There’s been a lot of buzz here about the Fairphone here lately, especially with it coming to the US.
On paper, it seems rather nice. Ethically sourced, privacy friendly stock ROM.
But the skeptic in me does say, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.”
What are the drawbacks of Fairphone that seem to be shunned away, or less discussed both by the company and community at large? Why shouldn’t I just buy a Pixel 7a and put GrapheneOS on it instead?
I’d like to set the record straight, since you’ve made some pretty large leaps and factual errors which I hope doesn’t mislead anyone else.
Disclaimer before I start: I have a Fairphone 4, I’m probably one of the first to get it in North America (especially Canada), and I’m the first Fairphone Angel in that region. So yeah, I’m biased in favour of Fairphone, but I get nothing out of supporting them.
The Fairphone 2 got 7 years of support, the Fairphone 3 just got it’s 5 years promise upgraded to 7. They make no promises about how timely the updates are, but they do keep your phone usable for 7 years if “usable” is defined as “having reasonably up to date Android security patches”. This doesn’t work for everyone, since some workplaces require very timely security updates, but I think that’s a quite reasonable niche to miss for a small company with much more limited resources than the big two phone companies. On the other hand I can confirm first hand that CalyxOS has had very quick turnaround for Fairphone 4 Android security patches (e.g. it’s July 12th, I just installed Android’s July security patch).
Firmware updates aren’t the only sort of security patch. You drill this point home a bit more in your linked post as well, as though firmware is the only thing that determines whether a phone is secure. Blame the SoC makers for that, if you must, but Fairphone has not made any claims about firmware updates in that 5-7 year promise.
Fairphone 3 and 3+ are the same phone for most intents and purposes. The 3+ has an upgraded camera module and DAC [citation needed], but the base software/OS is identical so that statement simply can’t be true.
All Fairphones have expandable storage, including the Fairphone 4.
Are USB-C DACs really a big source of e-waste? Anyone who cares about e-waste would probably get one that’s going to last a while or at least have a replaceable USB-C cable since that’ll probably fail sooner (and it’s a easier to recycle than the actual circuitry). Wireless earbuds are infamously hard to make repairable, but Fairphone throwing their hat into the ring at least guarantees that there’s a more ethical option. If Fairphone doesn’t follow market trends, then they’re never going to get people to use their products, which would mean they’d be better off not existing at all. I don’t think any of us think that is a preferable option. Refer to your Pixel for recent market trends.
Fairphone was like 90% ethical (& ethical offset) according to their latest impact report. You seem to have extrapolated the claim of using any fairtrade gold into using all fairtrade gold, which I can find no evidence of Fairphone saying. You’re also sort of throwing away any effort to be ethical because it’s not 100% ethical. As OP said, there is no [absolute] ethical consumption under capitalism (but there is more ethical).
Qualcomm chips only support 2 active sim cards (called “5G Global multi-SIM” if you like marketing gibberish, FP4 has the X52 modem), so it’s not a big stretch to imagine that they didn’t want to confuse people when they try to activate both physical SIMs and an eSIM and it doesn’t let them. (I also can’t find anything that says how many physical SIMs the chip can support, so I wonder if Qualcomm would even allow for that configuration).
You’ve jumped to some conclusions on your own which don’t line up with what Fairphone has said, and then you conflate those conclusions with the actual facts. Marketing is all about telling people what’s good and why they should buy it, so it’s usually best to read it like a lawyer: read it literally and try to see find the loopholes. Hoping no one is going to ever make another big purchase without doing extensive research.
there’s a lot of valid stuff in here, particularly the expandable storage part. i was wrong there, i distinctly remember being frustrated at the offset because of media i’d read describing the opposite. i should’ve double checked that, thanks for calling me out on that.
i still think the issue with the updates is a major concern. when a person hears that they’re receiving 7 years of updates, they expect to be receiving updates in a timely fashion and to receive as many as those updates as possible.
i think throughout many of your points here you’re creating plausible deniability for fairphone in their marketing, which is in line with what you said at the end. i promise you, people are not doing this extensive research like you are. chances are, they watch an MKBHD video about the phone and then decide because of a lack of tech literacy. that’s not necessarily a bad thing, people follow different paths in life and have different interests. i couldn’t tell you anything about the technology of the door and hinges i just installed in my bedroom. but a person is entitled to be made aware of all of these asterisks and i feel like that discussion is not happening enough.
to imply that fairphone technically accomplishes their promises, and technically that this is okay because it’s what the industry does, simply isn’t good enough for me. if this marketing was pushed in another direction, as in to say “we can’t give you the service of other phones at an equal price point. we do our best to get you the best hardware as we can, but that comes with limitations, and we try our best to mitigate this with software, but we’re only a small team so these updates and patches come out very late” then that gives another image. but they don’t, they use catchy slogans even on their website like “Reliable, secure and ready to do business. The perfect match for your company’s values”. i feel like doing research into all of the drop-downs in their website will give you a different impression because you find some more honesty there, but i hope we agree that the reason these things are not mentioned/inferred on the front page is because they know it isn’t as pretty, and the average person who ‘just wants a phone’, and lives a more ethical life, won’t be pursuing that.
i think that any individual point that i reply to will wrap back around to the misleading marketing anyway and i don’t want to create a post where i just make the same point 15 times (to an extent i feel i already may have), i dont think anyone would want to read that. the main point being that you have a level of tech literacy that allows you to research the specifics of these caveats but a normal person simply does not understand and does not want to. these people who are buying a device that is worse than alternatives at a similar price point, understanding that the tax they’re paying is for their ethical values, deserve to have a better understanding of what they’re getting into. deliberately avoiding this is a big concern to me.
i can understand if my post came off overly negative, i also replied to my own thread on the linked post saying that we shouldn’t make good the enemy of perfect, and that when a person understands all these things, if the fairphone still fits your needs then it’s a great option. i have a bitter taste in my mouth from the way that fairphone handles marketing, especially when they adopt the moniker of Ethical and Sustainable. and i want to share some of these potential concerns with people who may be less tech literate.
there’s a good chance we simply disagree here on the importance of this, and that’s fine. i think we will and that’s why i opened this with “there’s a lot of valid stuff here” because i understand this isn’t where everyone draws their line in the sand. i hope other readers can see this discussion and understand where their priorities lie. or at the very least, make a more educated purchase.
also double kudos for joining the fairphone angels, that’s such a cool project. huge respect there