What are people's experiences with the fairphone (4) in regards to build quality?
Apologies, rant ahead of my frustrations with it
I bought mine second hand and had to replace the battery immediately (maybe previous owner treated it badly)
The mic stopped working recently, which I kind of fixed by taking it apart, cleaning it out and putting it all back together but it's still dodgey
Charger port no longer works without me jamming the charger in and holding it there
Also again from the start the actual horsepower behind it seems insufficient to run the version of android it came with smoothly sometimes, meaning at some point soon I'm going to have to replace it just so it can keep up.
It's great that I can fix these problems by getting replacement parts rather than replacing the whole phone, but it's getting expensive really quickly and I'm not sure I trust their build quality given how much has broken right off the bat
I just buy cheap refurbished few year old flagship phones and put custom android ROMs on them. You get flagship quality for cheap and its literally full on recycled.
Pixels have good Graphene OS support if ur looking to run that.
Thank you.
I use cost-effective Chinese/Indian brands. Any good ones there?
CalyxOS had a bit wider compatibility list than just listing Pixels if I remember correctly, so might look into that.
i have no idea tbh. I cant even get chinese brands here cuz they're banned id love to try some but just cant.
Mine works perfectly after two years. The microphone placement is a little wonky as it is on the left side to the screen (why?). This results in me placing my finger over it frequently which fucks the audio.
It is pretty fast and I never have issues with running any apps or android. My battery is also good.
For your charging port, have you cleaned the inside with a toothpick? Usb c ports getting gunked up is inevitable.
That being said, there was a famous problem with ghost touches on the touchscreen. I had this too, but after an update it was "fixed" with software. So whenever the ghost touches occur, the phone discards the input. That does mean no more random inputs but sometimes an unresponsive screen. So not really a perfect solution.
This issue had thousands of requests on the fairphone forum. However the response from fairphone was slow and inadequate. For such a relatively expensive phone I expected more.
The microphone placement is a little wonky as it is on the left side to the screen (why?).
That's why my friends have been telling me to throw away my new phone because they can't hear me‽ I've been essentially muting myself with my stupid thumb covering that stupid hole? Thank you so much; I was going to put the sim back in my previous phone.
Which one do you have?
I've also noticed the ghost touches on the 4, I don't think it's fixed entirely. Quite often have to physically put down the phone on a table to be able to press a button on the screen because I think it's somehow picking up my palm even when it's not touching the glass at all
I tried taking the whole charging port out and going at it with a little brush, no improvement.
As I use my phone as my primary means of payment I've unfortunately just had to shell out £20 for a new one which I am not happy about (postage, VAT, other bullshit)
I tried taking the whole charging port out and going at it with a little brush, no improvement.
Try the toothpick or something stronger than a brush anyway. I have used a toothpick and a sewing needle to dig the compacted lint out.
Fairphone 3+ working really well for 4 yeats, but I feel it might be a little hit and miss, for example another person I know got more issues with fingerprint sensor and if it falls wrongly (like on the buttons, there might be issues you don't have otherwise
I have been using the same $20 alcatel flip phone with little degradation in quality for 2 years sounds like a skill issue.
