This Fairphone 5 Review is Going to Make Me Very Unpopular

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Linus couldn’t wait to trade in his LG Wing for the new Fairphone 5! Ethically produced, sustainable, and easily repaired? What’s not to like? Well…
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova
Video Link: • [Electro] - Laszlo - S...
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Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High
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Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa / mbarek_abdel
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CHAPTERS
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00:00 Intro
1:23 It’s So Cool!
2:03 It's not all roses
4:04 How’d it do?
6:06 You talking to me?
7:00 He’s a special boy
8:53 Not so bright
12:36 Outro

[@AegrusYT]

Only real unfair comparison I saw being made was the battery removal. Even as someone who likes to tinker around with my laptop/PC, removing the backplate with suction cups and getting the battery out are far, far more annoying and 'sketchy' than just popping off both like you can do with the Fairphone.

[@falsemcnuggethope]

You could even have a second battery and switch it on field for extra battery life (although power banks are a thing now)

[@Xyler94]

Yes, but the Fairphone in exchange doesn't have water resistance in case you drop it in a puddle or something. And besides, if the SOC in a phone isn't top notch today, it won't survive the planned 2031. So even if you can simply change the battery, you'll have an outdated phone. Is that something you can live with? only you can tell.

[@henriwagner2068]

​@@Xyler94FP5 is water resistant.

[@gabrielstellini]

My old S5 was waterproof and had a removable back. Why can't we have both again?

[@tribblier]

Think the point was that a removable back isn't really that big of an engineering problem, just a design choice. They have "fixed" that choice but have gone further and started "fixing" engineering problems when the sacrifices are greater than the gains

[@not_rap]

seeing un bearded linus insponsor segments gives me chills

[@olivememer]

Fr the apocalypse is coming

[@GreeseMonkie1998]

He looks so much better with a beard

[@MASTERCRAFT938]

True. lol xD

[@mjdevlog]

is that an AI edit or he did shaved lol i can't tell the difference

[@danktech-3411a]

Yea it took long time from the actual video to the sponsor 😂

[@TheKoladis1]

To be fair, 90% of people put one sim card and a 128gb sdcard for the entire duration of owning the phone

[@James-H84]

I swap the sim often, around 6 monthly to stay on rate under a fiver. The hassle of having to find a paper clip or sim remover is more than rebooting phone.

[@subaru4920]

And you should reboot your phone when installing a sim card anyway.

[@wokeydokey6885]

​@@subaru4920No, you don't have to. You could just hot swap a sim without rebooting and it will work perfectly (unless it's from some carriers that require their bloatware apps/settings that should be loaded)

[@n.g.5234]

​@@subaru4920There's no real reason to do that

[@interstellarlunar4597]

no lmao, no one uses SD cards

[@maxd5661]

It is absolutely insane to even compare the repairability of cutting through adhesive (and don't forget to reapply it properly later) to just popping off the back cover. I can replace the USB C connector on my FP4 in under 5 minutes literally on the side of a road. When I was abroad my USB C connector broke and I simply express shipped a replacement, and when it arrived (pretty quickly) I was able to replace it in under 5 minutes with just a screwdriver. having an easily removable back is the difference between being able to DIY fix it on the road and having to buy a temporary phone (one that supports your SIM card, which is not trivial in some countries) and trying to limp along on it. I'll take the slightly thicker body (which I do not care about at all) and maybe not top of the line performance SoC if I have the power to literally fix nearly any easily breakable component of my phone on the go with minimal effort.

[@jackmcslay]

This hardly sounds like an advantage when for the price of a Fairphone 5 you could buy a better phone and still have enough money left for a backup phone.

[@jammo7370]

“Maybe not top of the line soc” is a crazy understatement lmao. It’s like calling the 1050ti “adequate for modern gaming”

[@onchky]

I've never ever had USB-C broken on me, even under every tough and prolonged abuse. Might it be a case that easily replaceable connector is more prone to failure? Then, it's kinda similar story to screen protectors shuttering from the slightest touch and people bragging how they protect the main glass, when in fact it's just the protector way more fragile, not necessarily meaning that the screen itself would shatter at all under the same conditions.

[@thegeneral1955]

@@jammo7370plenty fine enough for everything that’s not gaming or similarly heavy load. But by all means, keep supporting anti right to repair phone brands and spyware.

[@wtfiswiththosehandles]

Which is all kinda moot point when you pay 4x more for a phone than it's actually worth. A budget Samsung A53/A54 will cost a 1/4 price of fairphone and will last longer than you care to keep it for. Why the hell would I be worried about replacing USB-C connector if it's not something that ever failed me??

[@hk07666]

2:30 I used to work at walmart around the photo center and have seen tons of sd cards corrupting due to the people not ejecting it in the settings before removing it. Android is outstandingly bad at handling file systems on removable drives. If you make it so you have to power off the phone in order to remove the card then this won't be as much of an issue.

[@PadraigDoran]

Powering off from the shutdown menu sure, but lots of people will just yank the battery out with the device running causing even more corruption and harm to the OS / phone itself.

[@RRareGaming]

I always shut down my phone before doing anything with it, old or new, i thought everyone did tbis😂

[@RRareGaming]

​@@PadraigDorannobody would do that shi come on

[@noobssindcool]

@@RRareGamingYou’re overestimating the thinking of normal users

[@RandomUser2401]

yet another reason to ditch slow, error-prone SD cards in phones for good.

[@Gigahawk515]

8:40 its completely plausible for the phantom headphone to be a soldering defect. The way headphone detection usually works is a physical switch that gets opened/closed when you insert the plug. This signal will be routed to some input pin (on the CPU, or maybe the amp chip or something) which controls where audio is routed. On a phone without a headphone jack, this input will usually be connected to a resistor that forces the "no headphone" mode. If that solder connection to the resistor is flaky, the value of the input may behave erratically. As for why the issue goes away on reboot, the input is probably whats known as Schmitt triggering, which just means it requires the voltage signal to cross over a threshold before the input actually switches. This is quite common for preventing erratic switching if there is noise on the input. What you're probably seeing is a random spike of noise thats enough to flip the input to "headphone connected" mode, but the signal never dips back the other way far enough to switch back to "no headphone" mode. By rebooting the phone you reset the state of the input and the issue goes away. Note that from a software perspective there's no reason why such an input pin needs to exist at all, obviously the mode could just be hard coded in software. It could be that they have prototypes or devboards that include a headphone jack. It could also have been more work to do this in software vs routing a resistor to a dummy input. Maybe they're using an upstream audio driver that needs such an input assigned to it, or maybe this code is shared with older Fairphones that still have a headphone jack. EDIT: as pointed out by @AndrewStrydomBRP, hardware would be necessary to support USB-C audio accessory mode (passive USB-C to headphone jack dongles). Conveniently Fairphone has schematics publicly available (wish Linus mentioned this), where we can see U2602 is an audio/USB2 switch that handles this functionality. Annoyingly the part number listed on the chip appears to be a Fairphone internal part, and they appear to have not provided a BOM like they did with the Fairphone 4 (very cringe). In any case, some googling leads me to believe it's probably an FSA4480, which has a CC_IN pin used to detect whether headphones (or a dongle) is detected, which is presumably where the issue is. For communicating this status upstream to the CPU there's a DET pin and also the I2C interface, not sure which is being used, but the DET pin could also be the issue if that's being used. To Linus, it would be worth checking if the headphone issue can also be resolved by plugging in something into the USB port, like a charger via a C-C cable or a USB-C flash drive/dock, maybe in both orientations.

[@AndrewStrydomBRP]

I theorise it might work this way (in software) for the USB C headphone output, so there could be a soldering defect there.

[@fodo3971]

Really wrote a whole paragraph? Dam

[@charginginprogresss]

So basically phones without the headphone jack are phones with the headphone jack but they just closed the hole and jumped the pins for it. Talk about lazy.

[@zetalasis]

Could also be a Kernel issue? Possible, however unlikely.

[@Drunken_Horse]

Why would they have a headphone detection switch on a device designed not to have a headphone jack? Can understand if they were sharing parts with some other phone (which I don't think is the case here) but if you've using a motherboard that supports headphones why wouldn't you spend the few cents extra and keep the jack as a feature? Only companies doing that are people making money from selling unrepairable earbuds/pods

[@stephanhuebner4931]

I own a FairPhone 5, and I'm not bothered by its size or weight. But I can acknowledge some of the problems Linus described (the terrible auto-dimming for example, which is so annoying that I disabled it). Also, the battery drain is horrendous. I am really lucky if I can get by one day without charging it, and sometimes, even during the night, when the phone isn't used at all, the battery level drops significantly. I even switched from 90 to 60 Hz (something I don't care for anyway) and disabled 5G, which seemed to help a bit. Here's one Linus didn't mention: On rare occasions (maybe once or twice a month) "ghost" touches begin to appear, in pretty quick succession, so much so that it's impossible to reboot the phone. It usually helps to just put the phone to sleep for a moment, but not every time, and then I remove the battery to force restart the phone. I've read online that it may also help to disassemble the phone and put it back together again... But what kind of advice is that? It's not complicated, sure, but who's to say that said disassembly will help or won't introduce other problems? Also, the loading of certain apps takes ages. On the Fairphone, there are one or two where I saw the splash screen for the first time, as it took that long for them to load. All in all, I have to say that on a technical level and daily usability the Fairphone is clearly a setback. The only reason I accept these problems is their mission and their promises of rather long software support. Had it been a regular phone I would have sent it back.

[@finnderp9977]

Honestly I don't like the idea of suffering bad software 10 years of my life, rather buy unfair phones..

[@stephanhuebner4931]

@@finnderp9977First, I wouldn't call it "suffering". It's not as if using the phone is a horrible experience. Actually, most of the time it works just fine. Some of the weird quirks may be resolved with future software-updates and even if there are some pretty annoying things, they're still not a dealbreaker for me. Basically, the (probably provocative) question that everybody needs to answer for themselves is:: Do I want to support a company that actually tries to introduce change to the way things are done or am I just "good" when it doesn't cost me anything. Or even more provocative: Am I able to get by with some small compromises to help make the world a tiny bit more fair or am I so lazy that my morals are nothing bit lip service? While I do criticise the technical quality of the FairPhone, I also do want to support their mission, so I answered that question for me. And I'll be damned if I go back to a regular phone built with materials from who-knows where, produced under horrible circumstances for humans and the environment alike.

[@Gatitasecsii]

@@finnderp9977 Idk what's so unfair about the other phones. I mean sure, they're unrepairable, but if you treat them well, they will last you a LONG time... I'm still using a 6+ year old Note 9 and it works flawlessly, except for Google Play Services draining my battery every two weeks or so, which I don't know how to fix. I guess that's unfair about it lol. I just really appreciate all the other benefits of a sealed, water resistant phone.

[@Martinusisko]

@@finnderp9977Hey there! The software is stock Google Android 13 which will receive a ton of updates in the next 8 years! And the shitty touch response could have been caused by the shitty code of Plex, not Google or Fairphone.. Plex is known for making their app terrible.. Even Linus had a bad review for plex, so why the heck he uses it as a demonstration of bad responsivity? Idk honestly, Linus has a bad point from me for this 80% not objective review.

[@beardsntools]

At 12mm it's only 2mm less thicc than my hp ipaq hx4700 pda from 2004! 20 years! No this is not acceptable, especially not what is essentially a budget phone from 5 years ago.

[@shadowtheimpure]

The long press not presenting an uninstall is a vanilla Android thing starting at 14 I think, same with the Google search bar being permanently locked there. If they are using stock Android, that would explain those two 'pain points' you experienced. For me, as a Pixel user, I have long since grown accustomed to such things.

[@PratameshMistry]

These all things are standard on samsung. He used samsung for long time.

[@pixels_per_inch]

It's really unfair to add those issues even though most "stock" Android phones behave the same.

[@beardsntools]

dont use stock android then.. it's too googled.

[@TobiasWeg]

@@beardsntoolsAnd on fairphone you can always root and use a other rom, it is open and they even provide help doing it.

[@cronchcrunch]

​@@PratameshMistry He used a Note 9 before this, which is stuck on Android 10. So this issue doesn't exist.

[@fly1ngsh33p7]

In my opinion, the price is the biggest problem. And it probably cannot be cheaper. But that's what certified ethically sourced materials get you. And I think it would only be fair to note in EVERY other phone review, that the materials used are probably not ethically sourced, which is why it can be that cheap.

[@Clawthorne]

Yeah that's my biggest gripe with the FP5. It's nice that it's ethically sourced, but I'm not paying borderline flagship price for a 2016 device that has numerous software issues. Sure the battery is replaceable and it will get close to a decade of software support, but I'm 100% not going to keep it that long if it annoys me every day...

[@leonro]

​@@ClawthorneYeah, I feel like it would be easier to swallow paying a premium for a phone with flagship specs and ethically sourced materials, though I understand why they wouldn't go into that market, as way more software improvements are needed for camera performance and features.

[@snowe..]

ethically sourced doesn't cost that much more, you can easily see this with tons of other products. What does cost more is much much much smaller runs. The scale at which samsung and google ship phones is massive, while the fp5 is probably a tenth of a tenth of a fraction of that. That's why it's more expensive.

[@Ussurin]

I just don't think there is actually a market for what they are trying to sell. I see literally zero excitement about their green and ethics marketing. Basically everyone who is excited is excited about repairability and modularity (tho this is slowly going away). I believe the company owners care deeply about those issues, and the repairability was a way to be more green, but I just don't think that's a markatable point at this level of quality for this price. If it'd be Apple style high end product, yeah, being green can be a selling point for those folks. But it's on the level of tech geeks using old Thinkpads glued together from old IBM parts. It's a product that markets itself to complete opposite spectrum of customers than those who would be actually intersted. And those interested would prefer a wider range of modularity and competetive prices for parts, even if the margin would still be quite large for a phone. But just something that competes with chinese and mid level phones on price, instead of the highest shelf of phones. (And I refuse to treat $600 as anything below top shelf, if you think otherwise are you mad? No, the $1k phones are absurd and basically status symbols with attached phones at this point.)

[@the_wiki9408]

The pricing of the big makers are cheaper because they have volume and other sources of income. Apple and google make a killing on their appstores and services. Samsung, Huawei, etc get paid to bundle apps you don't want.

[@Nabalazs]

Had my FP5 since October. I didn't experience those audio issues. Though, the first week I've owned it, it did seem a bit fussy about actually transmitting audio through Bluetooth. But even without a software update, that behaviour just stopped. The responsiveness and performance section of this video was very warranted though. But for a different reason. I use it at 90hz, and I really like it. But it feels like sometimes scrolling turns to jelly, and responsiveness worsens, until you toggle the refresh rate down to 60, then back up to 90 (or just toggle the battery saver, it does the same thing). I'm perfectly happy with it's overall day to day performance. But it feels like, every couple of days, it needs to cough up a hairball and be patted on the back, before everything is back to normal. Now that this video is out, I really want to write a big fat review on the Fairphone forums, addressing what I do and don't disagree with from this review. The TLDR, is that fairphone made me dislike stock android, and I gained an appreciation for all the MiUI and Samsung skins out there. How are so many options and features and fixes and quality of life things missing from stock android??? I'd genuinely love to see someone who has more time than me, slap lineage OS on the Fairphone, and daily it for a while, to see how much it is just android holding the FP5 back

[@JudgmentalShoelace]

As someone with a FP4, yea stock Android really isn't all that great. My biggest pet peeve is the notification vibration noise, it's so damn loud. Edit: Custom ROMs are sadly no option, because my banking apps wouldn't work with that.

[@arturskovrigo3915]

Hey, I have been holding out from buying this phone. I generally use phones for about 5 years and repair them quite often, so this seemed like a no brainer. It is a real bummer there are no quality reviews of it else where. If you write yours, please give me a message, I would love to read it!

[@PetlanovicsGabor]

I haven't watched the review yet, but I assume things haven't gone too well which is a shame cuz FP could've used the popularity boost. 😩 Personally I'd love to hear someone compare Stock with /e/OS which is a de-Googled rom that I've been keeping my eye on as my first smartphone system. I think it's forked off of Lineage or another derivative of it if I remember correctly.

[@_mike]

They can push some minor updates through the Play Store now, so you might have just missed it.

[@simplyhexagon]

i found you in the comment section lmao

[@kuroodo_]

7:38 Isn't that just the vanilla android experience? My Pixel 7 does the same thing. To uninstall you need to drag it up, the uninstall option shows up then

[@PratameshMistry]

These all things are standard on samsung. He used samsung for long time.

[@MariusMerchiers]

Indeed, that's why I use nova launcher

[@0xF81]

The same on my Pixel 8 there's no way to move Google search bar from the main screen or remove it 7:25

[@tj2375]

Yes! It's a really strange criticism from Linus to complain about standard Android behavior that one random manufacturer he likes decided to change and this one didn't change. All he complained, not moving the Google widget, not moving the button to the right is all Android standard.

[@mennonis]

@@PratameshMistry that is such a dumb way to review a phone. "this isn't a samsung, I don't like it" what kind of professional phone reviewer talks like that...

[@mattwhite7421]

I don't consider changing the battery on a sealed back phone that's glued to the chassis the same as being able to hot swap a battery in a few seconds. The value add there isn't that you can replace the battery when its end of life. Its that you can replace it with a hot spare on the go and never be left with a flat battery. I used to carry a spare battery handy when I had an S4. Swapping it on the go was awesome.

[@deadlykiller27]

yes on my Note 4 I never charged it directly, I always just charged batteries and swapped them. Was great.

[@stephanhuebner4931]

@@deadlykiller27 Right, changing a battery in a sealed/glued together phone is on a whole other level than just flipping off the back and replacing a battery. Linus is making a mistake when he thinks that is even remotely comparable. Which, ironically, is proven by the video, showing these specialised plastic pieces to lift up the back cover. That is not something, 90 percent of the regular people would have in their possession, let alone *knowing* what is needed to open the phone. Not even to mention the glue to put everything back together again...

[@Quan5021]

uhh why not have a soft pack battery that would last longer there for no need to hot swap to begin with... thats just doing to much and we literally have battery packs for the same purpose.. the only benefit is not having to be plugged in

[@Quan5021]

​@stephanhuebner4931 no one said its the same? you're hot swaping batteries on the fp5 every other 4-5hrs mean while softpack battery will give you all day battery life and if you need more juice just use a battery pack... Softpack batteries only need to be replaced every 4-5yrs and it is NOT hard to replace them EVEN on recent samsung flagships especially since they have pull tabs wich eliminates the need for alcohol..

[@Quan5021]

​@@stephanhuebner4931the difference being you're doing this every 4-5yrs compared to the fp5..

[@oldrandomcomputing6247]

I'm still not happy that they removed the headphond jack.

[@higihups]

But it could break, thats why they removed it. How would you repair that in a phone, that is designed to be repairable? Lets make sure the next version removes more parts that "can break". I would suggest starting with the battery and screen.

[@Zeppelin-ep7uv]

I didn't expect something like that frmo them lol.

[@donkey7921]

@@higihups you're being sarcastic right? The whole point of this is to be able to remove breaking parts, so why would they care if it "breaks?"

[@higihups]

@@donkey7921 The first part no, the second part maybe. I sincerely invite you to use a search engine of your choice and query it for "fairphone 4 headphone jack removal". See, if you find the original statements from them, about why they removed it. The reasons were water ingress and durability of the jack. I think they removed a lot from their pages, but there is still enough discussions about that out there. Also the Fairphone 5 support page mentions the lack in the new model and why they decided against bringing it back (oUr PhOne WoUlD bEcOmE ToO tHiCk).

[@higihups]

@@donkey7921 It seems KZbin has blocked my previous answer, so I will try again (without link and explanation): No, I was not sarcastic (at least in the first part).

[@logan5018]

side power button finger print sensors are the biggest thing i miss in phones. even if face id or in screen fingerprint sensors are instantaneous, i can have a phone with a side (or back) button fingerprint sensor on before its even out of my pocket simply by locating the button by feel

[@cj.wijtmans]

never had issues with the on screen FP other than being hard to find and having to have on screen blueprint for it. But IMHO FP should be removed from phones anyway because you giving everyone your FP.

[@hoofhearted4]

@@cj.wijtmansthats not how it works lol @OP, i miss having the FP sensor on the back of phones tbh. best position imo, even better than in the power switch.

[@oddball_the_blue]

Sony still stick with this standard just as an FYI.

[@coldfox7308]

Love the side button/FP sensor, my previous phone (One Plus 7t pro) had an in screen and even though it usually works fine, i don't find it that practical. Used to have a Mate 9 with a rear FP sensor, great when you're holding the phone, not great when it's laying on a table. I've got a Poco F5 now that has a side FP

[@Dinomite1]

I like the side ones too but I hate that cases got to have a cut out for it and not fully covered

[@TomNook.]

"After removing the back, it's not that much harder to repair than the Note 5....other than using the isopropyl acohol to remove the adhesive..." Uh yeah....

[@nicksurfs1]

I have one and have an extra battery to switch to half way though the day like I could with my Nokia in the 00s isoproponol would be a deal breaker for me

[@Naraku150]

Memeber when Gamers Nexus destroyed him about his ethical and other bullshit.. yeah

[@Hescor_Nellse]

I would love to see a follow up in lets say a whole or half a year to see what kind of changes they did to the software and or hardware to address the mentioned issues.

[@segiraldovi]

Bro, in my point of view, the phone is bad for two reasons: - You can support it for a long time but if the processor is slow by the time it has been 3/4 years old it will be unusable - The price is too expensive, you could literally spend $300 every two years to get a second-hand mid-range from last year and you would have a better experience The battery, bugs and everything else can be solved with software

[@GurunathHirve]

​@@segiraldoviSpeaking about it being expensive, and keeping aside the fact that it is made for a really long haul, and it is better for planet, and blah blah blah, I think the positive cost delta is also due to PCR plastics and Fair Trade Certified materials. They're damn expensive man. But you could at least be satisfied knowing a guy isn't getting screwed over in a dark mine somewhere, and even if he's getting screwed, then he is being compensated for it handsomely.

[@tbuk8350]

Also, that active apps feature in the notification shade is just a new Android feature, not a Fairphone feature. My Pixel 4a running Android 13 has it.

[@patrick_test123]

It turns out if you sell a phone with stock Android your Phone comes with stock Android.

[@alex15095]

No uninstall button on long tap is also a stock android issue. No ability to swap back button position is also a stock android issue. Kinda disappointed Linus blamed this on Fairphone when they really just ship stock android

[@Ignacio.Romero]

This video is full of wrong information

[@premprakash2297]

What the fuck.... How much update u got lol.... It's like 2018 phone

[@mysticalquilava]

@@premprakash2297pixel 4a is a 2019 phone and yeah you get a lot of updates with newer pixels. Pixel 8:gets 7 years of updates

[@TheRealTonie]

1:45 True. My dad just bought Samsung A25 and I noticed he has fingerprint sensor in the power button. He used to be against using fingerprint for unlocking phone since `quote` "My fingers/hands get hurt all the time, and it won't work most of the time" but then I told him "yeah don't worry, if it won't work it doesn't change anything and you'll just use your pin like always, but if it works then you unlocked your phone immediately... and you touch the power button with that finger anyway so what's the difference" and since then I always see him not even pressing the button but just `delicately` scanning his fingerprint 😂

[@doggo_woo]

Once you go power button fingerprint scanner, you can never return. It's just so convenient. On my Redmi Note 12, the included case has a small curve that allows you to just slide your finger right onto the scanner, and BAM, sub 1 second unlock.

[@vargabazsaa]

​@@doggo_woohonestly, with a GOOD under display sensor, it's better. I daily drive the s series, and having the fingerprint scanner where my finger usually hovers above the screen anyway makes it more comfortable to unlock since I don't have to switch my grip (I'm a leftie). Also, the ultrasonic sensor on the s series (s24U currently) is wicked fast. It's definetly sub milisecond, and i could honestly say it's right around 0.2-0.3 seconds. It takes a real effort to touch it so fast it doesn't work. I'd still choose a power button sensor over an optical under display one tough. Those are terrible to use when you're already in bed, and some light shines around your fingerprint and blinds you.

[@Alias_Anybody]

​@@vargabazsaa 99% of in-display sensors are placed way too low to naturally rest any finger on that spot in a one handed grip. Unlike with a side or rear mounted one you basically HAVE to use two hands.

[@wotsurn]

​@@vargabazsaaHuawei p9 has had my favourite fingerprint scanner, inset in the back right where my index finger goes when I pull it out my pocket. Would be open before I even saw the screen everytime. Only pain is if the phone was already face up on the table or smt.

[@drabberfrog]

My old S10e had a side fingerprint sensor and it was amazingly fast, especially compared to the under screen fingerprint sensors of its day. My S23 Ultra's under screen sensor does come pretty close to matching it though.

[@Dan-uy2ld]

To be fair Linus made himself unpopular way before this review

[@SpaceXplorer13]

What happened?

[@tenki_]

@@SpaceXplorer13quality assurance on the videos released was subpar leading to active misinformation in them i don’t know if they fixed the issue, it looks like it did this is a few months old

[@derickd6150]

Uhhhh I think all these comments are cope. He’s never had more support. They are RAKING it in, and I GUARANTEE you, if they ever started to struggle a little financially, the community would JUMP to their aid

[@hassnal_rawii9869]

Also he supports israel

[@NovisMachina]

all eyes on rafah

[@ChrisBigBad]

Yes. I desperately wanted to support their mission and I have low requirements. I experience a few bugs and I am quite happy. The display brightness is smooth usually, but I too found a consistently jump between the lowest and next setting. And flipping between them sure will be annoying, although I never experienced that. I am happy and looking forward to years of upgrades.

[@lukej12345abc]

I never got the whole thickness thing - like I’ve never bought a phone based on it being thinner then the rest

[@rusinsr]

Right, but the fairphone is REALLY heavy and thick compared to anything else. Try one in real life and you'll see why it can be a legitimate issue.

[@elnoziya]

It is really heavy. Thickness is similar to others with protection cases....

[@BoomBoomBrucey]

I absolutely loath thin phones, and cases do a bad job at thickening them in the right way. I want more depth screen to back, but cases that add bulk seems to just make the phone wider.

[@thelazarous]

​@@rusinsr My last phone was an LG V20 with the 10,000mah battery extension, and seeing as I don't wear skinny jeans, I miss that near 1 inch thick brick of a phone.

[@caesar485]

​@@rusinsr I own a Fairphone 4 and after some initial getting used to it, it doesn't even register to me anymore. I've held a Fairphone 5 and its even lighter and thinner, so in the real world its completely fine.

[@egocd]

The difference in thickness can likely be attributed to the screen technology (OLED vs LCD) and the fact that the battery is a "hard-pack" battery. The Samsung has a "soft-pack" battery, which means it is not designed to be easily removed and kept elsewhere. Soft packs are easily damaged and are not designed to be removed and re-inserted. Phones only started to get slim when these types of batteries started to get used widely. All phones with removable batteries are thick. It's an unavoidable compromise. On another note - I've worked for Android phone manufacturers before. A lot of the random software buginess will be down to their ODM and the fact that it's using stock Android, which almost no phone uses. We also used to have issues with minimum volume and dodgy screen brightness etc, but with enough effort these can be easily resolved in software. It's either not been tested properly, or they've prioritised fixing other larger bugs. The issue is they're likely paying someone else to do the software for them, and that gets expensive. They could fix it in a software update though. What they can't fix is the Google widget. This again comes back to the stock Android piece. Google mandates the placement and you can't change it. A disagree with some of the other points. For example - Who cares if you have to turn the phone off to insert an SD card? How often are you going to removing and re-inserting one? Also, do you really care about bezels that much?

[@HotdogSosage]

I think it's more about the fact that you pay a lot for a big, slow, ancient looking buggy af phone. The fault being on Google or on the state of hard pack batteries etc is irrelevant. He has to decide whether it's a good choice for users and he suspects it'll be better to spend less to buy a faster, older phone that will perform and look and handle better. Can't say I disagree. This thing has great intentions behind it but what does it actually do better than anything else? It looks like shit tbh lol

[@Quan5021]

the thick ass bezels just reminds me of how mid of a phone this is for the price... like are you serious? I can pick up an s21+ or s22+ that will do WAY better for like 300$ in excellent condition😭.. it seems stupid to buy FP5 when its so lacking for the price JUST FOR its REPAIRABILITY. so what if its easily repairable. That isn't gonna stop me from not having a good software experience, especially when you can do such much more to save the earth by buying it used. and for the comment below me: Why would you make such a trade off when you can do the EXACT SAME THING BY BUYING AN OLD FLASHSHIP PHONE FOR HALF THE PRICE😭

[@ChrisHaupt]

​​@@Quan5021"just for repairability" = just for mother earth. just for ethically sourced materials = just for the wellbeing of your fellow human.

[@zeroa69]

The lg V20 is quite thin in direct comparison and it has a hard pack swappable battery

[@Starscreamious]

@@zeroa69 I've got one of those but I can feel it getting old..

[@Night-gasoline]

6:30 I like people being very serious about minimum ringer volume

[@ChrisBigBad]

Yes. The FF4 had the same problem and we fixed it by setting a ringtone that was less loud. You will lose some top volume with that way, but that has so far not even come to my mind as a problem.

[@paoloposo]

The minimum ringtone volume seems like the easiest problem to fix with a software update. It astonishes me to learn that the Fairphone 4 supposedly had the same issue.

[@nullpointerworks4036]

It does. I have recently picked up a FP4 and quickly ended up trying to lower the ringtone volume. It's not set to minimum, but it's very loud, still.

[@RenAigu]

I kinda don't like that the product isn't named in the title or clearly readable in the thumbnail

[@Jj82op]

If you know the phone you can see it in the thumbnail, and I think they do update the titles later so it's easier to see what the topic is

[@krustykrabbulus5210]

For an audience that mainly comes from North America and cannot buy the phone at all, it is mainly entertainment. In Europe, the Fairphone has been available for almost half a year and there are already many comprehensive reviews

[@koijoijoe]

Yea, they drop the videos with a more clickable title for the initial majority of the views the video will get, then not long after change the title to be more descriptive and searchable. Most of the money comes from the first couple of days or weeks as youtube recommends the video. But then it makes more sense for people to find the video themselves after that's over.

[@KyleDavis328]

They do that for the first week (maybe more or less, I can't remember if they've mentioned an exact timing) of the video for clicks, then adjust the title later for better records. They've been pretty transparent about this practice and it's something they do to appease the algorithm.

[@RenAigu]

@@krustykrabbulus5210 But also for an entertainment perspective. We open on Linus saying "Before you grab your pitchforks...." and the title itself should instill immediate rage I guess? I don't know what I'm supposed to be mad about yet! So I am mad about the title! Arrrghh!!

[@orangeyellow-me1pz]

The extra keystrokes when entering the pin is an Android thing. Samsung changed that but the pixel still has that feature and so does my AOSP rom.

[@gabbo004]

no? my Pixel 6 doesn't have it (everything is stock)

[@AjayPlaysOfficial]

Do you know why the s22 Ultra no longer has it? Edit: Turns out if you add 2 extra digits to the pin, you can can select the skip pressing ok button and then before confirming delete the 2 added ones and then it works.

[@dominicburns9989]

Agreed, my pixel 7 requires this extra key press too, it also has the unmoveable google bar and doesn't give an uninstall option when I long press on an app. I feel like this video really wasn't very fair and someone at LTT should have clocked that a lot of these shortcomings were from Android. That said, fairphone is known to has a non-existant software department and oursources most of it which seems unwise as a phone manufacturer

[@uptop377]

Neither Xiaomi nor real me has this drawback. Hell I didn't even know about the extra button press. Talk about a time machine

[@WinrarMyName]

@@dominicburns9989 nah bruv, not an android thing, a certain skins thing, maybe. Realme here and i dont have them, nor my old honor 9 had them

[@lukeperryglover]

The hold app and not have uninstall option right there is a stock android thing (I currently have a pixel 8 pro). Have to click app info first.

[@technomad900]

How is it that a leading tech review platform doesn't mention some glaring features , such as native support for alternative Operating Systems ( e/OS/)

[@amoenus_dev]

Never understood the chase for ever-thinner phones. I am not advocating for Energizer Power Max thickness, but in general make phones thicker, if that means larger and/or replaceable batteries

[@XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD]

it's a bajillion times easier to slot a thin phone into slim jeans. you can have an 8 inch screen but if it's thin you can stick it anywhere

[@raspas99]

I like thicker phones.. it's easier to slide into your jeans? I never had a problem sliding a phone into jeans. And I don't think that should dictate thickness of the phone.. but I never had a battery fail. I think I have five old phones that still have batteries of work..

[@evdomos]

"To be fair, they're the final prototypes" I don't know, I don't think we should excuse that as standard practice. Just like you talked about with Framework on WAN, they should really be sending out the same unit the customer gets.

[@fjjwfp7819]

The frame work was also a final production prototype no?

[@gregor2436]

Than Fairphone should not send around unfinished devices. It is absolutely fine to use them for a review.

[@evdomos]

@@fjjwfp7819 Correct, that's why I said it.

[@KyleDavis328]

It definitely seems disingenuous to send reviewers products you know you aren't going to ship to consumers, as it just ends up ruining both your own reputation and the reputation of the reviewers when they leave a bad review of a "final prototype" of a product. @@fjjwfp7819 yes, that's what OP means, Framework just did this and just got pretty criticized for it.

[@Quettesh]

Most issues were software and this phone had the lastest updates.

[@h-corp]

The ringtone that the fairphone makes at 6:34 is the same sound the sainsbury's smartshop scanners make when you scan your nectar card

[@dominicstocker5144]

10:31 sorry but that Note 5 battery change still looks like a royal pain in the behind for people not used to doing disassembly steps like this. I find that comment to be really misleading

[@maxherman11]

The absolute jumpscare I got from bearded Chad Linus to shaved chud Linus in the sponsor spot was WILD. I know he shaved but this one hit me like a brick wall

[@GamerTag700]

hi

[@jurriaandejongh8677]

Yeah that was rough. Scary thing is that he looks older shaved now, those few years have been a lot of work it seems.

[@Jimmy_Jones]

​@jurriaandejongh8677 Which is funny because the reason he shaved was to reduce the look of age.

[@Michael-wo6ld]

@@Jimmy_Joneson wan show he said that he shaved because he and his wife got some fancy facial treatment and they told him they wouldn’t be able to do anything with beard over it but it would cost the same

[@TheW83]

I didn’t even notice. Y’all are weird.

[@heinrich27]

The Uninstall and At-A-Glance Widget issues are due to the Stock launcher. Uninstall can for examplr be performed by dragging the icon to the top.

[@loicvanderwielen]

A lot of the complaints are actually due to stock Android. It's the same for the back button and the extra button press on the PIN.

[@heinrich27]

​@@loicvanderwielenat least on Pixel Launcher, there exists the Option to disable this extra button press tho 🤷‍♂️

[@loicvanderwielen]

@@heinrich27 That's weird. It would mean that Google implemented the required added press for Android and then implemented the option to disable it for Pixel. We may be starting to see the start of the conflict between making Android overall better and making their own Pixel version better

[@PaulReed]

Oh, is it the same as I remember? Where you hold, drag and then hold at the top until Remove turns to Uninstall? I found that infinitely more obvious than holding the icon for a sub-menu. I really got used to the option of tapping to add it to home screens then moving it around afterwards too. I forgot how much other launchers mess with things. Time to see how ADW launcher is now!

[@thebyzocker]

@@heinrich27 on pixel phones you need to have a pin with atleast 6 digits in order for it to auto unlock tho

[@MrRecorder1]

I would like to point out that getting a second-hand phone probably even better than getting a Fairphone from an eco-perspective, but you will not get updates for that phone! Also: It is not only the battery, also, for example, the fragile screen that can be easily exchanged on a fairphone. I am pretty sure that that is a different story for a 5-year old samsung device as well. The value proposition is very very different for Fairphones. I am using a Fairphone 3 for years already and I only switched from my fairphone 2 when I could not watch youtube videos on it anymore in ~2020 because of software issues that required a factory reset - at which point it was 5 years old and I treated myself to a new phone. 600 bucks / 5 years is typically better ratio than 600 bucks / 2 years - however, I realize that the big manufacturers also offer longer warranties etc nowadays!

[@michaelchristianrusso]

If you can get an unlocked phone, you can always just flash LineageOS onto it for security enhancements and a new user experience.

[@AnujeetRoy09]

@@michaelchristianrusso I am gonna blow your mind right now..... Fairphones are especially capable of running alternative OS, and are very easy to switch around. None of the issues mentioned in the video exists anymore, and even though I use a 4 as my work phone, my company is giving out the 5 as work phone now.... and it is AWESOME. it is reliable, never has any app crashes (kinda big deal when you have to depend on it for a lot of our crucial work apps, especially when we are offsite or on the move) and lasts ages with heavy usage. I manage to charge mine maybe once every 3-4 days at worst.

[@michaelchristianrusso]

@@AnujeetRoy09 I mean, I know all that, but you can't buy one used for 100 USD.

[@AnujeetRoy09]

@@michaelchristianrusso if you knew all that, then you could also just use that knowledge to deduce that because they have been out for so less time and aren't going around in great volumes... you won't get them for $100 used. Instead, you should buy one and keep reusing it till it goes out of promised updates and then repurpose it. Most people/businesses are still using their 3's and 4's, let alone the 5's. You pretty much commented that you can't find a used S21 for $100.... well, yeah, that's the thing with more modern, longer running products. They hold their value. You might, however, want to buy a Pixel 3 or 4 for that kinda price at amazon retourenkauf.

[@Madbrad2000]

I've literally always turned off my phone before popping in an SD card. Is that not the norm?

[@pixels_per_inch]

You can eject the SD card in Android and just pull it out.

[@DanielClear2]

Shocking reality: Stock Android is actually horrendous. What ships with Pixel (and Pixel emulators) is far from stock. Google removed most parts of AOSP to make things modular for everyone (including themselves), leaving AOSP extremely barebones. You would be surprised how many things you don't have in AOSP. They rarely update core apps (like Dialer) to barely make a call (if it even works). Moving the Back key to left requires a whole overlay for System UI. So most people who think they like Stock Android, actually just like Pixel or what custom ROM developers cook. Actual stock Android is basically a flavourless cake (heh, dessert joke on Android).

[@downgrading]

which is why i hope fairphone is open to people unlocking the bootloader

[@pipeninja4741]

That's because AOSP isn't actually an operating system. It's a kernel and set of basic tools. A bit like Linux in that regard. GNU/Linux is just a kernel with a bunch of basic tools and a shell it's not an operating system in itself. All Android operating systems are based on AOSP to some degree, it's just each "distro" brings it's own opinionated garbage to the table to complete their it's own feature set in a bid to be unique...hardly any of them contribute back upstream though, which is why Android has an awful hellscape of closed drivers and locked bootloaders that prevent you buying the hardware you want, but loading the software you like. There is absolutely no reason why most functions on a flagship phone can't work to some degree on any Android compatible phone other than vendor lock, closed drivers and locked bootloaders...all Android phones use what is essentially the same chipsets, the only major hardware differences are the screens, bodies and batteries and to a lesser extent camera sensors...if all of these things were modular, it would be possible to pick and choose the hardware components you want, but thanks to proprietary cable interfaces and once again, closed drivers, this is still a dream.

[@marcfuchs6938]

Right, I actually needed to learn that recently. After starting my smartphone use with a Windows Phone many years back, I realized Windows Phone is garbage and got a Galaxy Note 4 and later Note 8, which I still use as daily driver. I always thought, that is stock Android. Last year I got a replacement phone for the Note 8 from a small manufacturer, who uses stock Android. The Note 8 is still fine, I just wanted to have a replacement ready at the very moment the Note 8 might randomly die after many years of constant use. Which is why I customized that other phone - and boy was it not a great experience. It's certainly fine enough, but Samsung does a good job making the Android experience a lot better. So I believe it's also Samsung's effort, that you can actually add folders from a memory card or something to the home screen and easily access those in a file browser. It turned me crazy, that such a simple thing is not possible on stock Android. And that you need to work yourself an annoying process and navigate to respective folders every time again you want to look at the content in a bare fashion, not through some app and it's own file browser. So even though Samsung as a company is also rather questionable these days, following Apple on their quest against repair and stripping away features, I will consider another Samsung phone, if my experience with the replacement phone will continue to be bad after the Note 8 will not be usable anymore (it already got a replacement battery)

[@verzocktes]

TBF, not using gestures over the buttons is criminal anyways imo

[@AndreyRadchishin]

Google didn’t remove those things to “make it modular”. They replaced those parts with closed source alternatives that can collect data on you. ;) AOSP used to have a lot more in it until Google ransacked it.

[@sinom]

With this review I honestly think that linus should try a stock android phone like a pixel at some point to actually notice how many of his pros and cons are just an android thing and not a phone specific thing

[@richie_k]

Exactly my thoughts when Linus started talking about that he does not like how "they" solve specific things within "their" Android. That is just stock Android being stock Android as far as I can see.

[@RAH012]

Even if it's just stock android it's still a valid criticism. Any rom maker or manufacturer has the ability to modify aosp in anyway they want. So its on the manufactures if there are missing features or bugs.

[@pure_leaf7331]

@@richie_k no such thing as stock android

[@bastienx8]

He also said that he is comparing against the samsung interface because his last phones were samsung, and he is replacing a samsung phone

[@heyevgart]

​@@RAH012it's valid in a vacuum but not fair in comparison to other phones, even the latest Pixel 8 that he used as a competitor, has the exact same software "issues", he should have just mentioned that.

[@AlexEarMusic]

I am a big fan of the Fairphone and I am a first week adopter. I not only switched to the FP5, but also switched from Apple to Android - mostly for sustainability and repairability reasons. They want 120€ for a new battery on an iPhone 12 Pro (lol). Here are some discoveries I made during my time. I see that this phone is way slower than my iPhone. It is sometimes jittery while losing apps, takes a few seconds to switch from landscape to portrait when watching videos and such. That being said, I do not feel like it is a big letdown on day to day. I am not a power user, mostly watching KZbin, messaging and such. I do not feel like it is a big letdown. Most critical, I had issues with the screen just flat out freezing once a week. Everything in the background still worked fine, but sleep and wake did not work. Had to power down the phone and restart to get it to work again. This problem has not appeared for weeks and I guess it was a silent fix in one of the latest updates. Also the auto-dimming is pure dog shit, as Linus said. I turn it down most of the time. Had my screen flicker because of it and had to restart to make it disappear (restarts are a big thing with the FP5) I do not feel the same way about the vibration and I never have my phone on loud. Never had the audio glitch happen to me either. The SD-card is a big let down for me too, because I use the FP5 as a hi res player. I actually love the big size as well as the bezels, since I accidentally pressed something on my iPhone constantly just by holding it and touching the sides of the display. Quick charge is great, though I wished they would just release an external battery charger. This way I could own three batteries and just switching them out while on the go. When taking pictures I was mostly happy with the results, though I rarely use the camera for more than a quick snapshot in Snapchat or WhatsApp. I have a dedicated mirrorless camera for anything serious. The phone had a weird glitch where it takes like 10 seconds to hear someone on the other end of a WhatsApp call initially, though that could be on Metas side. Overall, the FP5 has been getting better with every update and most of the glitches got better or disappeared completely. I expect the phone to become better with time. I really like it and I am looking forward to not paying bullshit prizes when something breaks.

[@1972LittleC]

How many times do you swap your sd card or your sim? Because most people do it just one time, when they set up the phone.

[@Earth-Apple]

10:08 Pretty sure that's an Android 14 feature, looks exactly the same on my Nothing Phone (2)

[@ChiralWolf]

Same on my pixel 7 pro, quite a few of the pros and cons seem to be decisions Google made with Android than with the skin fair phone is using.

[@giddycadet]

Android 14 isn't out yet for the fairphone

[@GamerBoy705_yt]

I have it on Android 13 ColorOS

[@sreea2365]

My stock Android 13 Lava Blaze has it.

[@Jehty21]

​@@washuaibut it doesn't matter whose fault it is. The only thing that matters is how it is on the phone that he is reviewing.

[@cobble616]

The fact that bearded linus is still in the main videos really shows how long they take to make

[@wankerwhooper716]

no XD ur so off

[@the_undead]

On the wind show after the tech shop video was uploaded, Linus said that the videos can take multiple weeks to get through the editing queue if they're just put in to the normal Q and not rushed for whatever reason because say it's an embargoed product and the embargo gets lifted a week after they finished filming so the video just jumps the line

[@Jimmy_Jones]

The first one will probably be the Apple Vidion Pro because they are rushing the pipeline. We may get no beard, and then the beard returns.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

It's not so much that they take a long time. They have many videos in the queue. A video could be done for over a week before getting published.

[@acidcrow4051]

The beard was more of a well-kept stylish one, not like he hadn't trimmed it for all this time. Probably less than a month to get it back to normal again. 🧔

[@davidgoodnow269]

Now I want a FairPhone, at least to try. But the Catapillar C62 *Pro* has unmatched features, seriously. Try one.

[@HowDareYouu]

imagine him being so honest with his own laptop company review. The modular one, i forgot the name

[@zandershepherd4746]

I bought the Fairphone 4 mere weeks before the 5 was announced, so I won't be getting it, but I can vouch for the Fairphone 4. I put CalyxOS on it because I'm very privacy-centric, and I've been daily driving that for months now. And as a casual phone user (no gaming on my phone), I love it. It works almost perfectly, with some annoyances which are on CalyxOS rather than the Fairphone itself, and that I'm more than willing to work around for the privacy I get back. Apart from that, it's worked perfectly for me. I love the thought that if something does eventually break I can repair it easily, and while I realise that not everyone is in a financial situation where they can do this, as someone who is, I do not mind paying a little extra for a device from a smaller company that's climate-conscious and open in their design. I truly hope people will keep supporting Fairphone. They are doing important work and they deserve it.

[@Bozebo]

I've had the 4 since it came out. "if something does eventually break I can repair it easily" this is exactly it! But it does mean I'll be using it for a long while or it can become my backup phone that I know can still be relied on. I had cheaper phones too and they become expensive to life when they break on you suddenly so it's not really paying extra either. Overall also I trust the company won't ever actively decide to do anything nasty and that's more reliable to be a customer of for an important device.

[@ixian_technocrat]

I have also been using FP 4 with /e/OS for over a year, and the only issues I had was the GPS being very slow (I sent it to be serviced and got fixed), the drop-down menu was glitching often for a few weeks between OS updates, and one of my banking apps didn't work at all between 2 other OS updates. Other than that, it is perfect. I never game on my phone, I have a laptop for that, so I don't need 16 Gb of RAM or whatever modern phones have. I mostly use it for internet, mail, calls, navigation and reading books. And the thickness is just right for my hand and for my finger to fit on the fingerprint sensor; why would it need to be any thinner ?

[@JZL003]

For the battery, this was more important when phone batteries were worse, but an easy replaceable one means you can have a hot spare. For vacations, having a tiny battery which immediately gives 100% with no cables is an amazing feeling. Instead of a big power bank I just slide it into my backpack (cover up the electrical pads)

[@kacpermalinowski8215]

I have an old dell latitude laptop and the power to simply swap batteries in the middle of a lecture with no power sockets is amazing. The fact that this is not a standard capability in devices now is such a downgrade. I honestly could not give less of a shit about my gadget being a couple mm thicker and couple grams heavier if it means i can swap out the battery.

[@Vegemeister1]

Field replacing batteries is a great way to break the clips that hold the back on. It also forces a reboot which takes a minute or so and evicts all your apps and browser tabs from memory.

[@callum177]

@@Vegemeister1 sure, but would you prefer to clear your chrome tabs or have a dead phone?

[@Vegemeister1]

@@callum177 The broken clip problem is real, and I Do Not Want to deal with it again. I would put my phone away before dead phone became a realistic possibility, which would be several hours longer than a phone with a field-replaceable battery, due to the 3 extra layers of casing (internal back, compartment, battery side 1, side 2) that can be eliminated from a phone designed for bench replacement only. And FWIW, it'll be a cold day in hell before I use Chrome.

[@NWinnVR]

Not that it matters but just FYI this would be a cold spare not hot. Hot would mean it's in the device and can be switched to in software. While it's "hot" in the sense of being charged. It's cold in the sense of being stored outside of the device.

[@MARTINREN1231]

Just a question, Is it bad to integrate the wireless charging directly to the battery? or would that cost more?

[@NochSoEinKaddiFan]

It is possible, that you have no space for the battery management electronics that control how fast how much power goes into the battery and you can't just plug the coil straight into the battery cells. On the other hand, if you give it two sets of contacts, one for the coil feeding power into the phone and the other for the battery to connect to the phone, it might actually work. It is probably not impossible to solve.

[@viice_]

Sadly, back button on the left side, is the android default placement. I can't change it on my Pixel 7 either, which is sooo bad. It would take a dev 3 minutes, to implement an option to swap positions.

[@WyvernDotRed]

If you're not afraid to use ADB for installation, perhaps the app SystemUI Tuner can be used to swap the buttons. Or you can give gestures a try, I found those to work better for me than the standard bar.

[@BryanBlumer]

I might be in the minority, but I couldn't ever get used to the recents-home-back layout. I agree though that it shouldn't be too difficult to add a toggle in settings like Samsung has to swap back and recents.

[@viice_]

@@BryanBlumerYeah exactly. I mean there're tons of custom roms out there, where you get the option to switch the buttons. Since the positioning is really bad, i switched to gestures after a while. Took me 2-3 weeks, until i got used to it, but now it works okayish. But i still have problems to hit the "recents" gesture consistantly

[@JamesScholesUK]

To be fair, the latest update has _definitely_ ironed out some bugs. I was experiencing lockups ehich were often needing a hard power cycle to clear about once a week but haven't had any since the February update. I absolutely take your point that it's tough to recommend though. I don't need much out of my phone as I usually have a laptop or PC close by, so I took the plunge. Might have been nice to mention some of those "mission statement" aspects - ie: finding conflict-free suppliers for almost all the controversial materials found in modern phones. Agreed the ambient light sensor is whacko though!

[@me2olive]

I wonder why some users experienced lockups and others don't? I got my FP5 at launch and haven't had a single one. Silicon lottery maybe?

[@JamesScholesUK]

@@me2olive I think mine was triggered by always on lock screen and device rotation occasionally trying to update simultaneously. I'd get stuck with a slightly broken looking lock screen that wouldn't update. I could hear the unlock sound but invariably I had to hold down power and vol+ to reset

[@cj.wijtmans]

i think this conflict free materials is mostly bogus anyway. A very very small amount of it is unethically sourced in the first place and most of the time its blocked from ending up in the pile anyway. now there is something to be said about chinese cheap labour but as you saw in the video the hardware is from samsung or some other company anyway so there is very little difference to warrant a buggy phone that ends up being shite anyway because they remove the jack anyway and introduced bluetooth earbuds that have no replacable battery, going gainst their own mission.

[@smashed_penguin]

The under the battery sim slot and microsd slot is one thing from that era of smartphones I DON'T want back.

[@user-dv6yo5bc4z]

Even with removable battery I would still rather a pin design, as it is well thought enough.

[@Rippers-TV]

How often are you changing your SIM card?

[@ajbp95]

Why? How often do people switch sd-cards in their phones?

[@Harry830]

why?

[@Rippers-TV]

@@ajbp95 my thought is probably not that often, curious why it's a point of contention to have it in this location.

[@overvieweffect9034]

that last point is a really fair point. buying a older or used phone would have the same, if not better enviomental impact that buying a new fairphone, and you don't even meed to go as far back to a note 5, you could just buy more recent phone with even better performance. having said that, how many people are willing to buy an used phone?

[@Ch1oe2472]

Maybe that could be a new video, "Is buying used really that worse than buying new?". He's done similar videos before with stuff like GPUs so it's not completely out of left field.

[@frankcooke1692]

I buy used phones. Just make sure you can return it if there are any issues. If it's been used with a protector and cover, it's been hermetically sealed its whole life, so it'll be like new underneath. Anything newer than about 6 years isn't realistically going to have performance issues that most people would care about. I'm not Marques Brownlee, I don't care if the swipe speed is 6ms quicker on this year's model, or if it's a hair's breadth thinner. Battery life can be a concern, which is why it was nice when they were swappable, but 'new enough' batteries these days are pretty good anyway.

[@igneeldreemurr3643]

Me if i would know for sure that the battery is new...i would buy even a old phome

[@andreamaral9725]

Wireless charging is a gimmick

[@user-vk2cd9qw7i]

For the most part. I have an old iPhone 8 that I used to have to charge with wireless charging only because the (admittedly lightning) port stopped working

[@adammcguire2514]

Not if you work around tons of debris

[@niklas6576]

Many of the skin/software issues are also present on the Pixel 8 (no uninstall, no sound on youtube video, confirm button in SIM and device PIN entry). So I think it's actually android

[@RAH012]

Yeh it's a skin thing but it's also a valid criticism some skins may have it others may not.

[@UnrealOG137]

Yeah, it's with stock android. My Sony xperia 1 v has some of the same issues.

[@shakeelali20]

It's not a skin thing. It's the lack of the phone using the UI Linus is used to. This is just stock android lightly tweaked, and everything he mentioned is simply part of stock android. You'll have similar issues on Motorola, Sony, Pixel, even some stock based ROMS don't bother changing those features.

[@rulercostax]

Custom ROMS and OEM ROMS like OneUI have more features than AOSP,

[@shakeelali20]

@@rulercostax Yeah and what's your point? We all know that. Some people prefer clean and stock Android ROMS, some people prefer the Samsung approach with TouchWiz and One UI. Linus really should know the difference considering how much of the latest tech he has access to.

[@johnb0815]

since you compare it to the very old note 5, maybe a comparison to the previous Fairphone 4 would also be great

[@pontushaggstrom6261]

1:05

[@zulu02280]

I have it since December and had not encountered most of these problems. Yes, the screen brightness flickers in some situations and the stock launcher is lacking. But I just installed a different launcher and everything is perfect

[@cLsbraziL]

What stock launcher did you install?

[@raitchison]

Should have compared to the Galaxy XCover 6 Pro, both have user replaceable batteries, SD card & SIM slots, side mounted dedicated fingerprint readers & are comparably priced. The XCover does retain it's water resistance and headphone jack though.

[@bumpsy]

I believe Fairphone doesn't include wireless charging because of inefficiency. It does make some sense (wireless charging is VERY inefficient, at least compared to wired) but they also don't have the 3,5 mm jack, meaning that the usb port is getting a lot more wear from some people, resulting ultimately in more waste overall... Maybe the math checks out for them but it seems a bit weird

[@arfell5947]

They could have easily made it an optional back plate. My crusty old Nokia Lumia 822 had that option.

[@exodmaster2702]

The upside is that you can just replace the USB-port if it wears out, instead of either throwing the phone away or having to pay absurd prices for a repair. I think they didn't include wireless charging for your reasons, plus it would be pretty hard to put the necessary coils into the back of the phone without them being in the way when opening it up (at least for non IT people).

[@KyleDavis328]

@@arfell5947 My old Windows Phone had that too, the Nokia Lumia 925 had exposed contacts on the back that you could attach a case that added wireless charging to the phone. Only one model of case came out for it that wasn't very good, in a few colorways, but it was a way to value add to the phone while still keeping it a fairly low cost of entry.

[@Afthrast]

@@exodmaster2702 one of my old phones had its NFC circuit embedded in the back panel with two contacts on it with complemeting contacts on the phone, I think it could be done similarly

[@bastienx8]

​@@exodmaster2702 When looking at phones teardown I often see the wireless coil glued to the back and the contact is two little pins pressed against the main board, so nothing really difficult to repair (the wireless coil contains nothing but a single wire so I don't think it would be an issue if it was glued to the back)

[@avotius]

Pixel 8 Pro doesn't show uninstall when you long press an app, you have to go into app info, and the passcode to unlock device also requires a proceed step.

[@AVdE10000]

I would have loved to see a segment on water resistance, as I do find that a quite essential feature these days. For anyone wonderfing, the fair phone 5 is IP55-rated.

[@lunchbox1341]

The problem with the fairphone is that they are willing to make BIG sacrifices in the name of longjevity and repairability. Look at the framework laptop, they made sure that the laptop is modern while bing easily repairable and upgradeable, but also tried their best to keep the device slim and comfortable. I think a big problem is that they are trying to make this device repairable for your average joe, and whlie I think that is a noble goal, a much, much better approach would be keeping it simple to repair for people that have an intermediate level of skill. For example - the battery, instead of going with an outdated 10 year old design, it would be much better if they sacrificed the convenience, and made it a modern 2 piece battery. While it would be more difficult, as long as they use high quality pull tabs and keep the rear cover easily detachable (preferrably with screws and not just a snap on design) it would still take less than 2 minutes for an experienced technitian and would be doable by basically anyone that is willing to read the instructions and be careful with what they're doing. This should be their philosophy, make a good, modern phone with all the bells and whistles, whlie doing everything in your power to keep it repairable, releasing schematics to repair shops, using screws of the same size, avoiding using glue, and providing parts with no strings attached - no locking parts to single devices, no repair programs, just order the part and off you go. Maybe keeping a few things modular would be a good idea like the usbc port which is probably the second most common point of failure after the screen. But what makes the biggest impact is keeping things easy to replace and easy to do board level repair. I think the fairphone is a great idea, but it just doesn't work for most consumers, while their laptop counterpart - the framework does.

[@Alias_Anybody]

Yeah, I don't see why they couldn't just use six small screws plus clips to keep the back on if that leads to a more compact design. On-the-fly swap isn't a big priority in the age of quick charging

[@HybridDivide]

I'd really like to see what Framework's take on a phone would be. Probably a better balance between modernity and reparability than this. I, too, LOVE Fairphone's mission, but between these issues, and not being available in the US, I won't be buying one. (And I share Linus' issue with the navigation bar. That should be a stock Android feature by now.)

[@JaceKeller]

The thing is that the vast majority of people don't care about repairability and like you said, this company has made huge sacrifices to make sure that it is repairable. And tbh, where I live nobody knows this phone for being repairable. They are known for being eco-friendly and it's appealing to a small % of the population who likes to grandstand.

[@FaySmash]

You described my Shiftphone Shift6mq EXACTLY and why I got it ^^

[@user-bf5qh3ih4u]

@@JaceKellerit’s barely even more repairable once you get the back glass off. Literally only needs easy entry and easy access to parts and no shitty parts pairing for a repairable design I was looking into a fairphone but I realized that it was a down grade compared my current phone. The battery life on my iPhone 11 still smoked the fairphone even at 75% battery health

[@pptemplar5840]

Ok so, I was still kinda on board until it didn't have a headphone jack ngl. Only real issue that might impact me significantly before that was responsiveness, but honestly that probably wouldn't be a deal breaker. May keep an eye out for older models I guess.

[@GermanIrukandji]

Hi Linus from Germany, your title unfortunately hits the nail on the head. Your belief in the mission of Fairphone is unfortunately far too short and one has the feeling that you just want to destroy the phone and the deeper meaning behind it. The project doesn't deserve that and should have been allowed to continue in the video. Where are the comparisons to software updates with other manufacturers? iFIxit comparisons to repairability or the availability (+ duration) of spare parts for the FP5? I love your channel and your videos and your merch is certainly cool if not affordable outside North America due to shipping + customs fees (LTT Store Europe in planning?). Also forgive yourself for a misstep (Nexus Gate) but this is too personal. With a lot of energy, blood, and sweat, we were able to introduce this phone in our company as the successor to the Huawei P30 lite even though it is twice as expensive because it is almost unique in the market when it comes to sustainability. And that's exactly what every user who complains about the device or features gets, just like you, dear Linus, smeared on the bread! Yes, your arguments regarding hardware and software are absolutely understandable, but Fairphone's goal is not to produce an affordable "flagship killer" but something fairer and more sustainable than what Samsung, Apple, and others produce, and this approach not only falls short in your video but simply does not happen! Personally, the advantages outweigh the "weak points" for me by simply making a few personal sacrifices that the world will not end from. You receive regular software updates and security patches. The performance is more than OK. Some parts of this post are complaining at a high level and unfortunately reflect the overall problem in society, which is why we probably won't be able to stop climate change. Sorry, but that had to be said!

[@Skazzy3YT]

Two of these issues which are the navigation button switching and the long press to only see app info are just problems of stock android, and the pixel cannot do these either. I don't think it's fair to fault the fair phone alone for this

[@hnielsen123]

If their competitors do it and then don't, then it's a fair comparison. There's nothing stopping them from developing their own skin over stock android that gives users a better experience.

[@maddlyinlove]

Having to press OK after inputting your pin is fairly common still... my S23 makes me do it. Some of these tests seem unfair.

[@FunkyM217]

My A04s as well.

[@amiraizat]

Are u sure? My note20u and s24u have the option to not press the OK button.

[@reiniermoreno1653]

My A12 let me to change that in settings, you must check

[@TheBloopers30]

I'm on an S23 and and I don't have to do that. Is this like a localization thing where they "have" to have it like that to pass certain privacy and security laws or something?

[@SimonBauer7]

7:37 thats just normal android. my moto g82 does the same thing, so should a pixel. so does the confirm pin thing btw. some of the things you noticed ui wise is a normal android thing. samsung just changes a lot of these things.

[@vargabazsaa]

Xiaomi, huawei/honor and oppo changes them too. But yeah that's why i don't recommend motorola/lg/sony phones to anyone ever.

[@naunau311]

No idea how it is on moto or fp but on a pixel it's a simple motion to uninstall an app, literally just as fast if not faster than the Samsung way

[@me-myself-i787]

​@@naunau311I have the Google Pixel 7, and holding the app icon doesn't give you the option to uninstall it. Instead, you have to press "App info" and then "Uninstall", which is the same process as on the FairPhone. Edit: Turns out, there is another way to uninstall apps.

[@naunau311]

@@me-myself-i787 I have the google pixel 7 as well, as I've said, and you can just hold it down and drag it upwards to uninstall it.

[@cromefire_]

I think a few things were mixed up here as the no uninstall on long press and running services are just how modern android works on devices without much of a skin, like Pixels.

[@Catrik]

So which used phones should we look for, if a requirement is long software support, basically limiting it to third party roms?

[@aktm1407]

iPhones or fairphones. Only recently have Google and Samsung started to follow up on longer software support

[@Catrik]

@@aktm1407 Fairphones are extremely expensive new, and practically not available used.

[@medivalone]

6:31 - can we have future dB graphs be logarithmic since dB is a logarithmic scale? Showing it as a linear scal is unfair to reality.

[@Yamahapsr200]

If you do that, you'll either end up with double log scale or stretch them out to be linear again. Since the ear is perceiving loudness logarithmically too, using dB as is being used here creates a much more accurate impression of perception. Also, if you look at pretty much any graph that uses dB for an axis, you'll find that axis to be "linear" too. We use dB precicely because it allows us to not having to squash our graphs more than necessary (and makes some calculations easier).

[@PeidosFTW]

people finding out that a push towards a clean and ethical future is in fact expensive if you want to maintain your current consumption is very funny

[@Adem92Foster]

No ? That's completely irrelevant to most of the video, a majority of the issues can be fixed just by making a better phone

[@Ghettofinger]

@@Adem92Foster Except for the fact that the Fairphone was much worse than a Pixel 8 and more expensive, to make it as good as a Pixel 8, it will be much more expensive than a Pixel 8, which makes getting it stupid, unless you like spending money.

[@Adem92Foster]

@@Ghettofinger Ok thank you for agreeing with me ? The fact is the phone being much worse than the Pixel 8 has absolutely nothing to do with the phone being more ethical and repair friendly. If Google with its ressources wanted to make the Pixel 8 like the fairphone at the same price point, they easily could.

[@bastienx8]

@@Adem92Foster That's the problem, Google has the resources to make a more polished phone and sell a lot to reduce the costs of development, Fairphone has not.

[@Adem92Foster]

@@bastienx8 Ok but that's still far from the original point being that the phones issue are all based on it being a repairable and ethical phone.....

[@kelper205]

You measure the wrong things. Break the screen of all your test phones, and measure the time to repair each. I replaced my screen in 5 minutes with ease. Doing it on most other phones takes much longer and harder to do

[@muizzy]

How exactly is replacing the screen more impactful to your daily use of the phone than battery life?

[@PhillipLoughney]

​@@muizzyit's not. The fairphone also isn't just about daily use. It's about keeping the same device for years and producing as little e-waste as possible. If you're not the type of person to care about producing landfill changing your phone every year or two years then you're not the type of person to understand the appeal of this. Sorry to replay to a 2 month old comment lol

[@muizzy]

@@PhillipLoughney that's great, and an OK argument, but it has nothing to do with the argument the OP of this thread is making.

[@kelper205]

It also have great battery life since you can have multiple batteries with ease and swap between them in 10 seconds. You can also always have a fresh battery even after 5 years since it cost 30$ to switch to a new fresh one if your old battery would age /Written on my 5 year old Fairphone3 which has had screen replaced and battery replaced so it lasts a full day and still works like a new phone after 5 years

[@puffer4909]

that thing with the headphones was also becoming a problem on my s8 - after making specific calls with signal or using ts lead to no soumd being player at all, or being played via the earspeaker

[@RobF2593]

FairPhone is the only few phone manufacturers who makes is easy to install Alternative Android OS (like eOS, Leanage OS), I think. That's a plus.

[@leifrie8877]

Have you taken Oneplus into consideration? They don't even invalidate your warranty for chaning and Rooting your phone, which many other Companies do.

[@petkogeorgiev2103]

That's very cool, but kind of a niche feature. Most people wouldn't be doing that. And maybe most of the ones who would, have no problems prying off the back of the phone and using alcohol to remove the battery. I feel like these people are not the target audience of this phone.

[@crashniels]

@@leifrie8877But they don't allow custom avb keys and relocking with a custom ROM anymore. Also this might all change since China is cracking down on bootloader unlocking.

[@AbRaSkZo]

​@@crashnielswhy would that affect the rest of the world? For example, US-samsung devices have a locked bootloader, while european and most asian devices have unlockable bootloaders. Region locks are already a thing here.

[@crashniels]

@@AbRaSkZo Asus for example has removed their bootloader unlock claiming "technical reasons" and "they are working on it". They said that a year ago. Newer Xiaomi and other Chinese brands have had problems with their bootloader unlocking since around the same time.

[@dakel20]

I miss plastic backed phones so much. The Nexus 6 is possibly the most comfortable and enjoyable phone I've ever used. And, honestly, I miss thicc phones too. And, to be honest, it seems the leading problem with this phone isn't the phone itself, or even FairPhone's design ideas. It's squarely on Qualcomm refusing to support a phone CPU more than 3 years.

[@wyterabitt2149]

Samsung are supporting Snapdragon phones for more than 3 years.

[@-Blue-_]

My Realme 11 pro back is plastic

[@lefear2]

I've never understood the rational for making glass backs - What's the best way to make the phone lighter and better at dissipating heat, I know a useless piece of heavy glass that's really good at trapping heat in.

[@wyterabitt2149]

@@lefear2 Glass will generally wear better, look better over time, and all glass will increase the general efficiency and antenna performance a little (including better wireless charging, that is already subject to insane efficiency loss just as a part of the technology itself). Of course it does come at the increased risk of major damage, so you have to be more careful.

[@PyroVox]

The auto-dimming problems were present on my Fairphone 3+, which I had from new. And I'm also experiencing them on Fairphone 5. I'm glad that Linus highlighted this issue and explained what was going on with the phone not smoothing out the sensor data or smoothly transitioning from one state to another.

[@TomNook.]

"Unless your needs are basic and you like spending more money" What, like replacing your flagship every 2 years?

[@Gatitasecsii]

You don't have to do that ._. I know many people who have had their phones for over 5 years, flagship or not, updates or not.

[@viv12348]

Yeah, which will actually give you a flagship experience, not a "budget xiaomi" feel for the price of a good phone

[@beardsntools]

A flagship is not meant for basic needs(you pay more, but you also get better experience) and a budget phone that is for basic needs is cheap. Nice try, but you really need to get a fairphone, if your needs are basic and you like spending more money xD

[@Akuba]

What was always a deal-breaker for me since the Fairphone 2 was the fact you cannot buy a new motherboard for those phones. The moment this one breaks you basically have a expensive paperweight. I seen posts where they replaced the motherboard under warranty and posts where they did not replace them, which turned the phone into the mentioned paperweight. Idk how much it changed nowadays, but even current posts suggest ongoing issues, like charging port and charging issues seem to be quite frequent across all models. While I love the concept (I also have a framework and did not regret it), I just do not feel like its worth paying the price for it.

[@GFmanaic]

5:20 The reason is very probably Qualcomm's restriction to working with smaller OEMs. I've tried to work with them, they just refuse. We can get Qualcomm chips if you work with approved partners, but even then you cannot get the chip you want. Power consumption is worse, features are worse, but.... that's all you can get your hands on.

[@zahedchowdhury0]

Nope They did use snapdragon 6xx chips before. The reason they use this chip is for the extended updates.

[@GFmanaic]

@@zahedchowdhury0 Thanks, although I've had Freescale redirect me towards industrial SoCs, citing longer support, but the reason is in face that they internally don't want smaller clients on cutting edge SoCs because of the added support. But you might be right. I just know Qualcomm is a nightmare to work with.

[@yourleftyourotherleft]

Fairphone might not be that great but I still wish it to be commercially available in the Philippines better when its available as part of the free phone for postpaid plans that should help push their stocks moving and increase their popularity

[@DirtCheapFU]

The vibrate issue reminded me of that episode of IT Crowd where Roy thought he was having a heart attack at his boss's funeral. Same episode where the boss walks out the window. Like the Greatest Man in the World.

[@bumpsy]

as an FP4 owner, I think it gets VERY obvious how tiny this company is. Most bugs I experienced got fixed with software updates, but some were still present 2 years after launch. So, they'll eventually come around to fix software problems, but it can take until the next iteration with new problems releases :/ I think it's completely fine for most users, especially older or younger folks who don't really care about top notch performance, but it is a far cry away from being usable for enthusiasts or professional users. The thing I probably hate most about it is the camera. The sensor is actually pretty good (as far as I can tell) but the software is actually utter garbage compared to the competition from years ago. The price is also too high but I for my part am supporting the idea with at least 40% of the price (which would still make it more expensive than most comparable phones nowadays, btw)

[@RomvnlyPlays]

Completely fine isn’t something I would say. Most users HATE bugs.

[@ianhoyt2638]

The whole beard thing really shows how far in advance LTT videos are recorded. It's been over a week since Linus shaved and we still haven't had a video hosted by beardless Linus.

[@Metal_Maxine]

Well, he talks about the big projects he filmed in the week when he does the WAN show and 2 to 3 weeks doesn't seem unusual for things like ultimate upgrades etc.

[@asiano3385]

4:17 why phones with no round corners, no camera pin inside screen and a hardware navigation buttons look so sleek?

[@AiraBai]

Got one since release in EU. Got different problem with audio: the whole wireless stack got some problems somewhere, which can result in either bt audio not working (music players straight up die or freeze) or it toggles itself (the whole radio stack: bt, nfc & 5g) on and off in a loop. Both can be solved by rebooting. Tap to wake didn't work for a long time and just recently got patched, the auto brightness problem too got some patches but is still as bad as u show, also the extra dim toggle sometimes stays stuck on and needs some helping getting the display bright enough again for outside use. I didn't know when I ordered, but if I had known that and how deep the rounded corners of the display are, I wouldn't have ordered it. I sometimes can't touch stuff, because there are in the rounded corner or text from a webpage or ebook reader hides in it and you can't access it. Performance wise I see no problems, even with some games like emulation or genshin, but battery life is really annoying for a, for me, 800EUR phone.

[@daemonbyte]

Since you put linage on the note I wouldn't have minded seeing it on the fairphone and see if it fixed the software issues

[@willowluvvlace]

- fairphone 5 doesn't have an official build of lineage yet - yes, all his pet peeves with the *software* - keyword being software here, would've been fixed

[@indexSLive]

7:55 is literally just how base Android does it. You have to click the tick to sign in using a PIN on a Pixel 7a as well. Samsung skinned it to not require it.

[@DrFungus]

They added an option to change it in Android 14, right? It's in Settings > Security and Privacy > Device Unlock > Press the cog next to PIN unlock > Auto confirm unlock. It only works for PINs ≥ 6 digits.

[@indexSLive]

You are absolutely correct. I will say that I have never used a pin longer than 4 digits though. Part of me thinks Linus never does either. FP5 should also have that same 6 digit auto unlock PIN. Also the hold to uninstall is not a thing in raw android. He really needs to make sure he or his staff writers actually look at the base feature set before critiquing this stuff. Super misleading.

[@marcellkovacs5452]

I don't want to defend him, but I don't think he ever said that base Android was different, he just said this is not how it should be. I'm guessing he's used to the Samsung UI which works differently.

[@donkey7921]

and?

[@fargoth92]

​@@marcellkovacs5452when base android does it like this, this is how it should be. linus commenting on this is just plain dumb anyway because you can change it

[@pboolean]

Comparing with a note 5 is approaching bad faith. 1. The battery life in the note is (according to your own graphics) half the Fairphone 5:02 2. The launch times of the note are (according to your graphics) nearly double the Fairphone 4:42 3. The note is COMPLETELY unsupported from a software point of view, unless you want to use LineageOS, but then no bank apps. 4. Tbh i liked the saturated photos of the Fairphone more than the gray colorless photo you showed from the pixel (unless uou deliberately chose to photograph something that looks gray and colorless, in which case i redact this point.) 9:33

[@kipchickensout]

I mean I switched to the different mode of navigation (swiping from the side) BECAUSE the nothing phone couldn't put the back button on the right side - they added it not much later but I got used to the new navigation quickly so

[@gergolengyel7266]

What I found out from this video, that Linus just doesn't like stock Android, because most of the software features that he pointed out are stock Android "things" .

[@4203105]

He should really complain to Google about it. He might be the only one Google might actually listen to.

[@crex6166]

Kudos for supporting products like Fairphone and Framework, but also be fair to them. Great work!

[@chrissjogren6843]

Framework okey, but fairphone just create more ewaste. Just buy an old Samsung phone if you want to be resourceful. Just because it can easy swap parts doesn’t mean it’s good for the world. Old Samsung phone or iPhone phones can easy be repaired at home.

[@adwaawddw4730]

@@chrissjogren6843 You're insane if you think that the repairability of an iphone is at all comparable to a fairphone or even a samsung.

[@chrissjogren6843]

@@adwaawddw4730 I have owned an iPhone since 10years back. The only issues I had is with screen or battery. Battery is easily changed. Even with someone with less experience. Even tho I do repair quite much, I often hand it to Apple to change this parts for a bit more money. Since they then do it with genuine parts. All other flagship phones, is easy to change part. So why is this needed? It solves no problem. It only sells low performance phones which you need to change out more, which creates more ewaste. If this phone was something that people really wished for, it would be a top selling phone.

[@AwesomeSaussage]

I had a problem with my fp5 occasionally disconnecting from the network, only to be fixed with a reboot. Sometimes this occurred once every two weeks but then I had to reboot 3 times in 20 minutes. Drove me crazy! 🤯 The service was quite supportive and mentioned it could be the rather old SIM card, which I didn't belive right away. But as I finally switches to an eSim the problem was gone!

[@fightingfalconfan]

It's a good concept. going back to the days where you can actually replace the battery when needed, increase the storage by adding a micro SD card. But on the flip side it looks like they chose a SOC that is a few generations behind the pack. The problem I see with Android is that the developers of the mobile OS have to program it to run on just about an infinite number of hardware configurations. It's just as the PC and Windows. Microsoft's Windows team has to program the kernel to run on any combo of hardware configuration the end user might have. So when it's running on a SOC that's a few gen's old by the time the phone is a prototype it's going to be clunky and slow. I don't mind the thickness much at all. I bet if I where to hold it in my hand it would feel pretty good. Something that don't feel like it's going to break just by holding it. Apple/Samsung...looking at you. I recently switched from Android to iPhone and it's a completely different experience. To my eye my iPhone is much faster then what Samsung/Google can offer right now. When you can write your code tailored to the hardware you know will be in the device you can optimize pretty quickly.

[@fightingfalconfan]

@@washuai The problem we are facing right now with what phones are in the market...Apple and Samsung have massive amounts of money to spend on R&D and advertising. It took Samsung what; 6 or so years with the S series to get market share dominance in Android. Apple again with the money they have can build a phone, add the features they want and think customers will want; polish the software side and slap the apple tax on it. On top of all this both companies have agreements with the cell carriers. Been seeing Verizon and ATT a lot last few months adversiting what new phone is out Tmobile included. As far as apple being slow, I think their game plan is to release features they know their customers want when they believe the time is right. I personally like my iPhone. I was on Android for some 13 years and always thought it was the best platform. Even had debates with friends about it. But now that I have switched over and been using it for a couple of months straight; for someone like me who just wants things to work and not always dive into settings to get something done it's pretty nice. I got to the point with Android I had too many customization options and couldn't decide anymore. Apple gives you some and that's it. Just works.

[@willowluvvlace]

fun fact for the software issues segment at around 7:10 half of these would happen on the Pixel 8 as well or literally *ANY* Google Pixel, Sony Xperia, or other stock Android/AOSP-based OEM skin.

[@UCjNrKLyRJI-abFA8qiNo92Q]

also you can change the OS if you want

[@shakeelali20]

Im glad someone said it. Linus seems to bring those issues up in every review he does with an AOSP based phone. and it annoys me every single time. It's been llike this for more than 3 years now and hes presenting it as some limitation of the phone. It really shows how biased some reviewers can become without even knowing it. He may as well have said "this isnt OneUI and im not used to it yet". But then as we all know, negativity gets clicks.

[@feroxfoxxo9811]

This! I had to keep going back to my Pixel 8 and trying out what he was complaining about to see if it was also an issue here. I know he already got corrected about the back button issue on the Wan Show as something Sony has been petitioning for change on, so I would have thought he'd known better (especially to reiterate it in a separate review). I found it ironic that the only good thing he had to say about the software, the running app notification shade, is just a part of base Android 14 as far as I know as well.

[@willowluvvlace]

@@shakeelali20 agreed

[@estebandelsolar6403]

yup, have a "stock android" phone and i have the same problems

[@asbjo]

As a Fairphone 4 user on 2+ years of use, I can only say, being able to order a new screen for €80, receive it within a week, and change it out with a screwdriver and a guide for reference, in less than 10 minutes, has been a game-changer. The "extra mile" was worth it IMO. The thickness and build quality gives a phone that is rock solid. I have not used a case on mine at all, and all is well. The screen shattered, yes, but that would have happened with a case as well in that situation.. I think the main point of getting a phone like this is more for people that want to have a phone that does what a phone should do, be stable, rugged and dependable for a LONG time. I intend to have my phone for at least 5 years, more if possible. And being able to buy parts, change what is broken this easily only serves to lower the barrier to entry for repairs. You can repair anything without having to buy other than the part itself and having a right size screwdriver (All screws are the same size phillips, except on the core which uses torque heads).. With other phones you need new glue strips and one has to have the know-how to actually work on it without damaging fragile parts, even if it is relatively easy. Fairphone sidesteps all those requirements for a no-nonsense and straight forward approach. I dislike Linus not mentioning the option to swap batteries on the fly. Battery life is not good, and is definitely one of the weaker points of the phone, however, I can buy a spare and have it with me if i need it (I do not), and just swap over. Or if I buy a new battery to replace a tired one, I just keep the old for emergency power.. The critiques the I do agree with is some of the choices with the skin... It is kinda annoying, but it is really minor stuff on the whole. Software updates have been amazing too. Mostly focused on stability and functionality improvements, not so much features. This review feels, at least in my view, a little disconnected with what people actually want a phone to do. Most people do not need a super performant and fancy phone with a bazillion features you almost never use anyway. I'm not saying those fancy features and nice to haves aren't useful for someone, they surely are, but most people I know just wan a decent phone that lasts a long time. And Fairphone delivers perfectly on that.

[@andyH_England]

I think the price is the problem, and because you are paying an e-premium, although a replacement display seems cheap, you have already paid for the excess it would cost on, say, a Samsung because of the ludicrous pricing. This is a £300 phone; if Apple tried to charge £700 for this, they would get smacked!

[@vargabazsaa]

I have to disagree. I have worked in mobile retail for the last 10+ years, and people started to actually use their smartphones to ther potential. As everyrhing nowdays works online, and needs an app (loyalty programs, school grades, e-meetings, group chat for every imaginable social circle you have) people with low-end hardware tend to struggle. I use a samsung but for elderly people starting out, i always recommended apple products, since they're more straightfoward, and if they mess something up, they know it was them, and not the phone. When you're learning to use devices, it shortens the learning curve when something is repeatable. If they press something and the same thing happens over and over again. On lower end androids, apps can crasg for no reason, making them feel insecure about doing things. Fairphone is a good alternative for someone who knows what they're doing and who can trade a few quirks for repairability. But for uncle joe, who goes to a repair center for a battery swap, it doesn't matter if they got the fairphone from the family for christmas, or and iphone or a samsung. The service center will still bill them 10 bucks for the swap, it doesn't matter if they need to remove an adhesive and a ribbon cable or not. Apple has 5 years of support, and samsung now has 7 (starting with the s24 series), and phones tend to die by then because the hardware gets so outdated anyway. An iot chip will still struggle with the demand of the newly made apps, it won't matter how good it temperature management is. As louis rossman put it "right to repair doesn't mean you have to repair it yourself. It means that people can do it for you without getting sued" or something along these lines. Not having to get proprietary first party charging cables, or oem screens, means you can keep your device alive longer. And fairphone is doing just that which is great. But having the illusion that you *should* do everything by yourself is stupid. People will still break their devices because someone in an ad said that they can do it. It's stupid.

[@asbjo]

@@andyH_England Agreed. the FP5 is too expensive. But it will drop in price to a more reasonable level. The price is also due to the longevity of the device. My FP4 was €450, and to me, that seems a good deal for a phone I am far more sure will last till the SoC is incapable of what it needs to do. Since I do not game, that could be a long time.

[@huwday1131]

@@andyH_England To play devil's advocate, the easiest way to justify the price would be to work out what it would be per year, over the expected lifetime of the phone. I bought a Framework laptop when they released the Gen12 intel mainboards, and it was quite a bit more expensive than laptops of comparable spec. But I expect to be able to keep most of the laptop for the next decade, with maybe only one or two mainboard upgrades and the occasional part for repair. That takes it from ~£1.6k sale price to maybe ~£180 per year. My mother-in-law burns through laptops unbelievably quickly, because she buys machines in the £300-£400 price bracket and they die due to daft stuff like a broken charger socket (2 laptops), a broken screen (with repair cost approaching the cost of the laptop) and similar issues. She probably buys a new one every couple of years, and they're all worse than the Framework. Of course, that mindset only works if the Fairphone is something you'd be happy to use for that length of time...

[@asbjo]

@@vargabazsaa I think you are reading too much into it, honestly. The SoC choice is what it is, and I do concede, that this seems to be a bit on the slow side for longevity, however see how apple is handling their silicon. They all are functional 5 years plus, even on anaemic hardware. The phones usually break before the SoC becomes problematic. The most problematic issues I had with phones performance not keeping up before my current phone has been memory.. I am not too worried. For all the apps you mention, the requirements have not gone up that much over time. Usually it is mostly memory usage that increases more than throughput. Most tasks are not that intensive, even video-calls. If your device can encode and decode 1080p video as well as handle UI smoothly while doing that, you are fine. If the UI doesn't get in your way with sluggishness (in the long term), you are fine. If you do not need a fancy camera, you are fine. Requirements keep increasing, yes, but for MOST tasks, those requirements have plateaued. Just look at laptops and how they changed.. A 5 year old laptop today is usually still totally serviceable for most non-gaming workloads. A 5 year old laptop in 2010 would be a struggle. Hell, even the memory requirement increases for phones i mentioned above have tapered off. Look. Yes. The FP5 is too expensive, So is the FP4 for that matter, but less so. (I see the 4 has gone up in price since I bought it.) (Also, society is used to insanely cheap consumer goods, so when things actually cost what it costs to produce in a fair manner (pun intended), sticker shock usually sets in) And yes, Louis Rossman is exactly right. I have not opposed that, or stated that repair needs to be this accessible to the end user. But I look at any utilitarian investment much like i would with a car. Need to haves, nice to haves. How much do I expect to spend maintaining it? Do I need more space? Or is less enough. Depreciation, servicing, etc. etc. Here, since I am a tech guy, I like tinkering, and hence, a stable platform that I can service myself? Hell yeah. That is the crux of my point. The review comes out rather negative. While a lot of the critiques are valid, it also kinda emphasises issues that aren't really that big an issue when you consider what it is designed for. Usually Linus is good at bringing this sort of point into the conclusion on a 'meh' to negative review, but not this time. A shame. And yeah, you are right in recommending iOS to non-tech-litterate people. It was designed for them....... Apple gets hate for not being customizable or walled garden etc. But it is also one of its greatest strengths! That sort of balance felt lacking in this review. A no frills phone that will last you a long time with a low running cost, but a rather steep initial cost. Kinda "Meh" in some areas, 10 across the board on others.

[@cola98765]

2:20 it indeed is "what year is it?" but in a positive way I always wanted back. they are like that because that's the proper safe way of doing it, that simply was forgotten as glued in batteries came in.

[@FFXIvoorhees]

Pre-lubed magnetic switches?! Mine just get lubed over time with casual use and visits to shady websites.

[@TheFrog1200]

For me the main reason to get the FP5 honestly was the long term support an 5 years warranty. My past 3 Phones that I used (S4 Mini, Xperia Compact, A30s) I intended to use as long as possible and they all randomly died after 2 to 3 years without obvious damage (S4 was just crashing randomly, Xperia the antenna for cell service died, A30s: random as crashes sometimes the whole day without proper booting up). So I now hope all the downpointa the FP5 has in software will get fixed eventually and it serves me as long as possible. Regarding the switchable site for the back button: Missed it a lot, now my habits changed and switching back to the other way around would be as annoying as when I switched to the FP5.

[@joeykeilholz925]

The quality of the software support here seems quite low which is something people are just ignoring. Buy a budget samsung at this point...

[@me2olive]

@@joeykeilholz925 The phone gets regular fixes and updates, more than my last Samsung did in fact.

[@donotatme]

​@@joeykeilholz925You've said this a lot, i think you never actually used a budget Samsung in your life. I have set up multiple Galaxy A series phones for my family and they are SLOW af Out of the box with so. Much. Bloat! 360 cleaner baked in to settings, 300 apps pre installed, 2 app stores. The A23 of my grandpa couldn't even scroll smoothly in a web browser after installing all his socials. The screen looks like TN LCD junk. Only redeeming quality is the excellent battery life, ill give it that.

[@HotdogSosage]

​@@me2oliveSamsung and Google now offer almost the same duration of software support but for phones that aren't big blocky slow and this buggy. Oh, and cheaper

[@TSiAhmat]

I think 5 is smaller than 10... And the other companys still have to deliver on that promise (especially Google) while the FP-Company already over-delivered for 2 of their devices. @@HotdogSosage

[@TheMoneyhats]

I own a Fairphone 5 and have never had the audio issue that Linus speaks about, not sure if it's some weird prototype issue. I also don't mind the weird processor, they were criticized on the Fairphone 4 for not being able to keep up with processor security updates, and unfortunately, fairphone isn't big enough to have their own custom chip. So this chip is the compromise that they came up with. And if I am going to be keeping this phone for seven years, not having a top of the line chip isn't going to be a buyers top priority in the first place.

[@Tomazack]

But that's the issue. What ages better, Samsung Galaxy S series or A series? A weaker chip will show its age way sooner, and that means you'll be banging your head against the wall for all the struggles this phone will face long before it's close to 7 years old.

[@joeykeilholz925]

No bruh, this is a weird specific model cpu when they could just go with an older flagship. This cpu is only being used on this exact phone and nothing else so far. That's not actually a good idea like you're trying to say. It's more difficult to support.

[@crashniels]

This could all be fixed if Google forced chip makers to use uefi like Microsoft did. I can grab a Windows 10 iso and slap it on my old ThinkPad but I can't grab an Android iso and put it on a phone. Old phones are still very capable and so are old laptops.

[@crashniels]

@@joeykeilholz925 supporting older chips is more difficult. Qualcomm doesn't provide updates so Fairphone has to hack together bad Qualcomm code and hope it works. With LTS chips it is easier and if there are issues Qualcomm has to fix them. These chips are supported for 10-15 years by Qualcomm.

[@SimonVaIe]

​@@joeykeilholz925 well Qualcomm does not support it's mainline snapdragon SOCs for all that long, at least if my quick search is to be believed.

[@HadleeSimons]

Has the phone even received an OTA update since you got it? It's not uncommon for prototypes or demo units to not receive OTA updates.

[@SotirOtDjebel]

I've had the Fairphone 4 for 2 or 3 years now. I've broken and replaced the screen (extremely easy, and comparatively cheap, to do). I am using it with no noticeable issues for standard phone stuff + watching movies on an external screen + a whole bunch of smart device control. I have taken maybe 10 photos with it, which I've looked at twice. I have had minimal issues with the software. The truth is that unless you game, shoot photo/video professionally or have some other niche and demanding use for it, a Fairphone or a similar device is likely more than enough for you. To me, the choice when buying remains between: 1. Giving way too much money to a trashy company like Apple, who will pressure you with FOMO each year by introducing marginal improvements, and gatekeeping; 2. Giving extra (but still less than 1.) money to a small company that advocates for repairability, sustainability and privacy. The Fairphone is not perfect in any of these parameters, by their own admission, but the point is more to signal to the industry what their priorities should be, rather than being a Fairphone (or any other brand) fanboy.

[@KptnAutismus]

to be honest, i can run minecraft, star rail and genshin impact just fine on my FP4. it has just enough power for my use case. but the battery life is a bummer if you don't carry around a power bank or have a second battery which you can somehow charge externally. i've built my own charger for that, and it's available on thangs (shameless self-plug)