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

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... )

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.

Nothing stops you from using wired headphones with USB-C.

I had to settle for a phone with no headphone jack. I thought it can't be that bad, I got a usbc adapter. It's a strictly worse experience:

- It disconnects easily

- It's much more uncomfortable to keep in the pocket with it plugged on, since it's longer

- I feel like I'm stressing the usbc port much more

- I can't charge and use headphones at the same time (unless I buy a different, bulkier, adapter)

- If I don't have the adapter on me, I can't plug my phone in some music system that doesn't have bt. This has bit me in the ass twice already in four months.

- The adapter already seems to be breaking down (I didn't get the cheapest one available) and sending weird inputs to the phone which pauses the music or causes the assistant to tell me the time

So yeah, nothing's stopping me, but my experience is worse now for the sole reason that Apple decided they wanted to sell Bluetooth headphones

> I can't charge and use headphones at the same time (unless I buy a different, bulkier, adapter)

Well, that's better than things used to be...

I had a Zen Stone that I used to play music in the car by plugging a cassette tape adapter into the audio jack.

For convenience, I bought a cigarette lighter adapter to power it, so that I wouldn't have to take it out of my car when it needed charging.

Except it turned out not to be able to play audio while charging. Not because it charged through the audio jack. It charged through a USB port. You just weren't allowed to do both at once.