Software quality is terrible and every OS version upgrade brings a new grab bag of worse bugs.

  • A11 had some annoyances like quick toggles turning black or non-working screen after importing settings from an OLED phone with always-on-display
  • A12 had bugs that broke important functionalty: Screen can only go to 30% maximum brightness if it’s slightly warm outside, Hotspot and Tethering don’t work, GPS sometimes doesn’t work when Android Auto is used, Screen sometimes goes black for a few seconds if you receive a notification and a few other issues
  • A13 straight-up bricks the phone on a failed update and freezes/reboots if you dare to use 5G

These bugs usually don’t get fixed until the next OS upgrade happens where Google rewrote that part of the software.

The hardware has a few hardware errors, like the touch not working correctly (ghost touches/unresponsive) or the speakers rattling like a snaredrum. Shouldn’t be much of an issue, the phone is modular so it shouldn’t be hard to fix the flaw and offer the fixed version of that component in their shop (or if they really had integrity, replace these parts on warranty). Instead, they keep selling the broken parts! And their warranty is not worth much at all either.

Support is basically inexistent. Of all the times I wrote them to report bugs, not a single time did they have any response other than “our experts will look into it”. Even if I give them a working bugfix, they just ignore it and don’t fix the bugs.

This is the first time ever that I wouldn’t be sad if my phone dies a tragic death.

  • MrAlagos@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I have a FP3 and I got very burned with the whole Android 13 fingerprint sensor fiasco, plus with Fairphone’s continued hostility towards the 3,5 mm audio jack. The fingerprint issue was the last straw that broke my trust in Fairphone’s software support promises: I could have dealt with slower updates, but such a big hit to the user experience and the communication blunders are not acceptable.

    I’ve seen some of your contributions to the Fairphone community and maybe you’ve done even more than what the company deserves at this point. I don’t believe that I’ll be looking at a Fairphone device any more in the future, between a slow down in the smartphone market and the small but present increase in options that might be more ethical and repairable than the past I believe that Fairphone will soon lose its marketing edge and will be overtaken on technical merits because they refuse to fix their longstanding issues.