• Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    I have an FP4 and I love it. I only ever have problems with the fingerprint sensor when my hands are dirty or overly sweaty. The camera works rather well to be honest, but I did replace the app with the Googled one.

    I can’t speak to Android Auto, 'cause I’ve never used it, and don’t know what ARKit is. I do heavily use Google (and Organic) Maps though, and I find the accuracy of both the GPS and compass to be quite good.

    Honestly, I generally find the hardware to be pretty solid and have been using it since the FP4 was released without issue. I connect it to my computer to transfer Very Large Files all the time, and regularly push a lot of data through the wifi.

    I’ve been abusing the shit out of the battery though, so I just ordered a replacement one. Something most phones still can’t do. It’s Fairphone’s killer feature in my book.

    I’m not posting this to invalidate your experience, just to demonstrate that there are others who feel differently.

    • gencha@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      ARKit is what allows you to use augmented reality features in certain apps. It’s niche, but it’s rare not to be available.

      I thought for the longest time that the fingerprint sensor is right when it complains that I should clean it. Have you ever tried to clean it by rubbing it? Causing it to lock down because it interpreted the input as a quick series of invalid fingerprints? Because that’s what kept happening to me. After several times of this happening, the next time I just rebooted the device. After reboot, it unlocked on the first try, without me having to clean or dry anything.

      When you just wanted to pay a bill, and suddenly you can’t unlock your banking app because of this, it’s quite annoying. Now you need the app password. Okay, let’s pull it out of the password manager. Oh right, you can’t unlock that either now. So let’s enter the 100 characters master key again.

      I’m truly happy for every other owner who never went through this 😄

      The camera is not terrible, but the missing stabilization frequently leads to blurry images. In low light it’s almost pointless to even try. I was used to better image quality from phones when FP4 was released. They could have done better for the price.

      I’m actually glad to hear that you were able to exercise the ability to replace a part. I’m sure others have too. I should put that more into consideration next time I come the subject.

      I appreciate you took the time to give a different perspective. So I wanted to provide a bit more context from my experience.