Fairphone 5 Review: Hopeful Innovation?
Fairphone 5 Review: Hopeful Innovation?
I reviewed the Fairphone 5: the sustainable, eco-friendly smartphone. Are its specifications and 8 years of Android updates worth the €700 price tag?
The review is a bit late, but it's fairly detailed and informative.
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I really want to like this and keep trying to convince myself that the little problems would be manageable... I'm not too fussed about bezels, the camera or the screen not being that bright. The processor and "sluggishness" seem like the main issue - is it noticeable during day to day use? I don't play games but I do flick between apps a lot, is it noticeable?
And the charging seems frustratingly slow, even my midrange phone for a few years back had 65w charging. Is there an external battery charger? That way I could always be using my phone and just have a couple of spare batteries that can be charged externally.
Also flick between a lot of apps and am writing this from my FP5
Honestly: no, not really. I haven't noticed any sluggishness whatsoever.
Now that I'm looking for it, i did notice that apps aren't kept open in the background but are instead restarted when you switch. But the load time is so abysmal (0.2 - 0.5s), i literally never noticed until i started looking for you.
I like it a lot. It's a really great phone for me. But i am also not your typical user. I don't game, except maybe a sudoku once in a while. I use my phone exclusively for: lemmy, music, texting, calling and watching videos.
I do wish it was iphone-mini-sized, but that's not a Problem with FairPhone but rather a Problem with the industry as a whole.
I have the same exact usage as you. I thought I was typical. 😅 Do people typically play on their phones ? it doesn't seem like a very good experience but then again I've never tried
I have a Fairphone 4 since release and honestly I don't have a clue what sluggishness people complain about.
My biggest gripe is lack of AR core (most board gaming apps require it) and lack of a notification LED. The rest is a fantastic phone where I can trivially repair broken parts. Which I've really been missing. In return it's a bit pricey, granted.
Received my Fairphone5 yesterday. Literally no issues so far with performance or battery. Dint notice any sort of sluggishness. Also, it's built like a tank compared to my iPhone 12 mini.
Back when Samsung and Motorola had swappable batteries, I bought a universal battery charger. It had repositionable pins that you guide to touch the right connectors on the battery, and a spring-adjustable battery height. I bet those are still sold somewhere.
Well, i am using the OnePlus Nord N200 now and was using the Motorola One 5G Ace. I find no issues in day-to-day use of the phone. It switches apps fine and performs quite well. Now i do notice app installs take a bit. Not god awful long, but not almost instant like on snapdragon 8 series chips. I think you should be fine as long as
- you arent a mobile gamer
- you arent constantly installing new apps.
App updates can take a little bit so either set aside time to do them or maybe google play !if you use that crap) will do it for you.
NOTE: I run my phones on totally degoogled LineageOS. When i used stock this thing lagged like dial-up because of all the google play crap. It was horrible. If you are going to get it i seriously suggest the degoogled life. Maybe it would have been better after everything settled down, updated, etc, but that first boot with play services on stock was horrible in the extreme and i installed Lineage as fast as possible.
App updates can take a little bit so either set aside time to do them or maybe google play !if you use that crap) will do it for you.
I have a smartphone with dimensity 700. If it can apply updates(multiple apps) in a few mins tops. The fairphone with its SoC should be fine.
By "some time" i meant like 10-15 seconds per app. A snapdragon 8 series is nearly instant.
It should not be. Heck, I have a ton of apps & games, and multitask like crazy. On my A22 5g with its dimensity 700 and 6GB of ram(+6GB virtual). It's not really an issue. I only see things slow down when it's thermal throttling. The author mentioned 0 throttling issues, so it should be fine for the fairphone with its SoC. The previous fairphones had even lower performance, but they have existed and are fine.