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European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries (www.techspot.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 17 points 3 years ago (5 children)

This is why I got a Fairphone. I was done complaining about the direction of the mobile market and decided to buy a phone which lets me do all of this and has longer support for software and hardware. It's the best phone I've had since the S3.

It only works for me because I like Android, live in Europe and have big enough pockets, though... the thing is a brick.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    longer support for software and hardware

    Not to rain on your parade (I love the idea of the Fairphone!), but that's actually a bit of misadvertising on Fairphone's part — the SoCs they use are very outdated and near the end of their vender firmware and driver support, meaning they get maybe 2 years of the full support you'd expect when you say a manufacturer "supports" something, and then however many more years of hobbled support. Additionally, they're just really bad about security.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    You've got me down a rabbit hole now.

    Shorter than expected SoC support is one thing, but the hardware root of trust trusting AOSP test keys which was also stated by GrapheneOS is something else. That's a total amateurish blunder and the only reason it's not a complete disaster is you need to boot into EDL mode first to actually flash a recovery. The verified boot is practically useless.

    Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'm not purchasing another phone from them. Unfortunate, because I liked the removable battery and seemingly long support. Back to the drawing board.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Yeah when I found out about the Fairphone originally I was extremely excited and really wanted one for my next phone, but I use GrapheneOS my pixel right now so I figure I just check why it doesn't support it and sure enough I found this stuff :(

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Yeah, if you want long support, what you really want is... an iPhone.

    But the EU might push through regulations that would force all manufacturers to support their phones for longer.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Big enough financial pockets, or trouser pockets? :-). One reason I am discouraged from getting a fairphone phone is that I like smaller mobile phone screens.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I though about getting a Fairphone but it really didn't work for me due to the missing headphone jack.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    I've got on okay without it but I already had Bluetooth headphones. It was understandably a pretty unpopular move.

    I kind of questioned it from their "sustainability" ethos, too. It means more people might throw away working wired earphones and buy much more complicated, expensive Bluetooth ones... which use more resources to make.

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