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- Hacker News
- I would love a Fairphone, but no headphone jack is a nonstarter for me. Still blows me away that a company saying they are focused on longevity would get rid of a universal audio interface that we've had for decades. In the article they claim it's to fit other features in, but frankly that's not a believable claim. Other manufacturers manage to get a headphone jack in just fine, without any noticeable downside.by bigstrat2003
- Serial is a universal data interface that we've had for decades. Don't need RS232 on my phone though.by artisinal
- Given how severely that hard requirement restricts your available options, I'd suggest adapting to the USB-C audio world. No, it's not as nice as a headphone jack. But it is a relatively small con to just stick an adapter onto the ends of your 3.5mm devices and replace it a few times a year when it breaks. And yes, you can get a "charge and listen at the same time" adapter.by coldpie
- I absolutely concour about the need of a headphone jack - I do not buy anything without it. So,
> to fit other features in
what exactly, one would ask. If there are tradeoffs, if would be nice if the customers can decide what to have, in a modular product.
by mdp2021 - The headphone jack is inside USB-C connector. You can use USB-C-to-3.5mm passive (!) cable to connect your 3.5mm headphones, or you can buy 3.5mm headphones with USB-C audio connection.
There's no additional DAC involved, the analog audio is already on a USB-C pins.
by ValdikSS - Are ya'll really repairing your phones? I replace mine when it can't run Google Maps smoothly anymore.
After 4-5 years, on every phone I've ever had, user interactions begin to lag noticeably. Apps launch much more slowly. Intense graphical apps like maps become frustrating to use. At some point I can't take it anymore and replace the phone, long before its physical parts or battery have worn out.
by eleventen - I'm typing this from a Galaxy S10 I got in 2020, with Lineage 22 (Android 15) running on it.
For sure it isn't the snappiest, but my only real performance issue is loading gifs on Signal, which takes several seconds for some reason.
Just tried maps now, actually still fairly fine for me.
by greggoB - I've replaced batteries on Pixel 3 XL and Pixel 6 Pro, both having run GrapheneOS. I use OSMAnd~ with no network permission (except during maps/POI updates). OSMAnd~ shows me where ALPRs are, so I can plan my routes around Flock. :^)by rustcleaner
- My family's Pixels have all lasted physically long enough for Google to stop supporting them. My wife was annoyed when I told her she needed a new one because from her perspective there was nothing wrong with her existing one ( lack of security updates is not on her radar.)
- I am not sure what you are doing to your phone for it to act like thatby prmoustache
- Genuinely, how do you make your phone so slow? I've been using my s10 for 7 years, and besides the minor crack in the corner of the screen from being dropped, and constantly juggling storage because I hoard media, it works as well as it did when it was new.by Zambyte
- I've bought new a Google Pixel 7a two years ago, paid for it 400 euros. After 1 year I've dropped it, landed on a corner, screen completely broken, replacement costed screen costed me nearly 120 euros (and was not an original screen, otherwise I would have spent more). Just costs much money because of the fucking fingerprint reader under the screen that why couldn't put it in the back of the phone as they did for many years. Broken it again, fuck it I will not repair it again, with the cost of the repair I may as well buy a new phone.
Then I've decided that is worth either spending money on phones whose replacement parts doesn't cost half of the phone itself, or just buying the cheapest Xiaomi or similar chineese brand phone and when it breaks buy a new one or repair it (funny enough cheap phones are more repairable than expensive ones, so I usually repair them).
by alerighi - What they are doing is really great in my opinion. I really hope to see more of this in the future!
- I have a Fairphone 5, chose that mainly because of repairability. :)
- EU regulations already mandate that the batteries should be user-replaceable and other parts easily replaceable. The difference between Fairphone and the competition will narrow in the future.
Except for the fact that Samsung is the 800 pounds gorilla in the smartphone space which you'll know will be around for some time. How long is Fairphone going to last? Maybe the founders want to retire early and sell to the highest bidder.
I'd much rather see them running GrapheneOS or /e/OS on it also.
by hn_submit - There’s a get-out clause in the law that allows your battery not to be required to be user replaceable if it can last 1,000 cycles while remaining at 80+%. Apple’s phones certainly meet that these days, and I imagine Samsung’s will as well (though I’m not sure if silicon carbide changes that at all).by robin_reala
- I've always been a bit curious about Fairphone, but as I only get phones that cost less than $200 (and use them until they physically break), I'll probably never get one.
Still only on my second smartphone, so I'm not worried about producing more e-waste.
by OroPla - Have you considered Pinephone then?by fsflover
- Anyone have any updates on why this device can’t support or get behind Graphene OS? A repairable and secure phone is my desired option for a phone that’s truely mine and I’m sure this is true for many others also.
From my understanding it’s not there as the Graphene team says that fairphone haven’t taken security hardware seriously and there’s key hardware security features missing that means they are not even interested to look at supporting the device.
Keen for latest updates on this, happy to be corrected.
by evolve2k - Someone from GrapheneOS was very active in this thread: [0], here is a response the GrapheneOS person links to themselves: [1]by teekert
- I believe the GrapheneOS team demands, in particular, a security feature called Memory Tagging Extensions (MTE). This feature has a phone's processor attach a "tag" to each memory location saying what's stored there and requires accesses to that memory to bear a matching tag. Buffer overflow type attacks are effectively prevented because a read into the adjoining region having a different tag gets rejected.
This feature is usually NOT present in desktop computers, and has only really been implemented by the Google Pixel hardware so far. It's unclear why it's viewed as being so critically necessary for Graphene: MTE is certainly useful but I personally wouldn't say its absence indicates an "insecure" device, and it imposes both a clear performance (and battery life!) penalty and a significant hardware burden on the SoC manufacturer. It's a pretty significant trade-off.
Anyway, that's the biggest single reason why GrapheneOS devs say "this hardware is not adequately secure": 99% of phone chips are excluded because they do not support MTE.
by Borealid - The recently released Fairphone 6+ runs on Android 16. I had to look that up on Wikipedia, their website doesn't even clearly state that. Android 16 is 14 months old at the moment. Android 17 was released to manufacturers 6 months ago and had a general release 2 months ago.
So why does a brand new phone run an operating system from over a year ago? Does it really take over 6 months to update a phone to a new version of Android?
How am I supposed to believe a company is committing to supporting a phone for a long time when at release it already runs outdated software?
by artisinal - this is 100% in the hands of the SoC manufacturer.
Android versions are locked to kernel versions, which are locked to binary drivers to run your hardware. there's no way around that and you can't reverse engineer or do anything if you want that SoC vendor to continue to fulfill your orders (which you're already at the bottom of the fulfilment list because of low volumes)
by iririririr - The Android version is clearly displayed in the article.by Valord
- Even worse: Google actually does four releases releases per year (major and QPRs), of which QPR2 is also provided to OEMs. Only Samsung and GrapheneOS roll out QPR2 releases.by microtonal
- Certification takes time and probably overlaped with the phone development. Fairephone is small compared to e.g. samsung and they describe themself more "stable" and long-term support than bleeding edge.by kenniskrag
- I belive you are mistaken. Android 17 final was "released" 6-7 weeks ago.
But Google being Google, this release is pretty much useless until Samsung et al deal with all bugs and performance issues, which will take 2-4 months.
by throwa356262 - I am a user. What does Android 17 do for me that 16 doesn't?
- Great what they are doing - yet I found Shiftphone to be also fair, equally or better repairable and even more open for alternative Operating Systems. I think Fairphone supports 2 OSes officially, Shiftphone has a whole custom ROM list of ~10.by mentalgear
- Looks like it has USB3 unlike the Fairphone. How does the SOC/Camera compare?by mixmastamyk