AFAIK the fairphone is the only phone on the market that is explicitly designed to be user repairable. It doesn't have a headphone Jack, though.
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Unless you find a phone with an upgradable modem there is no „buy it for life” one. We’re now at 4th/5th gen networks and many places switched off everything older to reclaim wireless spectrum. LTE and 5G will be replaced too eventually.
Librem 5 has an upgradable modem, originally came out with 4G and people have gotten 5G working. WiFi/BT can be upgraded the same way, like a Nintendo Switch cartridge. Can use Waydroid to download WhatsApp, has a headphone jack, plays music, replaceable battery, spare screens for sale in case it ever breaks. Fairly repairable, but not to the level Fairphone is with all their easy, modular pieces.
This is cool as hell, thank you for sharing. I’d still be wary of any company promising perpetual support because the true test will be if in a few years down the line there’s a 6G modem you can replace old one with. It’s very hard to have some sort of universal computing device that would be supported forever because eventually there’s no one supplying parts or new ones are not compatible.
Wireless chips use a standard M.2 interface, same as SSDs, it would be weird if companies didn't support this in the future. 4G - > 5G I think was already proof enough that it can be done.
The operating system is open source, so anyone and their AI agent can add support in the software/firmware.
M2 is standard now but there were many before it and there will be many after it. Vibe coding drivers for modems might not be a viable strategy either. Modems are extremely proprietary things that are subject to boatloads of regulations so it’s a bit of a miracle they are running on relatively open systems now.
IMO a modern phones usefulness is based in software not hardware. I'd find a phone that easily unlock and can run a ROM you like. I like Apple stuff but I think you're going to have to switch platforms to make this work.
exactly. I've had a pixel 6 for a couple years now and there just isn't any significant reason to get a new phone, everything runs smoothly and new phones don't have any particularly useful improvements beyond, like, screen brightness and refresh rate (and even then 60hz is fucking fine)..
unlock the bootloader, install lineage with microg, install kernelSU; bam basically the best smartphone experience you can have until the market gets regulated and stops being ass.
A normal phone lasts about 7 years (pixel and iPhone update life)
Generally after that its not supported, even tho you could use the phone in an insecure state, but at that point I don't see why. Phones are simply not that fragile, and if you let it fall in salt water you have to change the whole phone probably.
Same problem with fairphone: They have replaceable parts, but even day 1 you can't say it would be secure in any way, and about 3 years in they just stop supporting it software side.
Even framework is only this good because they only have to manage the firmware and not the Linux install, former of which is only relevant to high security and not the average user
Maybe the Commodore Callback? It’s a modern flip phone, I think running heavily modified Linux, that leaves out pretty much all social media apps.

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