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

(www.androidcentral.com)
401 points Bluestein | 2 comments | 23 Jun 25 15:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.453s | source
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strangecasts ◴[23 Jun 25 16:20 UTC] No.44357341[source]▶
Was lucky enough to get my Fairphone 4 on sale, but I'd happily pay full price now - even though the Fairphones are pricey for the specs, unless you absolutely need 24 cores etc. I'd say they are worth it, knowing the company is at least trying to improve the parts supply chain, and knowing you stand a chance of fixing the devices yourself (luckily I've only had to replace the USB-C port, which was trivial)

About the only thing I'd ding Fairphone on is not communicating earlier that they were having trouble getting Android 14 out to the FP4s, but the security patches have been consistent.

(Okay I'm also dinging them on getting rid of the headphone jack, yes I know it's a lost cause... )

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bombela ◴[23 Jun 25 17:03 UTC] No.44357765[source]▶
The removal of the phone jack is so obviously planned obsolescence, it is ironic that this project for sustainability follows the trend.

Wired headphones still have better sound quality. Don't need charging. Don't break with software update. But because of that it means less consumption.

Think about how insane it is that companies can remove the phone jack and glue in the battery with the very obvious goal of planned obsolescence. And this is legal.

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1. beeflet ◴[24 Jun 25 00:47 UTC] No.44361763[source]▶
>Wired headphones still have better sound quality

I don't know about that, I still get analog noise all the time. Maybe it's just due to using a cheap DAC?

They also sell wireless earbuds and headphones with replaceable batteries.

I think the solution is to ship wireless earphones with a usb-c capability, and ship smartphones with multiple usb ports.

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2. MostlyStable ◴[24 Jun 25 02:22 UTC] No.44362334[source]▶
A more accurate statement would have been "you can get better sound quality out of wired headphones at every price point". But you definitely aren't guaranteed to get better quality.

However much money you are willing to spend on headphones, with a tiny bit of research, you will find a wired option with dramatically better quality.

But also, the very low end of wired headphones are truly, truly abysmal, but getting wireless at those price-points is just literally impossible.

$20 is enough to get pretty decent sound quality (better than my ~$100 Samsung Galaxy Buds)