Radboud University selects Fairphone as standard smartphone for employees
ru.nl253 points by ardentsword 5 hours ago
253 points by ardentsword 5 hours ago
As Fairphone owner I have become somewhat sceptical of their repairability claim.
Mine fell on its side on some pebble stones. The power-button, unprotected by the case, got scratched. The button doubles as a fingerprint reader, which ceased working due to the scratch. At first, I thought "no worries, this phone is friendly to those who want to repair it."
It turns out, this part is not available for replacement. I think this is an oversight; just like the screen, it is an outward facing part, hence, bound to be damaged for some.
Then, I brought it to my local repair shop. The owner had to tell me that they cannot repair Fairphone's, and that, for him, it is one of the worst companies to deal with. They try to centralise all repairs in their own repair center. Which means sending the phone -- which I need -- away for 2 weeks; paying a fee for diagnosis, an unknown cost for repair, and the hassle of a flashed phone. I already know what's broken, I just want the part.
I feel this is a real shame, as I am fully supportive of the stated aims of the company, and I want the product to be good.
[Aside: suggestions on how to deal with a scratched fingerprint reader are most welcome. E.g. can the scatch be re-painted? The phone thinks the reader is there, but it doesn't register any touch. ]
I have a friend who bought a fair phone with a view to being able to replace its modular parts. Four years later and the model had been discontinued, so he had to buy a new Fairphone.
Would it more economical and sustainable to buy a second hand / reconditioned feature phone from Samsung?
I bought a Fairphone 3, released in 2019.
The charging port wore out. I bought another one in 2023. They still sell that part today. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-3-bottom-module-37
In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015. First-party parts 10 years later, what a concept! https://shop.fairphone.com/spare-parts
I don't know your friend's scenario, but this was mine.
It's not an either-or, like "either buy first-party parts for a Fairphone OR buy a second-hand Samsung". You can buy a second-hand Fairphone too. It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
My previous phone was a second-hand iPhone SE for which I had screen, power button, big button and battery replaced at various times. I think the battery was third-party & new, but the other parts were also 2nd+ hand. I don't know about newer models, and presumably there are other things that are more "fair" about the fairphone, but it doesn't have a monopoly on repairability in my experience.
You did all those repairs to your iphone yourself? I imagine that was significantly more technically difficult than repairing a Fairphone, which is made to be _user_ serviceable.
No, I went to a local electronics shop. I don't have a pile of decommissioned phones in my house, nor the eyesight or hand-steadiness for fixing things that small. User-serviceable is definitely a distinction, but I suspect family members would expect me to be their technician anyway, and I'd point them to the electronics shop due to physical issues above, and fear of bricking their devices.
I bought a second hand Fairphone, and I'm very happy with it, except that my wife, a colleague of mine, and some friends of ours now also gave Fairphones, so when one buzzes we all instinctively check our pockets because they all sound the same...
I also bought headphones from the same company, and while they're probably not the best for audio quality, it was great being able to repair them when the headband broke. Generally, I'm a very happy Fairphone customer.
> when one buzzes we all instinctively check our pockets because they all sound the same
Isn't that the same for every brand? I have a friend who worked in cybersecurity in a certain phone company and was getting very stressed whenever my phone, which happened to be from the same brand, was ringing :D
I guess one can change the default sound, isn't that the case with fairphones?
I have a Samsung Moto, and it has a very default ringtone, not really a tone since it says "Hello, Moto" which is embarrassing but I haven't made the effort to switch tones, at any rate while I will be confused if someone in proximity to me gets a call on their Moto, my experience they don't have to be very far from me before I realize instinctively, that sound is far enough away it can't be my phone, although it irritates me nonetheless.
And I've been seated eating with people who had the same phones and I realized no, it must be their phone (although I feel a strong urge to check), because my ears are able to determine direction of a sound.
I'm also old and keep getting told I'm going deaf, so my question is, are people really not able to tell it's not their phone or are they just not thinking it through before checking.
Samsung Moto? Two different companies with very different phones. I'm surprised that such a mutant exists. Reads to me Car (with square wheels).
Moto is the only big brand I ever consider for a phone, while Samsung has never been as much as a consideration. Moto has had, which is changing, a bit of freedom - enough to tweak it into resembling a pure android experience. Samsung is incorrigibly infested - and if they ever start giving phones to prisoners, they'll be Samsung.
It's less the sound, and more the buzz when it's on vibration. I've never found a way of changing that, unfortunately. It's probably true for other brands, but I've never really had a phone that other people have also used, whereas now I'm in a (very small) bubble that seems to be happily converging on Fairphones...
> It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
I managed to have the curved screen in my 2017 Galaxy S8 replaced in 2023 or so. I don't recall there being an alternative manufacturer of those.
For flagships at least there seems to be a pool of new-old-stock parts.
This is what makes sense. You want to be able to replace the charging port, screen, and camera. And of-course update the software, where software stability is IMHO the weakest point of Fairphone.
If the logic board breaks, you want to upgrade to the newest chip model you can get. Because third-party software becomes slower every year. If you want a phone to last as long as possible, thus getting the latest chip. For Fairphone it is more interesting, since they use a particular Snapdragon model range with longer driver support.
The elephant in the room is of-course software getting too slow and developer not optimizing their apps.
> In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015.
You can still source an iPhone 4s screen+digitizer assembly on eBay for a reasonable price. There is, however, little practical value of it in everyday use.
> It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
You can? They're happy to repair even 7+ year old phones, I'm sure there's a cutoff but I haven't heard of anyone running into it. Might depend on the country though. Unless you mean buying those parts separately but they don't even let you do that for new phones, so "years after they're released" doesn't matter then.
It's nice that Samsung repair phones, I also don't know how long for, but you can't rely that they always will, and not all phone manufacturers are Samsung. You shouldn't have to rely on the whims of the manufacturer.
This is why phones should be modular so the parts that wear/break first are replaceable, and also why those parts should be available to you and third parties, not gatekept by the manufacturer. Repair companies can then stockpile parts themselves, instead of having to scavenge from dead phones, to repair your existing phone even when the manufacturer refuses.
> Four years later and the model had been discontinued
Which model? Was it the FP1? It sounds like your friend was extremely unlucky - FP2 is 11 years old & there's still (a limited subset of) parts for sale for it (display & camera). FP3 (7yo model) still has all the parts for sale.
That said - I'm critical of another aspect of device longevity: software support. I upgraded from my (still working) FP3 to the FP5 because apps I needed stopped working on the highest version of Android supported by FP3. That Android version is still officially supported by Fairphone & receiving security updates but without major version upgrades the app support can be problematic. Obviously that's ultiamtely the fault of bad app devs, but ultimately it's hard to overcome.
>ultimately the fault of bad app devs
More like google's fault. They made a huge mess of completely different permission and behaviour changes between 11, 12, 13. At least since 14 they have stopped fucking around so much.
It is really much simpler for us to cut off all versions before 12, but it's unfeasible. So many devices still with 10/11. Now we cut off at 8.1, but will increase that every year starting next year as google mandates us an increase of minimum sdk version.
I don't like how companies behave like that and basically push users to upgrade their phones
Garmin in particular makes it mandatory to use their app for SOME connected functionalities (while others work just fine on wifi or wifi tethering). They unsupported old version of android for the garmin connect app pretty fast (my mom's phone was incompatible within 4 years of its release) while they don't support you to connect older devices on newer phones and say they know it doesn't work.
As a user, I don't care whose fault it is.
I ditched both Google in favour of degooglized android on older Xiaomi and Pixel phones that support custom ROMs, and Garmin for any sport equipment.
My next phone will be a Fairphone if they make something with a smaller screen.
I don't know which app you're doing, but I would most likely permanently just not download it or find an open source alternative if it stopped working for me, as no app is essential. Pay attention to the user-base, in particular is your app is supposed to work with a web of users.
What apps?
I use a FP3 too, but I am a little surprised
I don't know for fair phone but I was not able to install tailscale for my old Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet. Fortunately I was able to install an XDA rom
They are currently on the Fairphone 6, and at least in Germany the official online store still sells a wide selection of parts for the Fairphones 3-6, and the display and camera for the Fairphone 2.
Sure, you don't get meaningful hardware upgrades (apparently there were some small ones), and Fairphone are far from the only ones selling spare parts for their phones. But in terms of keeping old phones alive with authentic parts and easy to execute disassembly steps, they are pretty good
I guess maybe if the comparison you're looking at is the one you mentioned? Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.
That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things): - USB charger broke after getting mortar in it - Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen - Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!) - Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.
If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.
So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.
Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.
Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.
> Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.
That's a fallacy. By buying second hand, you enable the second hand market (people get better prices for selling their first hand phones). There are users who always buy the latest iPhones (or other flagship device) and sell their previous one. In effect you, as a second hand buyer, use the devices in the second part of their full lifetime, the first buyer uses the device in the first part. The device is used the full duration of its usability, which is good, but it's not better than if the first buyer would use it for the full duration. Nothing is saved overall.
Many repair shops will replace your screen and battery for you. It’s pretty standard. You don’t need a Fair phone to do that.
That's true-ish. The repairability of phones varies a lot, with some even having batteries glued into the model.
If you're just considering repairability, a fairphone is almost certainly one of your best options. But like you point out, that doesn't mean all other options can't be repaired at all.
A friend of mine had a broken finger print reader (a few cents online), he couldn't find any repair shop who wanted to repair it (probably because the display would have to removed).
I don't know about Android phones but how often does FaceID/TouchID break? I'd bet it's extremely rare.
I personally don't think it's worth it to buy a Fair phone for the extremely low chance that a component breaks and you can't get it repaired.
> I personally don't think it's worth it to buy a Fair phone for the extremely low chance that a component breaks and you can't get it repaired.
I might be misreading you, but this comes across a little like "that one use case doesn't prove you need a fairphone so don't buy a fairphone".
I don't think most people are evaluating tech like that. Only a zealot is going to consider a fairphone as the only option, they probably are looking at a bunch of criteria and options.
There's no correct answer to "what phone should I buy?" in a way that could be proven / argued for. I think people here are just saying fairphones have great repairability.
> Second hand normally beats everything else
Well, also buying out-of-production new phones (i.e. 1 or 2 gen behind) it's saving phones to be e-waste without having been used even once. Although I guess that companies manage stocks also with this signal in mind, so a 2nd-hand is always better.
Environmentally speaking, (re)using existing hardware / buying second hand probably beats everything.
Absolutely. If you want to even pretend to care about the environment, the very first step is starting to buy almost everything over $100 second hand. The added benefit is that it has lots of other societally positive effects! It has one of the very highest "sacrifices made vs. societal benefit" ratios there is. Please stop buying "environmentally friendly" gadgets and equipment and start buying "unfriendly" ones second-hand. There are very few categories of products where the efficiency gains made over the last decade mean you should buy new. Certainly less than 1% of purchases we make.
I do that but I also feel kinda bad since I feel I’m taking it instead of someone else who’s more budget constrained than me
You shouldn't, really. I don't think there's shortage in the second hand market. We probably need more people reusing stuff.
What matters is how long devices are used, not how often the owner changes.
That's right, and buying new and taking very good care of your stuff + using to the point of being unusable probably beats serial-buying second hand devices you mistreat.
There has to be second hand users tough, otherwise the second hand devices that, for a reason or another, are not used to the end by their original buyer never get used again.
I bought a Fairphone 3+ years ago and, as much as I want to support this company, it was a huge disappointment. I switched to an iPhone after using it for less than three years, which is less than the life span I was hoping to use it for.
Within a year, the USB port wore out. Contacted the support as the phone was under warranty and was given two options: Order the replacement part online and get reimbursed for it. Or send the entire phone back, but it would get wiped clean.
I had some data that wasn't backed up and didn't want to loose, and because I couldn't charge it, I decided to go for the first option. It's supposed to be easily reparable, why go through the hassle of sending it back? Well the problem was that the part was unavailable on their store for months. I even looked at third party stores, that specific part couldn't be found anywhere in Europe. After three months of having a "repairable" paperweight on my desk, the part was finally available and I could change it (replacing it took seconds and I've done it while sitting at a café, gotta give credit to Fairphone for that).
Meanwhile, I see my friends with their iPhones getting them repaired within a few days or even the same day! Battery change, charging port replacement, screen change, etc. All could be easily and quickly done by a local repair shop.
In the end I realised it's not about how easy it is to repair your phone, it's about the availability of spare parts. iPhones, especially a few years ago, make it difficult to be repaired. Yet, they are the easiest to get repaired. Fairphone's spare parts are specific to their phones, and even specific to some models. Using generic parts or having some compatible across models would create more need for them = more parts available.
I guess it was a Fairphone 2 from 2015? They are still selling screens, cases and camera modules but not the rest of the parts unfortunately:
https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?categ...
I often wonder why there still hasn't been a YC-backed attempt to disrupt the "replace your phone every couple of years because your battery became slower" cartel in 2026. Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Am I missing something? I've kept the iPhones I bought for 6 years or so. I replaced the battery on each phone, and all it cost me was 50€ and half an hour waiting for the local non-Apple phone shop to do the work. That surely counts as batteries being replaceable in all but name?
I'm happy that worked out for you, but the whole cryptography signature of Apple batteries that throttle your phone if you get the wrong one is VERY different from "just pop out the back and get your new battery in".
I feel like the price Apple charges for batteries is very reasonable. I kept my phone going for 4.5 years thanks to a battery replacement 2 years in. They’re basically doing it at cost, considering parts and labour.
Also, your information is slightly out of date. It’s possible to do the replacement yourself if you want. Here’s an ifixit guide based on apples official repair guide - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+17+Battery+Replacement/1...
> Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Is there very visible success of Framework? How many people in your everyday live have you encountered with a Framework laptop?
I love there mission, but Framework from all the feedback from users online seems to still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience.
> a YC-backed attempt
If any successful attempt would be launched, there would be no reason for it to go through YC. In the mass consumer hardware market their little funding and the network they provide doesn't do much. I would strongly assume that a challenger would appear in a similar form as it did with framework with nrp.
>still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience
That would product that I and countless others would be gladly willing to buy on the smartphone market.
Is the average Framework truly more environmentally than an average MacBook.
MacBooks tend to last a long time. I used my 2012 Macbook Air for 7-8 years easily. It's still working today. My M1 Pro 16" has had no issues at all for nearly 4 years. They’re extremely reliable (except butterfly era).
Personally, I don’t think Framework laptops are. I think they are only more environmentally if you upgrade your MacBook every year or every other year. I think this is extremely niche. Not only are you getting a laptop with much worse battery life, noise, heat, screen, build quality, you are also getting a significantly slower CPU and GPU. AMD and Intel chips simply can't keep up with Apple Silicon.
Yes, it absolutely is. Fair phones won't be scrapped because the company killed them remotely like MacBooks: https://www.vice.com/en/article/apple-macbook-activation-loc...
I don't know I had contemplated buying a second hand macbook for a family member and...most macbook available in the second hand market have hardware issues. Every time I checked laptops in the 300-500euros price range it was easier to find a lenovo thinkpad, dell latitude, or fujitsu in good conditions with a fresh new battery and ssd installed than it was finding a macbook.
They are reliable but, are they marketed as such? How many HNers are routinely upgrading their 3 years old MBP just because they can and they want a new one? I bet many
Because phones are incredibly cheap and its hard to compete with that.
You can get something like a "Motorola Moto G86 5G" for less than 200$ and that comes with a 120 hz full hd screen, 8 gigs of ram, 5200 mAh battery and so on. Basically everything you could ever need unless you're deep into photography or gaming. Instead of ordering a battery at 40$ and replacing it, I might as well buy an entire new phone and get a minor upgrade on everything every few years.
Because people who don't want to buy a shiny gadget every couple of years and would rather pay more upfront and use for longer are a small minority.
My wife has a Fairphone 4, released 2021. The earpiece broke. I ordered a replacement; it arrived within 3 days and was very easy to replace. So a good experience with that.
The easily replacable parts feature sounds like it'd work great in a university context. The uni's service desk could stock up on replacement parts and fix the phones right there instead of having to send it in for repairs.
If e.g. someone's mainboard breaks, they can just give them a new phone and take in the old one, and then use the remaining parts to repair other employees' phones with working mainboards.
Same as any other major employer, surely? At least, you’re describing how it works at my previous employer (large private enterprise).
Universities in the Netherlands usually do not have the free cash for stocking up on parts, in general they take them in your get a loaner and they repair it afterwards or send it back to the manufacturer. But i guess it is a plus the design team is in the same country.
Seeing news like this, I wonder whether there is a market for an OSS Android and/or Linux distribution that provides the management comfort of Chromebooks without being tied to Google, Apple or Microsoft. A little like Keycloak but one layer higher.
With all the US/EU issues currently, you might even be able to spin up a company to support European services that need management based on OSS management software.
Ubuntu is pretty strong already in that niche - either using Landscape as a first party management solution, but it also tends to be the distro most-commonly recommended by the big third-party MDM vendors like Scalefusion and Jumpcloud. Not sure what their mobile story is like, but they certainly cover laptop / desktops.
If Android is not a blocker, maybe even then, Jolla, a Finnish company, has been offering a Linux based mobile OS for quite some time. I frankly don't get why other EU companies building the hardware, like Fairphone and Volta, don't partner up with them.
> Android
> without being tied to Google
That's a contradiction.
No. I'm on GrapheneOS and not tied to Google.
You must be thinking of the Google Play Services but these aren't required by GrapheneOS.
No, we're thinking about the fact that Android is Google owned and developed and no removal of Play Services changes that.
Every Android ROM is critically dependant on Googles work to actually develop and secure the OS.
It is tied to google inasmuch all target phones are google branded. https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices
Hopefully that can change, in the future
As long as it depends on Google paying upstream development that GrapheneOS updates from, it is tied to Google.
Now if GrapheneOS was its own thing without additional AOSP code updates.
This becomes sophistry, though. "tied to" in a way that doesn't matter, doesn't matter.
Ah but it does, as Google can decide to close down AOSP shop at any moment.
If that happens, the world can always try to fork. Until then it seems kind of pointless to do so?
Try is the keyword here.
Hence why these efforts should not rely on US institutions good will in first place.
Can try to fork?, china , russia, and lots of smaller countrys are steadily moving away and as basic introperability standards for phone and internet will remain, they can do this, and pressure is also mounting to get a linux phone fully functional, that will alao happen. And in a world where Guggappl is providing genocide and abduction services, Billions would happily choose other alternatives.
China and Russia are likewise involved in their own genocides (Uyghurs and Ukraine respectively), and they are just as interested in developing centralised systems of control. They will not give the world truly free and open platform.
The day they do that, Android will just be a Chinese product and Google will lose control over it.
Huawei took control of its own destiny instead of relying on Google forks.
Indeed and if Google would pull the plug on AOSP, some initiative like this would become the de facto Android standard.