While I get and applaud the mission of the Fairphone, there are some serious compromises you have to make spec-wise to be on it.
Even in the greentext, dude paid $60, not bad for + ~3 years of life. Your run of the mill Android will probably be cheaper as significantly less "part serializing" bull happens on the android side
It's not worth the power-handicap they shove in that thing.
"Power handicap" compared to what like a 2k phone? My almost 4.5 yo Pixel 4a is still doing fine in terms of specs. Only the battery is junk by now. I don't need a phone that is more powerful and more expensive than my freaking PC, I just want one that does not make replacing the battery a huge pain in my ass.
Apart from the price premium, which is still far from Apple's, and seems rational considering they try to limit impact on the people and the planet, what are those serious compromises? I had the Fairphone 2, and I would agree this one was clunky, and you needed to be somewhat of an activist to stand it. But from the Fairphone 4 that I have now, and likely the 5th, I don't see much compromise, everything has been perfectly smooth for me.
Writing on a Fair phone 4 it's amazing to easily replace stuff that breaks but they need to seriously sort out their software side never had a glitchier phone.
What glitches do you have? I also have this one, and I don't have noticed much issues. The only thing that I noticed is the camera taking a bit of time to return the image when used inside a messaging app, which may be an issue of the app. I have no doubt every phone has some glitches sometimes.
I've had all sorts from ghost inputs, slow performance like super lag, going on and off charge affecting apps like Instagram it'll just play a whole new video and decide it's now on light mode even though my theme setting is dark. The camera takes ages to start, and you have to hold it still for a second after taking a photo, otherwise it blurs.
I'll add while it's cool you can replace things, they are often out of stock for certain modules had to wait months for batteries and screens to come back in.
It all makes the having a flagship phone for more than 5 years a better argument, as I've seen very little response or ability from Fairphone to fix these issues.
Great movement and ideology, I just don't think they're skilled enough to maintain it well. They just move on to the next new shiny at the same pace a flagship would, defeat the point. They should be following something like the light phone's development schedule only when it's nessary of LP doesn't have the repaiability.
Maybe you have been unlucky with your machine because I haven't experienced that apart from the slow camera on a messaging app. All I have needed so far is replacing the battery once on my FP2, I'll probably do that for my 4 too. I agree that the pace of release is a bit too fast given the mission, but I think it's a commercial compromise they have found to stay afloat.