Fairphone anyone?

Since my cell phone will be useless by the end of the year (2G support will be dropped in my country, making the perfectly working mobile phone a paperweight) I am trying to decide what to do.

I don't trust Google, I don't like Apple, and the third party application support for Windows phone isn't exactly overwhelming. Anyway, despite it running on Android I'm considering the Fairphone and hoped to find some information here on dpr, particularly about the camera's capabilities. But all I found were 4 (yeah, that's FOUR) posts that mentioned the Fairphone...

Thus the question: does anybody use the latest Fairphone with the 48MP camera? If you exist, please tell me about your experience with both the phone in general and the camera in particular. Your input is highly appreciated.

Wilu wrote:

Since my cell phone will be useless by the end of the year (2G support will be dropped in my country, making the perfectly working mobile phone a paperweight) I am trying to decide what to do.

I don't trust Google, I don't like Apple, and the third party application support for Windows phone isn't exactly overwhelming. Anyway, despite it running on Android I'm considering the Fairphone and hoped to find some information here on dpr, particularly about the camera's capabilities. But all I found were 4 (yeah, that's FOUR) posts that mentioned the Fairphone...

Thus the question: does anybody use the latest Fairphone with the 48MP camera? If you exist, please tell me about your experience with both the phone in general and the camera in particular. Your input is highly appreciated.

It's either not marketed here in the US or I've simply never heard of it so I Googled it.  Nice that they make it as repairable as possible, particularly the battery, and I like the micro-SD slot which Samsung has stripped off of the newest Note.  Seems like there are a lot of compromises in performance & design, not sure I'd like that.  I also have to wonder how long parts will actually be available.

Mark

Wilu wrote:

Thus the question: does anybody use the latest Fairphone with the 48MP camera?

if your goal for avoiding android is to have a dumbphone with high-res camera, you can look at a used nokia 808.

if your goal is to have a non-android device that can act as phone, pocket camera and computer, your options are much more limited.  you can look at pinephone and use the savings towards a dedicated p&s camera.

Mark B. wrote:

Wilu wrote:

Since my cell phone will be useless by the end of the year (2G support will be dropped in my country, making the perfectly working mobile phone a paperweight) I am trying to decide what to do.

I don't trust Google, I don't like Apple, and the third party application support for Windows phone isn't exactly overwhelming. Anyway, despite it running on Android I'm considering the Fairphone and hoped to find some information here on dpr, particularly about the camera's capabilities. But all I found were 4 (yeah, that's FOUR) posts that mentioned the Fairphone...

Thus the question: does anybody use the latest Fairphone with the 48MP camera? If you exist, please tell me about your experience with both the phone in general and the camera in particular. Your input is highly appreciated.

It's either not marketed here in the US or I've simply never heard of it so I Googled it. Nice that they make it as repairable as possible, particularly the battery, and I like the micro-SD slot which Samsung has stripped off of the newest Note. Seems like there are a lot of compromises in performance & design, not sure I'd like that. I also have to wonder how long parts will actually be available.

Mark

Yeah, possible that it's not marketed in the USA. It's a small company, I reckon.

From what I read about it so far you seem to be right with regard to the compromises in performance. While it may be a bit lame compared to todays top devices, I'm very positive that it'll be more powerful than my Nokia 8210 (that model dates back to 1999, according to Wikipedia. And my phone still works like a charm, but they will shut down the 2G antennas by the beginning of 2021...).

As to the design: I like it better than e.g. an iphone, but that's of course a matter of taste.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

vv50 wrote:

Wilu wrote:

Thus the question: does anybody use the latest Fairphone with the 48MP camera?

if your goal for avoiding android is to have a dumbphone with high-res camera, you can look at a used nokia 808.

Thanks for that hint. I had a quick look at it and it is an interesting contender. Smarter than my old cell phone, but free of Google and Apple. I think it looks quite ugly, but as far as mobile phones are concerned I don't care too much about looks, as long as there are other, more important factors that speak in favour of a particular model. Like in this case a camera with useable output and no Android or ios.

if your goal is to have a non-android device that can act as phone, pocket camera and computer, your options are much more limited. you can look at pinephone and use the savings towards a dedicated p&s camera.

I have (more than) enough cameras, even a digital P&S (Canon G12, that was as much P&S as I was willing to go when I looked for a smallish camera). The Pinephone looks like an interesting contemporary alternative. If I was an IT geek I'd definitely go for this phone - I might still will, but have to inquire further.

Thank you very much for pointing  these options out. Highly appreciated.

I ended up with a Nokia 225 4G (I think). The phone is free of iOS or Android, and it has a lot of bells and whistles (compared to my previous phone, that is): colour display with a customizable background image, calculator, torch, fm radio, a camera, and what not. In other words: it is a feature phone that does more than I need (but not everything I want - a DAB radio would have made sense, for the fm radio will be useless in a couple years, where I live). The camera has a whopping 0.3 (yes, this is correct) MP resolution, which may or may not be enough to capture a QR code; time will tell. The image quality is so bad that it is well suited for taking abstract pictures. If you want something more conventional you are better off taking a picture of an image on your computer screen.

Bottom line is, it is a basic cell phone that I think I will like. It could be a really cool cell phone if it had a better camera, a digital radio, and a bit more options to be customized by the user ...and the ability to use the internet via WLAN.

The funny thing is that I haven't used it yet, except for playing around - for some reason the 2G net is still working here, despite the providers having planned to shut it down by the end of 2020. For sentimental reasons and because I have not yet been particularly keen to cut the mini SIM card down to nano SIM card size I am currently still using my 20 or so year old dumb phone...

Sounds neat.

You can also have an Android phone but just not sign in to a Google account when you start it up.  I've done this on several phones and it works fine.  You can download APKs from APK mirrors, transfer to your phone and they install just fine.  The reading I've done says the APK mirror vette the apps properly.  YMMV.  I don't use such a phone for anything financial, etc.

On the Fairphone website there is a forum where the products are discussed. One big disappointment for many owners is the very limited Android update availability. This makes the repairability of the hardware much less interesting. A good idea but not rally an interesting option.

There used to be firefox phones, but the project sadly has been cancelled. I don't know whether such a phone could be an alternative today.

Some smartphones come with a fairly original android without th companies own bloatware. This could be the least bad alternative.

Thanks, for your thoughts, BobGer. It's been a while since I was logged in, thus I didn't see your message earlier.

I ended up with a simple feature phone (no Android). It features a camera with a whopping 0.3MP resolution (yes, that is 300'000 pixels), so I continue to take pictures with proper cameras, for the time being.

Alcatel still sells an old-fashion flip phone, the GoFlip. It runs KaiOS, which seems to be a clumsy fork of an old Android system. It is small and therefore fits into just about any pants pocket, it has SMS but not effective MMS, and a farce of a camera I never use. MetroPCS by T-Mobile supports it in the U.S. No Google or similar account is required, just your MetroPCS account, mostly for autopay of the monthly bill.

If a meeting or event will mean that I want to go on the Web or do other smartphone things, I take a tablet. If I want to be ready to take photos, I take a quality camera. At home the PC is the much more capable device.

I must be sincere about all this, because I haven't written one article about how I gave up the Internet for a week.