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

(www.androidcentral.com)
401 points Bluestein | 1 comments | 23 Jun 25 15:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | 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. palata ◴[24 Jun 25 20:15 UTC] No.44370556[source]▶
> The removal of the phone jack is so obviously planned obsolescence

I'll keep repeating it; I worked in a hardware company (and one with very toxic upper management) and really, I don't buy the "planned obsolescence" for most products.

Employees are usually not villains (I know, it happens, as proven by Meta recently where engineers essentially built a malware into Meta's apps, and as proven by printers - if that's still the case, I don't own one). Most of the time they are not.

What happens most of the time is more likely "premature obsolescence": the product could have been engineered to last for 10 years, but it would have taken more development time and it would have cost more, so the company chose not to invest there. Regulations enforce a warranty period, so the company optimises around that. But it's not the same as planned obsolescence.

The result is the same: we need regulations that set the framework into which companies optimise. But the intention is different.

Also specifically for the jack, the reality is that nobody cares. You want a phone with a jack? Congrats, you're part of a small minority (don't worry, I am, too). How does it feel? :-)