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What is wrong with the FairPhone?
5 year warranty, parts repairable and the plan 4 OS Updates
Hi and welcome to the forum.
There are many posts on this if you search, the main one being about the Fairphone mentioned aboveā¦ More importantly the Fairphone uses Fairtrade Gold etc. and provides a living wage to the factory workers including in the factory the workers making other phones to avoid issues between the workers on different manufacturing lines.
What do you mean ānot goodā
I have two version 3ās since 2020 without a single problem, still using the same battery etc.
My daughter has perfectly good an ageing FP4 and now there is an FP5 and soon to be an FP6
So what version do you/did you have and what problems, and you are only one person.
And as for the country that is specifically untrue. Will update on this soon.
Itās available form the original manufacturer in all 28 countries in Europe, EU and otherwise like the UK
You can check their forum, search for USA and Canada etc.
Personally, I find the removal of the headphone jack unjustifiable as well.
Water intrusion? Other phones have had full water proofing with headphone jacks. Itās done the same way waterproof usb ports are.
It can break? Everything can break. If you want it repairable without soldering, then put it on a daughterboard, perhaps along with the usb port. One phone I recall having a headphone jack that had integrated lever spring contacts. It just pressed against contacts on the PCB. As easily replaceable as possible. But that may have been a custom part, or not available in a waterproofed version, so itās not certain they could use that.
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On the Global selling for example
have had, itās the way such physical connections are going. People are the same, more likely to communicate over emf with suitable bandwidth than face to face through a couple of feet of air.
USA and Canada coverage is a lie.
Or a partial lie by omission.
They fail to say that itās missing several bands for proper coverage.
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/8873147802257-Global-Network-Coverage
For the network coverage of a Fairphone specifically in the US, we recommend using T-Mobile.
Coverage in the US on a Fairphone is not optimized for Verizon and AT&T. You might find that some or even most features work with a different provider, but since there could be issues with emergency calls, download speed, and the general network connection, we cannot recommend other carriers.
In their language, itās ānot optimizedā for T-Mobile either. Itās missing multiple bands, among them band 66 which was reported to account for 48% of T-Mobileās network traffic. Itās just not designed for USA or Canada at all. Most people will not know this. How many delve into what freqencies their carrier uses, let alone tries to see how imporant each freqency is, which is harder to find, and just unavailable info for some bands.
For a company that seems to pride themselves on doing the right thing, I canāt understand them not telling people about this. Phones are lifelines. People will buy it without knowing that it will not work everywhere it should. With certain bands missing entirely, even when calling 911 itās not going to have the coverage of a phone designed for USA & Canada. To pride yourself on doing the right thing & not make this problem extemely clear is unacceptable imo. Let alone to act like it works just fine on T-mobile.
I was enthusiastic about Fairphone, until I discovered that. You could say Iām not a fan anymore.
Tho I probably should have just linked to what I posted before about coverage
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Ok, that is a reason i can cover.
Missing Headphone jack anoys me to, but as a selling company they must offer what the people want. The most of them did use bluetooth Headphone and no wired.
So I could understand this.
I wonder if your info is a bit old, the post you refer to is.
Fairphone 4
4G LTE Supported Bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 18, 19, 20, 28, 32, 38, 40, 41, 71
5G Supported Bands (Sub 6 NSA bands): n1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n20, n28, n38, n41, n71, n77, n78
Fairphone 5
4G LTE Supported Bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 20, 28, 32, 38, 40, 41, 42, 48, 66, 71
5G Supported Bands (both NSA & SA:) 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 38, 41, 48, 66, 71, 77, 78
Given they make a ānewā phone every 2 years thereās an expectation of an FP6 in another year, which may have even better coverage though I doubt a headphone jack.
Though I have the FP3 with the jack I seldom use it, like for 10 min on a train listening to some ānewsā audio. I donāt use the phone in public to listen to audio but could use bluetooth I suppose, but I really donāt like headphones at allā¦ I think Iād rather have a brain implant ~ coming soon to a shop near you.
The gold and silver in Fairphone 4 has the Fairtrade label, also metals used are said to come from conflict-free mines.[12] The company promises a 5-year warranty period and long-term support for software updating and spare parts.[13] In 2017, Fairphoneās founder Bas van Abel acknowledged that it was currently impossible to produce a 100% fair phone, suggesting it was more accurate to call his companyās phones āfairerā.[14][15]
Fairphone - Wikipedia
To be fairer itās clear I may have to forego some āluxuriesā so there is no other phone on the market and of course loosing a phone jack isnāt the same as someone loosing a limb or life down a mine so I get all the knobs and whisles to keep up with my peers.
Sustainability is not about the phone but the environment that enables phones to be made, and the primary think to sustain is those people that do the work that 99.9% of phone oweners are unprepared to do.
So yes a āmoreā sustainable phone is more about the people who make the phone, not the end user. Without taking care of them there would be no phones, until the robots and aliens come to take over.
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OK take care everyone, off to work on the land now 
Youāre quite right.
Fairphone 5 has added band 66 to 4g & 5g. Along with band 2 added to 5g. FP4 / FP5 specs comparison: gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=12540&idPhone2=11136#diff-
Fairphone 5 looks good for T-mobile now, presuming VoLTE works without an issue on T-mobile.
Thanks for the correction on the FP5 Amoun.
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Just looking at the phone manufacturing landscape, its pretty impossible to break into the market.
It would require a lot of money just for R&D, not to mention everything else.
The market would be even more niche than on laptops. It would require major efforts (and money) to even be profitable.
Even some of the big players are not profitable on rhei mobile business, but as they are bog and have other venues that rake in cash, they can keep doing it. I dont think FW would ever have that.
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How long are you looking to maintain support / OS updates, security updates?
Ask yourself the same question and let me know your answer. (This is not an insult, just want to know what you look for in support.)
If Iām building the phone, depends on if Iām using a Qualcomm SoC and the resources I have available.
If Iām buying a phone, of course, itās as long as I can possibly get.
Exactly. In my opinion, you donāt need to rely on the manufacturer for future updates to a device. Thatās what the community is for.
Think of car culture, they tend to hang on to the cars they like for as long as possible. The manufacturer stopped supporting the said model of car or entirely went defunct, yet there are tons of people who still find ways to keep said car alive and well through custom parts. If that makes sense.
Same goes for consumer electronics, as long as people keep making updates themselves, it doesnāt matter how old the device is. You just have to build it to fit the performance of the hardware. (Of course someone is gonna say something to contradict that statment.)
The reason we donāt see this as much in consumer electronics is because companies lock down the device. Why let the consumer upgrade their device they like when we can purposely break it so theyāll have to buy a new one. Every. Single. Year.
This is also happening to literally every thing around us: cars, farm equipment, medical equipment, literally anything you can buy. Sorry, āLeaseā.
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Ok and I dont really care if you asked or not. Just provided some general rhings from the mobile market
Seems like you do since you replied. I donāt care about how much money it makes or the cost. This is about giving people the freedom to actually own the devices they bought with their money. I only said didnāt ask because I literally saw that same reply elsewhere on the internet.