Google to give Pixel 4 years of android updates? Fairphone: "Hold my beer"

[suicidalfranco]

Fairphone recently announced the successor to their phone line the FAIRPHONE 5.

Sarting at 699€ the made in Europe phone brings some welcomed updates to it's SoC, camera array, design and display.

But most impressive with this year's model is  the announcement of a 5 years warranty and 8 years of android updates.

This was made possible by working with Qualcomm and chosing as SoC the QCM6490 which Qualcomm defines as an SoC that ussualy is reserved for industrial products and therefore receives a longer support compared to the snapdragon line of SoCs.

Though on the fine prints Fairphone states that they forecast at least 5 android version starting from Android 13. They remaining 3 could either be interpreted as 3 years of security patches or 3 years of Android versions. But given the comany track record the later could be more true than not.

And as every fairphone before everything else holds true to the brand's mission:

Repairable, modular, spare parts readily available, eco-conscious, fair trade and every other green economy term you can add to the list.

 

 

 

My thoughts

 Sounds impressive, still wouldn't buy. Making the brand a more viable option than others. Also aparently fairphone is in talks with qualcomm to have a solution that would allow it's consumers to upgrade the SoC.

Performance wise the QCM should be comparable to the upper midrange snapdragon SoC.

 

Sources

 https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5

[Angusticlavii]

Nice concept but i dont get why they use a midrange SoC. Its gonna be so laggy when it gets Android 18 that nobody will want to use it anymore. But you mentioned a possible SoC upgrade so maybe thats thier solution.

[mMontana]

According to an italian media company, the choice for this SoC (more IoT than smartphone oriented) is due to longer support for android versions and patch release guarantee by Qualcomm.

Since the 2020 hiccup, the trend of smartphones is "costier, neverthless crappier", under certain market tiers. So the cost for Fairfone 5 is simply humoungus, considering the performance package delivered.

Then start kicking in some of the "buts" that Fairfone wants to emphasize

-less predatory behave while obtaining raw materials like rare earth metals but not only

-a much modular design for the parts, for increased repairability

-user-replaceable battery

-commitment to provide for longer than competitors the parts for repair the device

 

Who's buying "the cheapest device while satisfies me" won't consider any of these buts... meaningful. Who don't want to change phone, if the battery is simply dead... that's a gamechanger.

 

Unfortunately too many smartphones are eWaste the second they are finalized... and this should stop. The sooner, the better. 

[Doobeedoo]

Well Google is just about catching up to Samsung with updates, still to hear it officialy. Really they should match Apple though. Fairphone while good stuff, I'd be interested if there was a flagship like it.

[mMontana]

Flagships phones tends to be in hand of people who's gonna change it... year by year. They want flagshipness.

Lower tier pricing, neverthless still high, increase the possible market share willing to spend into Fairfone.

[Zodiark1593]

2 hours ago, mMontana said:

According to an italian media company, the choice for this SoC (more IoT than smartphone oriented) is due to longer support for android versions and patch release guarantee by Qualcomm.

 

For a device I intend to keep for a half decade or longer, raw performance is near top of the list of my considerations, besides the lengthy support cycle. If the device is slow enough to get in the way, I probably am not super inclined to hold onto it as tenaciously. 
 

I’d definitely pay a premium for a Fairphone with a current Snapdragon 8 though. 

[Dracarris]

Starting at 700€ for hardware that is outdated at release? why?

[jagdtigger]

3 hours ago, Angusticlavii said:

Its gonna be so laggy when it gets Android 18 that nobody will want to use it anymore.

If you are so big visionary you could also tell us the winning lottery numbers. /s A FW being stuttery or not is not purely dependent on the HW. You can have the absolute beast of a phone if the FW is a rock bottom bodge job.......

[suicidalfranco]

38 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Starting at 700€ for hardware that is outdated at release? why?

Cause not made using slaves labour somewhere in china and africa

[Dracarris]

31 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Cause not made using slaves labour somewhere in china and africa

Because this universally applies to all other phones.

[divito]

Nice sentiment, but the scales of these promises makes this fairly irrelevant.

[suicidalfranco]

31 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Because this universally applies to all other phones.

But not this one, hence the higher price for the mid range spec.

Fair trade costs more to deliver a product, who would have guess

[Quackers101]

I do find it comical that they give longer support for what "Qualcomm defines as an SoC that usually is reserved for industrial products".
But yes you would need a decent spec and maybe features to last that long when it comes to phones and android specifically.
Not flagship specs, but maybe around mid or higher. As some things might not change too much in performance than it did 10 years ago. WebGPU could become more used and GPU specific usages, if that was thought about, to wifi/bluetooth or security, etc. But I guess security they get some from qualcomm?

 

I guess its nice to see WPA3, too bad they didnt get "wifi 7". and hope it works out and able to get that 8 year support.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Quackers101

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

But not this one, hence the higher price for the mid range spec.

Fair trade costs more to deliver a product, who would have guess

from what they actually claim, "fair trade" may be a bit of a long stretch. 

[suicidalfranco]

9 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

from what they actually claim, "fair trade" may be a bit of a long stretch. 

Quote

 Meet the makers “We believe a fairer electronics industry is possible. By making change from the inside, we’re giving a voice to people who care.”  Monique Lempers -  Chief Impact Officer We put people first  All the parts in your device come together to work for you because people made it that way. Thousands of them. And they deserve a better quality of life for them and their families. Including sufficient income, a safe workplace, and the opportunity to be heard. Without them, there would be no smartphone.  The main supplier of the Fairphone 5 meets the strictest standards for safe and decent working conditions (SA8000& ISO45001). To make a lasting impact, our approach puts workers and their needs first. Focusing on paying living wages to increase income, and on strengthening worker voice and representation, as well as health& safety.  We’ve expanded our living wage program to also increase the wages of the people who make the components that go into your phone, like the battery or the vibration motor. Supporting our suppliers and their component suppliers to understand the needs of workers. Ultimately, cherishing the many hands that made your phone.

 

Doing more than others

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

F

My thoughts

 Sounds impressive, still wouldn't buy. Making the brand a more viable option than others. Also aparently fairphone is in talks with qualcomm to have a solution that would allow it's consumers to upgrade the SoC.

Performance wise the QCM should be comparable to the upper midrange snapdragon SoC.

 

Sources

 https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5

 

At least they are committing to keeping their devices updated, unlike every other Android vendor who wants you to buy a new device the second it gets dirty.

 

Here's my beef with "Android" in general:

- No commitment to updates, where as Apple updates the devices until the SoC can't reasonably run the OS, and most PC/Mac's can often run the most recent OS on even 8+ year old hardware, it's just often impractical to do so.

- Linux fanboyism. Say what you want about Apple fanboys, but at least Apple stuff works out of the box, requires no fiddly nonsense, and you can give one to grandma and she doesn't have to figured out anything. In theory. The same can not be said for Android, where there is far too much fiddly nonsense just to do simple things. 

- App store high decay rate, many programs and games just only run on flagship devices and nothing else

- Google's non-commitment to to anything. How many times has music and movies been moved to something else?

 

So 1/3rd of the problem is Google, and 1/3rd of the problem is the manufacturer, and 1/3rd of the problem is the user themselves. 

 

Where as with Apple, every single app works on every single device that can run the current version of the OS the app was developed for. My only beef with how this works is that an iOS update will sometimes make an app go "this app needs an update, download it now?" in which you download some new app, and then the old app remains on the device, despite having paid for the old app, it doesn't transfer over to the new app, nor will the old app launch in any way. Which is a scam in my mind. Pay $2 for that original app and then the developer replaces it with a $20 app with a $15/mo sub, and breaks the original? forget that nonsense. 

 

But the google graveyard is the main reason why I will never invest into a Google device, nor the Android OS at all. There are 26 items in the graveyard that are specific to Android, including four hardware platforms. This non-commitment to hardware is the same reason I won't buy into Microsoft's laptops either. They've done exactly the same.

 

Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat it, and the mistake often seen is that some hardware vendor makes a bunch of promises, and then breaks them when they don't sell very much product they kill the hardware.

 

Would I buy into the Fairphone? Maybe if Apple was not an option. But I've been burned enough by trying to buy hardware that was bleeding edge only for the manufacturer to decide to pull the product later. So both Google and Microsoft have a history of doing doing unceremonious killing of products that people actually want to use, which leads to this extreme distrust that any new hardware (see Nexus termination, Stadia's failure, and Microsoft's smartphone failure, kinect termination) platform will ever receive the support it needs to succeed, so it's just written off that the company will never change.

 

If Fairphone was not Android, I'd give it a try, but I think that ship has sailed. The options are either "Apple if you need Apple" or "Android if you like to tinker" no middle ground.

[WolframaticAlpha]

ITT, misconceptions about how Android works.

[jagdtigger]

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

unlike every other Android vendor who wants you to buy a new device the second it gets dirty

Basically apple does the same thing with repairs, they charge an arm and a leg to make you new instead of repair......

 

 

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

requires no fiddly nonsense

Nor do android.

 

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

you can give one to grandma and she doesn't have to figured out anything

Yeah no. Apparently you know some very young/very exceptional grandmas...... There is a reason why the so called "grandma" phones exist.

[Senzelian]

Google Pixels will likely receive 5 (or more) years of Android updates, not 4.

[jagdtigger]

2 hours ago, Sakuriru said:

I like the repair aspect, but like, man that's a lot of money.

That is very dependent on the perspective. In short terms looks a lot. But the long term is a bit more interesting. Lets take my s5 for example that got retired a few months back. It was released in 2014 meaning it is about 9 years old and costed about 500$ with current exchange rates, thats about ~55,5 a year, ~4,625 a month. I think the fp4 i haave now will last even longer because of the bigger ram and storage.

[Zodiark1593]

8 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

That is very dependent on the perspective. In short terms looks a lot. But the long term is a bit more interesting. Lets take my s5 for example that got retired a few months back. It was released in 2014 meaning it is about 9 years old and costed about 500$ with current exchange rates, thats about ~55,5 a year, ~4,625 a month. I think the fp4 i haave now will last even longer because of the bigger ram and storage.

*bows down*
 

All hail. 
 

For a phone that is being kept for a long time, a higher up-front price isn’t a major impediment. I’m not super opposed to expensive phones, under the caveat that they last a long time. 

[suicidalfranco]

In depth look of the phone that tries to change the world.

Courtesy of Jerry.

[Dracarris]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:44 AM, jagdtigger said:

Basically apple does the same thing with repairs, they charge an arm and a leg to make you new instead of repair......

Doesn't matter how often this nonsense gets repeated, does not make it any less false than it is. Everyone can look up the prices for standard repairs like battery and display for every iphone model and they are far from justifying the price for a new device.

 

And even if that would be true, the average lifetime/time-to-landfill of any iphone model is still a lot higher. Anyone that doubts this may go on marketplaces and check out what people still pay for 6-8 year old iphones (X, Xs, and even 6S/7/8), that obviously still work and receive updates.

20 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I’m not super opposed to expensive phones, under the caveat that they last a long time. 

I don't think I have to give the obvious answer to that.

[BachChain]

Looks nice. A shame someone went and punched a hole in the screen