a jack or give in and switch to BT.
In an end-user device? Yes, it’s irrelevant. Use wifi unless you have a special usecase.
The difference here is that 3,5mm jacks are not obsolete.
Nobody besides a few grumpy folks opposed the switch from microUSB to Type-C, for example, because we got something better instead.
Floppy drives got obsolete, because again, we got something better - disks! And then flash drives! Always a better, more convenient and functional option.
3,5 mm jack, however, is still completely relevant and is not replaced by anything. It is the only widely adopted consumer-grade standard for analog wired audio. Wireless audio has objective drawbacks: one more battery to control, lower reliability, poorer sound quality (not a big issue with most phones since their DACs are normally not audiophile-grade anyway, but still), higher price, pairing issues, and many more. And USB-C to 3,5mm dongles are obviously terrible: they can get lost, they don’t allow you to listen to music while charging your phone/transferring files, and they are yet another component to manage.
Essentially, wireless audio has been pushed down our throats, and we do not appreciate that. For me, not having a 3,5mm jack is one of the criterions that immediately kill any desire to buy that phone. It will just be a massive pain in the ass for me, and I don’t want that.
agree, and not just for 3,5mm jacks. If there is a way to do it with a cable, i will choose the cable instead of a wireless solution. The only time I didn’t was with a wireless mouse that, after a while, I just kept on the cable anyway. They are so very convenient, especially the 3,5mm jack.
This is just proof smartphones are toys and not real tools.
They do everything poorly. iPhone video and photo looks like garbage compared to a real camera and now you can’t even play music without overly compressed bluetooth. This is like wanting a flip phone filter for your camera. It’s asinine and backward and you defend it like a lemming because HURR FLOPPY DISK SMALL. Apples and oranges. A universal connector capable of delivering a strong signal is not the same as a low capacity storage format.
But please do go on about how great your tracking device is
you do know that you could have made your point in a nicer manner, yes? why would we want to bring the strenuous tones of hollow outrage from reddit to here?
we are all better than that, even the big danish guys.
I’m sorry, but I had to say something. I’m so tired of non-technical people moaning about the out phasing of the 3.5mm jack, and especially the arguments about audio quality and vendor lock in that has been raised in this thread. I had to make sure that it was understood, that the view is not unopposed.
Could I have done it more diplomatically? Maybe, but I also wanted to drive my point home in as short a post as possible.
I asked chatgpt to help out rewriting my comment, but with your criticism in mind. It came up with:
While 3.5mm jacks may seem like a staple, it’s worth noting that technology evolves. Much like the transition from 3.5" floppy drives, change takes time to be widely accepted. The omission of the jack in smartphones isn’t about dismissing tradition but adapting to newer, more versatile alternatives. It’s been nearly a decade since the OPPO R5, and as technology progresses, embracing these changes can lead to a broader range of innovative features.
I don’t want to bore people to death, but I can also see now how perhaps I could have attacked the technology instead of the people.
We are better than our old /u/ on reddit, and we must strive to keep it that way. Competing with reddit on toxicity, will be a fight we’ll never be able to win.
Thank you for calling me out on my BS, and helping us all to keep the fediverse a better place.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=9-nezImUP0w
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I really wish another viable mobile OS would come out. I don’t want android and apple iOS is wearing thin on me.
Have you tried Ubuntu Touch?
Perhaps next year will be the year of the Linux Phone. Alas, the same problems that plague the Linux desktop plague the phone. Lack of software.
It’s also very difficult to move out of the Apple ecosystem once everything just works the way you think it should. 
I’m quite interested in the developments on waydroid that would allow the use of Android apps on a Linux phone.
I tried it on a spare old phone and found it pretty unusable tbh. Very limited application choices and I hated the UI / app management work flow.
Also I hated that by default the terminal (and superuser privileges) are VERY locked down.
It’s possible I just didn’t know what I was doing tho ¯_(ツ)_/¯
There was so much competition in the early days of smartphones, its sad we ended up, the whole of humanity with two choices. Meego a collab between Intel and Nokia was really unique and a good model for social media and communications. Windows Phone was good purely to have another major competitor, but the interface was way ahead of Android and iOS for providing a better mobile experience.
RIM Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, all had a red hot go. Amazon tried recently and failed, they look like they’ll give it another shot with their new OS.
Yeah its just sad
The number of comment that says " I would buy one, but" is amazing !
What this company is doing is what every company should do, from laptop to tablet. As well as tractors. Dot being able to repair what you buy is fundamentally flawed!
TBF it’s not available in the USA, and a lot of us are in the USA…plus even if we got one, a lot of the bands wouldn’t work, so it’s not like you’d have a good connection with it.
This is the reason why I never bought an Asus phone despite hating our primary options in the US (Samsung, Apple, Google) and really wanting one. It seems most manufacturers forget that T-mobile bands exist despite them being nearly tied for #2 in marketshare in the US.
How tragic. I’m sorry. As a dirty Yuropoor I’ll buy one in your place and enjoy it for you.
Please do lol, I’d love to own one but it’d be a wifi brick at best here state side.
You’re right, it is amazing. These people are giving honest constructive criticism of a product. Companies often have to pay money to get that information. These complaints are generally valid as well.
The company’s commitment to repairability is commendable but it’s in lieu of other important factors. If I have to make the choice between having the newer OS with stronger, more powerful hardware or the ability to repair my device I’m going to choose the former every time. From the get-go the device might last longer simply because I won’t want to get rid of it as quickly. The 5 is of course a significant improvement over previous releases but it’s still behind. If they can deliver a device that is not immediately outdated in comparison to other phones of similar price then this would be a no brainer for me and likely others as well.
Similarly availability is another major factor. You can’t buy what you can’t get your hands on. Even more importantly it’s even more futile to buy one for a network that doesn’t support it at all. Obviously the creators just aren’t ready to expand into another market and that’s fine but it doesn’t make the criticism any less important for their mission.
Framework ship laptops to Australia and has a headphone socket. Great company. Great products. Great experience, highly recommend. I can’t recommend products that don’t sell and support in my market. I don’t have any loyalty to Fairphones or Steamdecks or any other product from low effort companies that don’t ship beyond NA or Europe.
Yet they don’t sell in the USA, and they don’t have a headphone jack. A company meant for repairability and reliability not having a headphone jack. That’s like when framework removed it from the 16 inch laptop.
I don’t think your comparison to Framework is justified since 1) they made a headphone jack expansion module that’s available along with all the other ports and 2) the Framework 16 has 6 expansion bays instead of 4. If you need a headphone jack you get a 25% increase in configurable ports, and if you don’t need one you get a 50% increase in ports. Plus, you can easily switch between those two cases.
- that is a solution to a problem nobody wanted.
- Technically 5 if you’re using one of them for the headphone jack (which you wouldn’t need if it was included on the device ready). Also the one with 4 already has a headphone jack included, so you’d still have 4 available ports.
And 3.
They’re small and I could lose it and would have to spend even more money for a replacement.
I would love one of it wasn’t so big. I’m sick of big phones.
This. I just ordered an S23, just because it’s pretty much the smallest phone you can get (apart from the zenfone, which has a worse update policy).
Got a Zenphone 9 because I don’t really care about wireless charging. The hardware is great, but the software has it’s problems sometimes, like some missing QoL features. On the upside: Not nearly as much bloatware as other phones, especially Samsung ones.
To me I’d still say the ZenFone isn’t a small phone. Not only is it bigger than my current phone (pixel 3) its also bigger than some phones in the 2010s that were lauded for their large screens. We literally have no mainstream small phones, what we call small now are just smaller than the ginormous ones that have been normalised.
Samsung basically has a duplicate app installed for each stock Google app. And I think short of disabling it via adb, there is no option. But Samsung has really turned around and has a relatively good update policy in place. If not the Pixel, then Samsung is okay for me. I had love to have the Fairphone but it seems like they sell in limited markets only worldwide.
I’m still using a S10e, seriously considering buying another - it still suits my needs.
Yeah, I’m writing this on an s10e but the battery really isn’t that good anymore and the lack of security updates doesn’t feel good either. The current s series phones are roughly the same size as the e though, so I hope it’ll be okay.
That said, even the e is a bit too large for my taste. The top left corner is pretty much out of reach without adjusting your grip, so about half an inch less of screen would be preferable imho. Samsung’s one handed mode is much better than the android default though, which kind of makes up for it - and there’s just nothing smaller available.
Agreed, I happened to just make this mockup chronicling my journey through screen sizes. I loved the HTC One m7, the pixel 2 despite being a bit larger was still comfortable because it still has a “chin” at the bottom. I thought going to the pixel 5 would be fine and I chose it because it’s within ~1mm of the same body dimensions, but I forgot to account for the screen going all the way to the top/bottom - trying to press the back button at the bottom of the screen with 1 hand is so much more of a stretch and it sometimes makes my hand sore. Given that I’ve had the P5 for a while and my hand still hasn’t adjusted I just can’t go to a bigger phone, especially since the P5’s increased height over the 2 lower screen bottom compared to the P2 makes it want to flip backwards out of my hand when I’m trying to reach down to the back button. At a minimum I need my next phone to be same or smaller than the P5.
(Comparison: https://i.imgur.com/gAc306o.png )
That said, I get that FP wants to make a repairable phone that appeals to the masses, and it might hurt that mission to cater to a specific crowd instead of competing with the veritable hand-tablets that other companies are producing. I just hope that they grow large enough to be able to make a “Luddite” version though with a non-cramp-inducing size and a headphone jack. I don’t care either way about headphone jacks but I feel like there’s a lot of overlap between the crowds that want smaller phones and people who want headphone jacks.
