Fairphone 5 goes official with 5 years warranty, up to 10 years of software support [GSMArena]

[Shou Miko]

You don't buy a Fairphone for what it's worth in terms of price. If I had to choose another phone, I'd probably go for one in the 500-600€ range, not 700€ like the Fairphone 5. The extra price of Fairphone phones is justified by the value you place on ecological and social impact.
I gotta admit that the S23 are really appealing and are smaller, i like smaller phone in general.

I went down in size from a iPhone 12 Pro Max to the S23 and I haven't regretting it one bit.

I enjoy a phone that I can actually have in my big hands and is still solid and won't cost me like like 1200ish pounds, I paid like half for mine so I am happy.

It's not a iphone no but it still do everything I want.

 

[Kyan]

Hi there, I've got my Fairphone 5 since christmas and it works great. Not the best experience on the market for sure but having the peace of mind if something broke while having a capable and modern phone is really nice.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

it costs €700/£650 (up from €580/£500 for the previous model)

Nice, they certainly upped the price a bit. Not really fair that is it.

I'd like to see anyone using this past 5 years, let alone 10, it will be a dinosaur compared to phones in ten years. Imagine the condition of a ten year old phone too, it will be battered.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Neat, but will there be a US release, with proper support for our carriers? And any word on a larger battery option ala the old zerolemon designs?

Battery life and software support are coming to an end for my Pixel 3a and all of the potential replacements are far too big for my liking.
Early rumours are that the Pixel 8 (non-pro) will be a 6" edge-to-edge display and the 8a might be even smaller than that.

I do understand that some people play games or watch a lot of media on their phones and will want a large device, but there are so many devices that cater to that audience already, and so few that cater to the market segment that is actually huge; People who mostly just want a camera, mapping, a search engine, and messaging in the most unobtrusive package possible.

Honestly, if Apple, Google, or Samsung made a 4" phone I guaran-f***ing-tee you it would sell. Not everyone wants to game or watch movies on their phone. The fact that the Galaxy Z flip and RAZR+ are a thing is because people *do* want smaller phones - enough to overlook the drawbacks of an insane price tag and compromised screen with a crease in the middle of it. Can we just have a small phone without the fragile, non-waterproof, non-dustproof folding screen please?

Apple made the Iphone mini. It made up 3% of iphone sales. The basic SE sold TWICE what the mini sold.

These mini phones are just like their audience: small.

Irrelevant, its still carried by a system that forces companies to always sell and earn more than they did before. Greenwashing 2.0

And because of that, it is all marketing. Not reality. We just love to believe it.

10 years of software support is "just marketing"? Cheap, easily replaceable parts is "greenwashing"?



I get being cynical but then there is just plain dumb. This is, objectively, a major improvement over the status quo.

And after over half a decade of publicly traded, capitalist companies burning literal BILLIONS of dollars chasing Economic Social Goals, when will you realize that "a system that forces companies to always sell and earn more than they did before" is complete and utter horseshat spewed by activists with no understanding of markets nor manipulation?

Hi there, I've got my Fairphone 5 since christmas and it works great. Not the best experience on the market for sure but having the peace of mind if something broke while having a capable and modern phone is really nice.

I didnt even realize this thread was necro'd. LMAO.

What is your battery life like? reviews said it was rather poor.

 

[Chrispy_]

Apple made the Iphone mini. It made up 3% of iphone sales. The basic SE sold TWICE what the mini sold.

That's still 5 million sales of an overpriced phone. At $749 it was only $100 cheaper than the full-sized iPhone 12, despite the reduced screen and battery specs. It was a mini phone with a hungry processor, an inadequate battery, and a maxi pricetag.

The SE sold well because it was actually a bargain by Apple standards (not a bargain by any other definition)

 

[Shou Miko]

Talking about iPhone's if this design for the iPhone 16 holds up, I might just change my S23 to a iPhone 16 I really like the way the camera lenses on this photo:

 

[freeagent]

I like my iPhones.. the rest is just imitation

I kid..

I have a 14 Pro 1TB and I like it. I will probably get a 17.

I am using iOS 18 right now, its running pretty well.

 

[silentbogo]

While 10 years of support sounds like a good thing, I still stand with a point I made for older fairphones: it's no more than a niche gimmick.
Some may not remember, but we've already had a bunch of very modular and very repairable phones, but the crude reality is - the majority of people don't care because most phones are still repaired by repair technicians.
One of my favorite examples is LG G5. It came out when most manufacturers already migrated to gluing everything together, it had an easily-swappable battery and even came with a second battery in the box. LCD replacement only required you to undo 2 screws, and it had a potential for expandability with modules (plus it was a decent phone on its own, without repairability considerations). Even though it sold more units than current Fairphone without marketing itself as "the most repairable smartphone ever-r-r-r", and miraculously still has most critical parts like LCD modules, batteries and speakers still on sale, it still did not manage to go past its "usability" barrier after only 5 years. Heck, I still get quite a few iPhone 6/7/7+, older Huaweis and Xiaomis, but not a single LG G5 (or fairphone for that matter). The main problem - high initial investment and high initial price of parts. Even though it costs pennies to bring one to life today, back in let's say 2017 it'd cost you quite a bit to get a new screen for G5.
A Fairphone with it's flagship price and non-flagship spec is doomed from the very beginning. While LCD module is relatively "fairly-priced", everything else is not. I'd rather charge customer for few of my work-minutes with IPA and spudger and get him/her a $10-15 battery for their Samsung/Xiaomi/Realme/whatever, rather than spend $40 on an "easily-replaceable" option that may not even be available in my country.

 

[micropage7]

10 years software support? interesting how they gonna pair little old hardware and latest software
i hope they do it right and not leaving bugs from update to another update

 

[mb194dc]

You can just buy a phone you can root and put custom OS on it. Then you've got support as long as the hardware lasts.

 

[_JP_]

What is your battery life like? reviews said it was rather poor.

It's not awesome, but it is not terrible either and I do get their "have a second one at hand", but I guess it applies more if you lack a powerbank or a USB-c power source generally. Not my case. I have it on "battery-save" mode, which charges it to 85%, and slow charging which is fine for my routine.
Not adequate for traveling, though.
I usually have a full day's worth of battery time, sometimes the next morning if I didn't use the phone that much.

One aspect is the screen, that consumes a lot while at max brightness or thereabouts.
It helps to have it manage it automatically with the sensors. Fairphone says they are looking into it. The brightness changes are a bit too instant (really finicky in my experience), which is fine from dark to bright, but not so much the other way around. and even then lowering it to 60hz also does a difference.
When driving at night with the phone as GPS, just the street lamps are enough to make it change brightness slightly, which is distracting at first. But I now ignore it.

I've also read that WiFi scanning is another sources of heavy consumption, but it's only avoidable if you turn off the "Auto-on with home network" and Google's constant use of WiFi for localization. Just toggling it off does nothing unless those features are off.

The camera app also melts battery life like crazy, though Fairphone says they're improving it.

I don't use the phone for gaming, so I do not know how well it does in that regard.

 

[Kyan]

While 10 years of support sounds like a good thing, I still stand with a point I made for older fairphones: it's no more than a niche gimmick.
Some may not remember, but we've already had a bunch of very modular and very repairable phones, but the crude reality is - the majority of people don't care because most phones are still repaired by repair technicians.
One of my favorite examples is LG G5. It came out when most manufacturers already migrated to gluing everything together, it had an easily-swappable battery and even came with a second battery in the box. LCD replacement only required you to undo 2 screws, and it had a potential for expandability with modules (plus it was a decent phone on its own, without repairability considerations). Even though it sold more units than current Fairphone without marketing itself as "the most repairable smartphone ever-r-r-r", and miraculously still has most critical parts like LCD modules, batteries and speakers still on sale, it still did not manage to go past its "usability" barrier after only 5 years. Heck, I still get quite a few iPhone 6/7/7+, older Huaweis and Xiaomis, but not a single LG G5 (or fairphone for that matter). The main problem - high initial investment and high initial price of parts. Even though it costs pennies to bring one to life today, back in let's say 2017 it'd cost you quite a bit to get a new screen for G5.
A Fairphone with it's flagship price and non-flagship spec is doomed from the very beginning. While LCD module is relatively "fairly-priced", everything else is not. I'd rather charge customer for few of my work-minutes with IPA and spudger and get him/her a $10-15 battery for their Samsung/Xiaomi/Realme/whatever, rather than spend $40 on an "easily-replaceable" option that may not even be available in my country.

I've made the jump to a fairphone because I wasn't that much out of power on my Honor 9 6 years after it release. And seing how phone have evolve in term of hardware and with my experience (I have intalled lineage "android 10" on a galaxy tab S2 and it works). Having official support for at least 5 major android version over 8 years is everything I want right now, I just use it to make some research, email, watching youtube/video and playing some old game (not 3D).

Neat, but will there be a US release, with proper support for our carriers? And any word on a larger battery option ala the old zerolemon designs?

After the CEO change some month ago, one of the new goal is to reach more people and make a 400€ phone.
There's more in this article, I'm gonna read it too but here's the TLDR :

• Fairphone’s new CEO says he wants to release a €400 smartphone.
• That would be a €300 price drop from the Fairphone 5.
• The CEO also said he wants the company to expand to 23 new markets.

Fairphone is working on a cheap, widely available Android phone (Update: Company statement) (androidauthority.com)

What is your battery life like? reviews said it was rather poor.

As _JP_ said, it's exactly that. I use it with the 80% battery lock settings and battery saving mode and it last the day, I could carry my power bank and use it without battery saving mode. The sad thing is that battery saing mode down the screen refresh rate to 90Hz. If it was possible to have 90Hz with battery saving mode it will be perfect for me.
I'm gonna try disabling "always on display" and use it without battery saving to see how it goes.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

HMD Fusion may also become a competitor to Fairphone because it also aims for repairability of the components that break down first.
Some parts of the HMD Fusion are modular. That is not the only feature of a Fairphone but it is one of its main features.
HMD Fusion has the advantage of low price and 'outfits' that add extra features to the device.

 

[dgianstefani]

it costs €700/£650 (up from €580/£500 for the previous model)

Nice, they certainly upped the price a bit. Not really fair that is it.

I'd like to see anyone using this past 5 years, let alone 10, it will be a dinosaur compared to phones in ten years. Imagine the condition of a ten year old phone too, it will be battered.

It's already a dinosaur. Specs are horrific. Low end phones around £250 do better.

If it was a situation like Framework where you can swap the mainboard for a faster model, sure, but another missed opportunity there.

 

[_JP_]

One aspect is the screen, that consumes a lot while at max brightness or thereabouts.
It helps to have it manage it automatically with the sensors. Fairphone says they are looking into it. The brightness changes are a bit too instant (really finicky in my experience), which is fine from dark to bright, but not so much the other way around. and even then lowering it to 60hz also does a difference.
When driving at night with the phone as GPS, just the street lamps are enough to make it change brightness slightly, which is distracting at first. But I now ignore it.

Quick update: The Android 14 update made massive improvements on this aspect. Works exactly as expected now (really smooth, otherwise unnoticeable) and lower lighting is compensated with contrast if you have the visual enhancement options on (plus, I have colors on 'vivid'). Haven't had a scenario where I couldn't read the screen and this is even with their glass with privacy protection on top of it. Not using 90Hz refresh rate was never a dealbreaker for me, anyway. I can tell the difference, ever since the transition of 85~120Hz CRTs, but I don't use the phone so much that it is a concern for eye-sight.
Haven't made a full test of the camera app again in really hot weather to understand if it still drains the battery and overheats the phone, but on the next trip I will.

It's already a dinosaur. Specs are horrific. Low end phones around £250 do better.

If it was a situation like Framework where you can swap the mainboard for a faster model, sure, but another missed opportunity there.

The motherboard alone is replaceable. If Fairphone decides to do a "5s" or a 6 and maintains the physical format, for current 5 owners it could just take a motherboard swap.

 

[Kyan]

Quick update: The Android 14 update made massive improvements on this aspect. Works exactly as expected now (really smooth, otherwise unnoticeable) and lower lighting is compensated with contrast if you have the visual enhancement options on (plus, I have colors on 'vivid'). Haven't had a scenario where I couldn't read the screen and this is even with their glass with privacy protection on top of it.

Since the android 14 update, my auto brightness in dark environnement don't work properly, it won't go lower than 1/4 and worst, in complete darkness it can go up to 1/2 luminosity for whatever reason. I think I'm gonna do a report on the community forum and see if I'm the only one with this problem or if there is a way to make it work properly.

As _JP_ said, it's exactly that. I use it with the 80% battery lock settings and battery saving mode and it last the day, I could carry my power bank and use it without battery saving mode. The sad thing is that battery saing mode down the screen refresh rate to 90Hz. If it was possible to have 90Hz with battery saving mode it will be perfect for me.
I'm gonna try disabling "always on display" and use it without battery saving to see how it goes.

It was in fact the "always on display" that was causing the bad autonomy. I still use it with 80% battery lock without power saving to have the 90Hz and I have no complain.

 

[dgianstefani]

The motherboard alone is replaceable. If Fairphone decides to do a "5s" or a 6 and maintains the physical format, for current 5 owners it could just take a motherboard swap.

They have never done this in any of the previous versions and I highly doubt they will start.

 

[lexluthermiester]

10 year software support... should be a law.

That would be nice. Good luck making that happen..

 

[_JP_]

Since the android 14 update, my auto brightness in dark environnement don't work properly, it won't go lower than 1/4 and worst, in complete darkness it can go up to 1/2 luminosity for whatever reason.

Is the phone screen close to your face or near any front-screen facing surface when that happens?
Because that happens with every phone I've had with auto-dim and a fordward-facing sensor if even in absolute dark, the slightest reflection of the screen's light close to the sensor will trigger the screen to go brighter. Putting the phone just a bit away and it will dim.

They have never done this in any of the previous versions (...).

That is a fact (albeit the 3+ was a camera upgrade, not a full SoC upgrade, but still), and what I've said is a possibility, adding to your "if" scenario in the previous reply. If it happens or not, depends on the new CEO's decisions. But my opinion regarding it is more positive than yours.
Also, I have a Sammy A32 for a work phone, which was a 250€ phone and it's complete e-waste in comparison. Even my previous work phone, a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite was better but still capped fast when fully using an enterprise-related config.
While I do agree that specs are on the average side for its price, for non-specific tasks/general phone use, the performance is rather good. And I understand the cost is there for prioritizing longevity, not performance.

 

[chrcoluk]

Really great video about Fairphone and the Fairphone 5. It really confirm my choice for my next phone.

Last time I didn't have real problem with my Honor 9 but now, one of my app require android 10 and I'm stuck with android 9 since 2019 (thanks Huawei), so I simply can't use it anymore.
Seeing the Fairphone 2 getting android 10 in 2023 after launching in 2015 is really impressive, and makes me kinda sad about my situation

It is interesting the media when talking about phones are very "anti bulk", this particular youtuber seems to hate bulk.

However everyone I know finds modern phones too thin, and so they bulk them up with phone covers, I also hate screens that go over the edge, I like thicker bezels, and this fairphone seems to have all of that, removable battery yes please. I actually have a very hard time picking up my current phone without the cover, it just slips out of my hand as its too curved and thin. Yet manufacturers seem obsessed with thin curvy phones, and most of the media as well, I feel they think style is more important than function. Screen going over the edge I feel is one of the most gimmicky ideas ever, I dont see any benefit with it.

 

[Kyan]

It is interesting the media when talking about phones are very "anti bulk", this particular youtuber seems to hate bulk.

However everyone I know finds modern phones too thin, and so they bulk them up with phone covers, I also hate screens that go over the edge, I like thicker bezels, and this fairphone seems to have all of that, removable battery yes please. I actually have a very hard time picking up my current phone without the cover, it just slips out of my hand as its too curved and thin. Yet manufacturers seem obsessed with think phones, and most of the media as well, I feel they think style is more important than function.

I've decided to use my fairphone 5 without any cover, only a protection screen. It is indeed big and a bit slippery but the size help a lot olding it more easily. I just wish phones go back to a more reasonable size.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

10 year software support... should be a law.

Id be happy with 5-8 years.

Cuz think about it. By the 5th or 6th year, the battery on your phone probably has the same battery capacity of a small lemon.

Sourcing a legit battery can be costly or a bit of a minefield with the amount of fakes being sold, Then you'd need to find someone who will do the swap for you if you cant do it yourself.

The only way this is going to work is if the manufacturer also guarantees a battery swap as part of the warranty cover, either for free or at a reduced rate in conjunction with the extended software support policy.

Youre not going to daily an 6-10 year old phone if the battery life isnt going to be able to keep up with you.

10 years is just going to be a waste of money and resources when most people are upgrading their phones either every year or every three to four years.

Dont get me wrong. 10 years is nice but its not really required.

Id be happy to pay a little extra if a battery swap/replacement was included in the warranty, but this would mean also extending warranty coverage. So maybe sell it as part of an extended warranty and software support package??

 

[Kyan]

Is the phone screen close to your face or near any front-screen facing surface when that happens?
Because that happens with every phone I've had with auto-dim and a fordward-facing sensor if even in absolute dark, the slightest reflection of the screen's light close to the sensor will trigger the screen to go brighter. Putting the phone just a bit away and it will dim.

It can be my protection screen that is mismatch by 0,05mm and is close to the sensor. Can I take it off and put it back on ?

 

[_JP_]

It can be my protection screen that is mismatch by 0,05mm and is close to the sensor. Can I take it off and put it back on ?

Usually yes, and results are the same if you manage to not have any dust in the screen and glass. And mine also drifted, somehow from having it in the pants' pocket during the summer, but I'm not having the issue.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Read through the review on it and the battery life appears to be atrocious.

The battery is definitely a letdown though. It put in some of the worst performances I've seen on our CNET drain tests and I'd be concerned about getting through a day of mixed use. It dropped by 16% after 45 minutes of mixed use, including gaming and web browsing...

That's what I get from my 7 year old S8 on the original battery. After about 30-40 minutes of light gaming, browsing, use of a few apps for couple minutes and email checking I see the battery level drop 15% on my phone and here I thought my battery was crap because it's so old.