What does a sustainable smartphone look like?
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In a bid to reduce global electronic waste, Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves. What makes its technology so sustainable?

Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves - This sustainable smartphone aims to reduce global electronic waste::In a bid to reduce global electronic waste, Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves. What makes its technology so sustainable?

  • djsf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    I’ve had a fairphone 4 running /e/OS (aftermarket) for a month now and im very happy with it. It consistently surprises me and exceeds my expectations in terms of flexibility and reliability (and of course privacy).

    You should be aware that there are occasionally compatibility issues with common apps – particularly proprietary ones. The worst incident was when the NordVPN app stopped working for me a few days ago… though this may have been a problem with /e/OS or the custom launcher ive installed rather than with Fairphone. I ended up switching to Mullvad VPN and i like it a lot more.

    Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps via the App Lounge… i get a google error message stating that my device isnt registered with the Google Play Store or something like that. not sure if its just me or a widespread problem. I suspect it is an /e/OS issue that might not present itself if u are just using stock Android. If you have some absolutely must-have google play store paid apps that you can’t do without, I’d avoid /e/OS for now and some research to make sure this bug doesnt exist when using Android on FP4.

    At this stage i cant recommend it for mom & dad or someone without any tech savvy whatsoever… but the privacy and flexibility make these minor setbacks absolutely worth it to me.

    Overall i have no regrets and I can honestly say this is one of the most satisfying purchases I’ve ever made.

    • ImTryingLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps

      It’s the same on my Pixel 6a with CalyxOS and the Aurora Store (anonymous access to Play Store). We simply cannot get a paid Play Store app to work without logging into Google. I can get my bank app, local transit app, firefox, bitwarden, etc from there as well as what I’ve settled on for driving nav, HereWeGo.

      That’s TomTom’s free nav app and it appears to get it’s traffic info from the commercial solutions TomTom provides to truckers (paid service for them). It’s good enough, but I do miss Google Maps sometimes. I like it better than Apple Maps.

      Most everything else is handled through FDroid and the apps are decent to great, no show stoppers. I don’t use it for much that would leak privacy on the app side besides banking, browsing and navigation though. It’s not for everyone.

      The only way I can think of to use paid apps is to pay the developer directly and then sideload. I don’t even know if any devs do that.

      As long as /e/os hangs tough my next phone will probably be a FairPhone, I really dig the philosophy and repairability.