From their newsletter:
📸 Premium 50MP Triple Camera System
The Fairphone 5 comes with a 50MP selfie camera, a 50MP main camera with a finely tuned Sony lens, and a 50MP ultrawide camera for that perfect, cinematic shot.
⚙️ 8 Years of Software Updates
Packing a unique, long-life Qualcomm Octa-core chipset, the Fairphone 5 comes with clean Android 13, zero bloatware and at least five major software updates. That’s future-proof!
🎯 5 Years Warranty
The Fairphone 5’s modular design makes it super easy to repair by yourself. Add to that a five year warranty that’s twice the industry standard. The Fairphone 5 is definitely built to last.
♻️ Made fairer than ever
The Fairphone 5 is made with 70% fair and recycled materials in fair factories under fair working conditions and is a 100% electronic waste neutral. That’s fair!
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No headphone jack no sale, it makes zero sense not having one
Genuine question, but for the common user, why should a phone have a headphone jack?
Can’t speak for everyone but here are the reasons I prefer an actual jack:
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3.5mm headphones are extremely universal and can be used for any audio device. USB-C and Bluetooth headphones cannot
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Bluetooth is extremely inconsistent when paired with multiple devices and often gets disconnected because of competing devices
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I can’t charge my phone and listen to USB c headphones at the same time
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Manufacturers claim the removal of the jack was to improve the water resistance. I have never dropped my phone in water and would be willing to risk it.
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I already have too many wireless things to charge
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I have a small stockpile of broken wireless headphones. Meanwhile my 10 year old wired headphones are collecting dust
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I have never lost something more often than that tiny ass USB to 3.5mm dongle adapter
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I distrust large corporations with incentive to get consumers to buy more stuff from them
Your point is generally well taken, but your first point about 3.5 mm jacks being universal isn’t really true any more. It’s nearly impossible to find a device these days with a 3.5 mm audio Jack. It sucks but it’s true.
Only if we’re talking about phones. My computer, work laptop, steamdeck, and my monitor all have audio out via 3.5mm jack.
I have a speaker set and a pair of headphones, and I can mix and match when and where I want to use them, which is great.
I hope removal of headphone jacks stays limited to phones (and reverses course eventually)
Other than the 3.5mm still being universal basically everywhere except for phones, it’s also universal in a purist physical sense.
Any old piece of scrap copper wire connected to a 3.5mm jack, wrapped vaguely into a coil, and placed next to something magnetic, should form a working speaker compatible with the 3.5mm jack. It won’t sound hi-fi, but it will work, because unlike Bluetooth or USB-C where you have to read hundreds of pages of standards and do a bunch of engineering just to figure out how to understand the signal, the signal in the 3.5mm jack basically is the sound.
This has direct practical implications as well: The transparent simplicity vs opaque complexity is why wired headphones can be so cheap and yet so reliable, or as hi-fi as your DAC and the speaker cone will allow, whereas Bluetooth devices are comparatively expensive, a mess to connect, fragile, bandwidth-limited, and environmentally and ethically dubious.
Bluetooth, and even USB-C, is basically black magic— Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that it’s also glitchy black magic. And this remains true regardless of device availability, because it’s determined by the physics of the technology itself is implemented.
Don’t forget Bluetooth has absolutely shit audio quality while using the microphone with how it handles call audio (although I’m praying BLE audio fixes this). Also true wireless earbuds can’t compare at all to wired earbuds microphones in the slightest.
Well TBH, I have been exclusively using Bluetooth headsets for like 7 years now and I’ve had a good experience with that.
I would recommend either big clamshells (I use a rather expensive but awesome Bose 700) or necklace designs like my LG tone 800 hbs headsets (I got like 4 of those over the years). I bought a pair of extremely expensive Sony WM-1000XM 4 that suck donkey balls for a long list of reasons, but not Bluetooth.
Barring some connection issues sometimee, Bluetooth is really quite nice and allows me to walk around freely. I haven’t missed the jack plugs ever, really.
Genuinely, good for you. I don’t want to switch to something more expensive, that probably wheighs more on the environment (batteries tend to do that), that I’ll lose more easily, that can catch connecticity issues, that force me to turn on bluetooth… And that’s okay we just have different priorities. What bugs me is only yours ever seem to be catered to nowadays, even though mine don’t seem particularly rare and you can ignore jack plugs easier than I can listen to music while plugged on my external battery
I’ve been using the same (comparatively) cheap Sony WIC100 in-ear Bluetooth headset every day for several (over four?) years now. It’s lasted longer than basically any of the cheap wired earbuds I kept replacing before ever did, and still has all-day battery life too. I haven’t been particularly careful with it; Generally, I’ve just crumpled it up and stuffed it in my pocket with my keys, and probably semi-regularly snagged and yanked it on stuff pretty hard. Losing it is not really a concern; It’s all one flexible piece, and it’s basically the same profile or even slightly bulkier and heavier than wired earbuds when coiled up (but still more convenient when worn, because it doesn’t run the length of the torso). Plus they can just dangle safely from my neck when I need to hear stuff around me, which neither wired headphones nor “true wireless” headphones can do.
I agree with all your points in principle, and I still pay attention to the headphone jack when evaluating phones. But the corporations that make our consumer electronics have decided this is the trend they’re going with. Ultimately, you can either adapt, stop using the technology, or make your own with Raspi and SLA or whatever.
Are you a plant? You legally have to tell me if you’re a plant
…No. It seems like a bad time to be a plant. Too many wildfires, weird things are kinda happening to atmospheric composition, plus invasive species everywhere— Ugh, pine beetles crawling all up in my skin, hogweed taking my nutrients? No thank you. Maybe later— Definitely want the autotrophy eventually, but taking like a 95% hit to metabolic rate and being unable to go indoors obviously wouldn’t be acceptable either…
Seriously though, the comment you replied to also mentioned a few products by name, so I thought I’d reflect that hey, Bluetooth hasn’t been quite as bad as I’d expected it would be, even if most headsets are either overpriced or garbage.
Good point there. Bluetooth works well for me but it sucks that you don’t get to use your option anymore.
I guess it has to do with jack plugs being really old (were talking over 50 years here) ND whilst that shouldn’t matter, manufacturers want to appear new and improving even though there is little to improve on that plug…
Manufacturers claim the removal of the jack was to improve the water resistance. I have never dropped my phone in water and would be willing to risk it.
Let us not forget that S7 and S7 Edge had headphone jack and were waterproof.
Let us not forget that S7 and S7 Edge had headphone jack and were waterproof.
Not user-disassemblable, much less Lego-style modular, though. Easy to make something “waterproof” when you can just seal it shut with “gooey black adhesive”.
I personally think the headphone jack is a wonderful truly universal and effectively completely open standard that’s very good at what it does, and which furthermore is doubly useful as a generic power and analog signal delivery mechanism, while mandating its supposed successors like Bluetooth and USB-C needlessly and massively inflates the technical and material cost of just playing a dang sound file. You could get serviceable wired headphones that last forever for like $5 if you were lucky; Nowadays, you pay at least ten times that for fragile lithium batteries and circuitry that will break in a couple years, and I really don’t like this trend of taking away capabilities for less robust alternatives while portraying it as innovating.
But I also actually use my Bluetooth headphones way more than my wired ones, and I appreciate the potential engineering and market challenges in what Fairphone is trying to do here.
I meant the argument of removing 3.5mm to make it everything waterproof is not holding because there are phones out there which are perfectly waterproof with 3.5mm jack.
Yes. And I’m saying that’s not really a valid comparison, because those phones are generally just monolithic slabs that have been glued shut, whereas Fairphone has to implement a user-serviceable modular design with actual seals and stuff.
Would giving it both water-sealing and a headphone jack be worth increasing the price by another €20, because it adds a new potential ingress point that the rest of the phone might have to be redesigned around? What if the jack is one of the biggest parts that isn’t replacable? Fairphone 5’s apparently only rated IP55, while Fairphone 4’s only IP54. That’s barely even really “waterproof”, but more like “splash-proof”. Would adding another hole in the frame be worth possibly reducing that rating to IP53 or IP52 (“drip-proof”)? Would it be worth reducing the warranty by 4 years, because some amount of dust and moisture still works its way in over time no matter how robust the rest of the phone is?
Personally I think I would probably rather have the jack even if it meant no waterproofing at all. But that might not be the direction the market is leaning in, and we don’t know what tradeoffs exactly they’ve considered to arrive at their final design with decent-ish waterproofing and good reparability but no headphone jack.
They have written about this directly in some detail, it seems. If nothing else, it shows that they have put some thought into the issue, and they’re aware that removing the headphone jack will be disappointing for some users, but overall they see making the phone thinner and adding IP rating as being the higher priority:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-Jack-3-5mm
TBH good sounding IEM/Headphones actually worth keeping for years today are almost all modular. IEM/Headphones worthy of playing from a jack will not sound great from a trash built-in one and will need extra AMP/DAC anyway.
Funnily enough, the best AMP/DACs you can get today all use bluetooth. They are even good after the battery dies since they are also wired DAC/AMPs. There are some where a battery change is also likely. IEMs have TWS converters as well.
It is all pretty convenient without a builtin jack, unless you are really running dry on cash and/or dont even care about the most important part which is audio quality.
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…to plug headphones in. How is this a genuine question?
People still use their phones to listen to music and wireless earphones are almost universally garbage, require charging, and produce insane amounts of e-waste. Wired headphones don’t have these issues
Lol its a given that it would be used as an audio solution. I guess what im getting at is if you’re not an audiophile or have a specific need, most people don’t care about an aux Jack. Personally, I hate the feeling of a cable when I go out, shopping or for a run and I want to listen to a podcast or music. I strangely feel claustrophobic. And also, I feel wired headphones are far more disposable than wireless. Over the coarse of 6 years, I’ve only owned 2 different pairs of wireless buds. Before that I can recall countless mix of cheap and decent wired headphones. This is just me though, which is why I wantedbto,see the discussion for wider use cases for the average consumer.
For headphones.
USB-C dongles are notoriously prone to breaking and also are another bunch of silicon and plastic that contributes to e-waste pollution.
though truth be told, most phone 3.5mm outputs suck donkey balls because of massive output impedance and signal to noise ratio on sensitive headphones (of which most portable audio devices are) and companies should be ashamed of putting these hunks of shit in their phones.
Cars with wired input. More reliable than Bluetooth and not annoying when it connects when you don’t want to.
Fairphone do sell a type c to 3.5mm adapter you can use. Or just grab a cheap one off somewhere online.
I mean sure, if they were all the same standard or marked on the packaging as to which standard your phone uses, and what standard the adaptor uses would be easy.
I’ve lost the headphone jack since moving from my S10+ to a pixel 7 pro. The convenience is missed but not forgotten.
That would essentially be designing for the past. Agree many cars still have it but new cars have usb
You underestimate how old average cars in some countries are. 15 years old in Poland for example. They are from times where smartphones were barerly a thing. And thats average. Many are even older.
I do not.
Like I said though, these devs want to build for the next 20 year cars, they simply aren’t interested in 15 year old car connectivity. I’m not excusing them.
Also, you can get 3.5mm to USB cords for super cheap. Just use that instead of a 3.5mm to 3.5mm problem solved. We don’t need dedicated ports for everything.
(And before anyone say charging you can get 3.5mm and charging split connectors)
To have a convenient cheap set of earbuds that keep working, never need any charging nor can be lost.
You can find those everywhere for like 5€, if you don’t get them for free with certain devices.
I still have a couple laying around that have never been used.
I don’t get battery operated devices for things that don’t stray further than 1 meter from the device they are connected to.
Media playback is always 3 seconds delayed through Bluetooth for me, it’s annoying. Plus I like the wired headset I’ve used for 7 years.
No headphone jack on this type of device is unreal. I am still using my AKG Earbuds I got with my S8 which are now 5 years old. Meanwhile ask the first gen Airpod consoomers how they are doing.
Exactly. I still cannot fathom why a company which prides itself on sustainability ditch the headphone jack. Granted, I don’t use the one on my phone often, but I’m very glad that it’s there when I need it.
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You can get a USB-c to 3.5mm headphone adapter. I got one recently and it works just fine.
Meanwhile I’ve bought a few and they are all trash.
I can’t charge my phone while using them. They cut in and out. I hate them.
I got one that allows charging while listening but there is an annoyingly audible buzz while doing so. Complete trash! If memory serves I think it was a UGREEN one from Amazon
I dont know about the premium earbuds but as far as the cheap shit ones go wireless are longer lasting simply beacuse they dont have a wire that gets ripped off regulary. Still dosent excuse the removal of headphone jack tho.
700€
Yeah that’s the biggest turnoff for me personally, it sucks how we are always expected to pay a fat premium for something more sustainable. There should be some small government subsidies for phones like these, just like there are on e-bikes and EVs in many countries.
Well, if they actually ensure fair wages for as many people in production as possible, that’s just what a phone of this caliber should cost.
Idk, the word price premium sounds more like an arbitrary and baseless increase to me, which this (hopefully) isn’t.
There’s a lot more that needs to happen, obviously. Because 700 bucks is a lot of money for many people either way, fair or not.
Edit:
OLED. I’m sold. Well, whenever my current phone dies, but then I’m sold.It is not that Fairphones are expensive.
It is that every other phone is made by slave labour, which makes them inexpensive.
Also every other phone is priced at the point of you buying a new device in 3 years anyway because the battery is glued in while the FP should have a far longer lifecycle
Is that alot? Mybe im out of touch but most flagships cost 1k+ iirc
700 is cheap. Especially considering the hardware, the fact that i can repair it myself with ease. You should watch jerryrigeverything’s video tearing it down. Its insane how easy it is to replace any part. The screen comes off the front and has 1 cable connecting it and can be replaced for 100 €.
People complaining about the cost of a phone that was made in a way that is not only sustainable but also paid 3veryone involved at least a living wage (more than minimum) is something we should all be happy to pay more for. The fact that any major company can make phones of this quality for less is because they pay their workers less than minimum wage (if anything at all), outsource everything to 3rd world countries and exploit their workers.
If that means nothing to you then you are probably a capitalist or just too immoral to care, in which case, who gives a shit what you think.
Sorry thats not directed at you, just people who hear all that and still dont even consider changing their mindset around this.
What phone have you bought recently that will be updated/supported for 8 years and comes with a 5 year warranty? My last 5 phones have come with a 1 to 2 year warranty and fall out of support the following year when the next model comes out. But im stuck with them for 3 years because of a contract i locked myself into.
I am doing some research and strongly feeling like i might make this my next phone and maybe i wont need to upgrade it for a long long time. That sounds nice.
Frankly speaking specs wise seems kinda competitive to me. I certainly would have bought it if i hadnt bought my phone literaly 3 weeks ago. And frankly speaking if they hadnt annouced that headphone jack is not coming back i would have waited for relase instead of buying rog phone on a promo.
I’m gonna buy it. Since it’s gonna be my first Fairphone and first phone I’ll buy new; I’m excited :)
I just wish they made Fairbuds XL in those new colors (I mean blue and translusive)
Fairbuds. The most important reason I will not support this model. Forcing me into their ecosystem by removing the headphone jack should not be what this company stands for. It is literally against their philosophy.
Bring back the jack.
If they do, we are talking again.
Although I agree with you that the headphone jack should be brought back, I dont think it’s fair to say they’re forcing you into their ecosystem.
Apple making apple watches only work with iPhones is forcing you into their ecosystem, but with this phone you can use any Bluetooth headphones.
OK, that’s fair.
Well… they do offer a usbC to jack in their online store (but you can buy from whoever you want).
But I guess usbC to usbC would work which would make sense if you’re using your charging cable which is (more or less likely to be) an usbc to usbc cable.
I might be wrong tho, but we have usbC earbuds and headphones (or was it apple’s lightning wired earbuds? I’m not sure)
But nontheless I think minijack would make for a more versitile device and I was a little dissapointed when I learned that Fairphone 4 does not have jack. Well FP5 does not have it either but I don’t care, I can get jack to C adapter cable from my friend if I ever need it
6.46 inch display is too big for me. I’m desperate to find something with a 6" screen but it seems 6.1" appears to be the size most manufacturers are going for.
This phone looks like something I could dig though.
I have the Z fold. I love the big screens!
I don’t mind big screens but they are hard to use with one hand and in the pocket they are too big.
I didn’t realise it until later on in its life, but the Pixel 5 was the perfect phone size for me. I hear the Pixel 8 is going to be smaller but the rumor is it has a 6.1" display.
I just found my old Moto G1 phone (4.5 " screen) yesterday in a box - charged it and used it for a while for some utility apps and for listening to music and some old favorited podcast episodes that were still on its harddrive - and my god was it NICE to handle it and use. It is so light and thin… just wow.
Then I saw it had the last security update available from march 2016 and did not even dare to turn on the WiFi… But I might go back to use it for the utility apps, OTP, music, and maybe just as a phone (for days when I want to be offline but reachable).
About warranty
Informative, and unfortunate.
Did they at least use their own keys when signing the operating system this time? I like what they’re doing creating a fairer supply chain and all, but the software side keeps being neglected. So much so I’m regretting my purchase of the fairphone 4 and instead wish I had gotten a phone which placed more significance to the security of the OS installed.
Would you be able give me more details of the issues faced in your previous phone?
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give a writeup. Its mostly the lack of timely security updates. Or really most updates to the OS. They lag months behind and are of poor quality.
I switched to DivestOS to mitigate this but the installation procedure carries the risk of bricking your phone, in a way other phones don’t.
The most telling example of the poor quality of software security I think is that the OS is signed with publicly available test keys. This means that anyone with access to your phone could install any OS they want and you would not know it.
This is maybe not a high risk scenario for most, unless you give your phone to some dodgy repair shop, but its telling of how little thought went into it I think. Because, signing your OS with the android test keys should really not happen in a production with good QC.
I hope it gets a US release with antenna designed for US networks
US FP4 user here, I ordered the EU model and had it shipped over, works well enough, minor radio issues and a lack of carriers (Im locked to T-mobile). Im very excited for the US release as I can then recommend the phone to others who dont have to pay the adopters tax.
Hopefully in the years to come they’ll slowly reduce the size of the phone. 162mm tall is just too big for comfortable single hand usage.
I find the “gotta have the jack” camp quite amusing. As wireless protocols become better and better, I don’t miss having a jack on my devices. In fact I prefer not tearing the cable when moving from my pc to do something. The lack of a plug is not a net loss but also focuses the hardware to do something else. Personally I really like usb C being truly universal. One good cable can connect different devices ranging from monitors, headphones, microcontrollers, HIDs and so on. Input interfaces come and go 🤷
I’m a live sound engineer, and whenever I need to play music from my phone over the PA, I now have to dig out yet another goddamn adapter to do so. A tour manager or road engineer with an apple device wants to play tunes over the house PA? Hope they have their own adapter, because my “universal” USB-C adapter won’t cut it.
I totally agree that the dongle jungle is annoying. In my case I just put a Bluetooth receiver on a 3.5 jack on a PA system. Proprietary connectors have always been a pain. Remember when every year pcs would release with a other required swap of proprietary cables.
That’s a really cool solution with the Bluetooth receiver! I fortunately don’t have to play music from my own device too often — I was just shaking my fist at the clouds lol
Agreed about proprietary nonsense, for sure. I know I could have it much worse, since I’ve at least got a good ol’, normal USB-C port, and, as you mentioned, we aren’t living in the bad old days before at least some standardization came along.
For me I really only miss the days of not having to charge my headphones. Its hard to remember that’s something I need to do
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They’re referring to the people saying they refuse to buy a phone without a headphone jack.
Hmm… worth a thought
This actually looks pretty nice. I’m going to need something to replace my OnePlus 6T when it eventually needs replacing. Shame there’s no smaller version though.
So, can I use their camera app on a custom rom, and retain access to all the features of all the lenses/cameras?
Would be a shame to lose all that.
It already has an entry on the postmarketos wiki https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp5)
Does anyone have an idea if there is a chance that the FP5 will work better on Linux than the FP4? If it gets on par with the OP6 but with a functional camera I will buy this phone in a heartbeat.
The processer looks good, since it has Linux support, but usually it’s the device drivers that are the real problem.
