Technology

I've been using a FP4 since ~2 months after release.

I cannot straight-up recommend that phone.

The ups:

• Repairability is nice. It's actually really easy to take apart.
• Battery is replaceable without tools
• They let you root/flash custom ROMs without losing your hardware warranty
• Guaranteed updates until end of 2026
• Spare parts available until 2027
• 5 year warranty

The downs:

• The phone is getting late in it's cycle.
  • The hardware is from 2020
  • There are only 3 years of software updates left. This is still good, but there are other manufacturers that offer the same
  • Parts are only guaranteed to be available for 3-4 years. That is ok, but you can also get spare parts for much older phones too.
• Stock software is really buggy, and everyone gets a different set of bugs.
• Support is really slow and most of the time unhelpful. "Thanks, we have added the bug to the backlog". A year later, the bug is still there, even for major bugs.
• Every release adds new bugs, the software overall is not getting better.
• Android OS updates have so far been very late. Android 12 was just released earlier this year.
• They outsource their OS development, and the devs don't use FP as daily drivers, so they only fix what they are paid for, not what they find themselves.
• The hardware isn't great
  • I've had a few games that I couldn't even play on lowest settings, because the game is too slow for it (e.g. Space Marshals 3)
  • The camera is really bad. The camera of my Moto Z Play was better, and that phone was a cheap phone released in 2016. The stock camera app is also super slow and laggy. ~50% of the time when you press the shutter, it will not even take a picture at all. Sideloading a version of Google Camera from the Fairphone forum does fix the lagging and the missed pictures, and it does improve the picture quality a bit, but don't expect anything remotely fitting into 2023.
• The phone is really expensive for what you are getting, and the price hasn't come down a bit, considering that the phone is out since almost 2 years now.
• Many people seem to expect a FP5 to be released soon-ish

All in all:

It's a decent, though overpriced phone if you really like to hack and tinker. There is an ethical aspect if you believe their marketing, but in the end it's using mostly off-the-shelf components. If you are looking for a phone that "just works", this is not the place.

Also, regarding repairability: For the high price point you can easily afford multiple professional battery/screen replacements if you buy a cheaper mainstream phone instead.

So this is not a straight-up buy or don't buy. For some people this is the right phone, for many there might be better alternatives out there.