Fairphone 6 is switching to a new design that's even more sustainable

What a horrible state of things that "not gluing the battery in place but screwing it in" is considered an improvement. IMHO smartphones have been on a horrible decline ever since ~2016. Before then, most Androids had [1] easily replaceable battery, no tools required at all; [2] microSD slot; [3] headphone jack; [4] (many) dual SIM; [5] (many cheaper models) easily rooted or unlocked by default. Now all we get are faster CPUs, more (non-expandable) storage, and far too many cameras.

There was also this memorable ad from Samsung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hIoyb9L5g0

https://www.gizchina.com/2013/06/25/6-top-quad-core-mt6589-p...

There were tons of these little-known companies making very similar phones at the time. Unfortunately most of them disappeared within the next few years. Hence 2016 as the year I mentioned of when things started going downhill noticeably.

So I'd consider screws to be an improvement actually.

Batteries must be glued or screwed, otherwise sudden movements can turn the phone off.

Your comment feel needlessly provocative with no information other than your negative opinion. You've implied Fairphone have turned crap, whilst mentioning a bunch of good stuff they've done, and then how you won't be buying their phones anymore.

Seriously, what was the point of this comment, what were you trying to achieve or communicate? Is that fairphone are rubbish? If so, you haven't said how or why, other than cryptic hints that promises might not have been kept.

This feels like an engagement bait comment, and I can't help but engage to say that.

The old use case of wanting to easily swap batteries to keep the phone going isn’t something people care about anymore since we got a billion options for battery banks that works for all the USB-C devices we have.

Nobody cares about headphone jack anymore. It’s dead. Get over it. Why stick a crappy DAC and a bad and single-purpose bulky port in a device where space is critical, when 99% of users are not going to use it? Just stick a USB-C adapter on your headphones. Then you have a choice in DAC. I would much rather have two USB-C ports than a headphone jack.

Dual SIM is also rapidly becoming obsolete.

Micro SD would be nice still, I’ll give you that.

Screws keep them repairable and sturdy. It'll no longer be as easy to bring a spare battery to replace on the go, unfortunately, but unfortunately, it's a trade-off, and with most people already not doing that, it makes sense where they ended up.

It's sad what kind of things are considered "features" these days.

I am a bit familiar, have been looking at the FP5 as a next phone, so will probably buy an FP6 assuming first batch of reviews aren't catastrophic.

Personally the appeal to me is the modular hardware support, but also the expected long term official software support (and inevitable community support when that ends). Also the principal that it's a company that is trying really hard to do things differently in a way that benefits everyone just seems sensible, innovative and something I want to support compared to other phone companies.

If your biggest issues with FP are removing the headphone jack, and requiring a small screwdriver to replace the batteries, then I'm genuinely interested to know who/what you're considering after as an improvement?

I'd rather my phone be more robust than worry about unscrewing a couple more screws when I need to replace the battery (hopefully a rare occurrence anyway). I don't know anyone that carried around spare batteries like in that ad, so although a good ad it doesn't really speak to customer usage.

I'd also like my phone to be as-waterproof-as-possible, and am willing to sacrifice a back that comes open without any screws or similar.

I love FairPhone's vision, and I think they do a pretty good job executing it. There's certainly room for improvement, but I've been really happy with my purchase. I also think removing the headphone jack was a direct betrayal of their ideals.

I've bought the FP3+ camera, and I'm on my third battery pack, degoogled with murena /e/-OS. Works perfectly, except the screen is a little too large for me. I wish it was a Sony Xperia ZX1 compact size, but one can't have it all.