this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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No offence but I don't think this phone will be any good in a few years because of the CPU choice.
If it's already sluggish now, what will it be like in 5 years? Unusable.
I'm writing this comment on a Fairphone 5 right now and it doesn't feel sluggish at all.
It doesn't seem to me like the increased performance of phones has had much effect on the actual experience for a while if gaming or content creation is not done on the phone. As a daily driver I think this phone will last me a while.
I mostly can't get over paying more for worse specs. It doesn't have to feel bad now but with 8 years of support it could very easily not feel good in the future. It's a $760 phone that benchmarks close to the Samsung A54 a $400 phone.
The selling point is the ethical value of the phone but it'll never top how much waste buying a used phone saves.
Other phones can be much cheaper because they don't care about slavery or child labor in their production line and don't support their phones that long
But iPhones get long support, pixels now get 7, and S24 get 7.
Fairphone themselves even admits they can't fix everything in production so a phone that was about to be waste is more fair.
If they built their phones in Germany or something I could accept the price but they're made in China where labor standards aren't exactly great.
Yes they are obviously not perfect but they are at least trying to change something, while the massive cooperations just dont acknowledge that problem at all.
And the updates thing: Apple controls the ecosystem and are a huge company. They dont have to worry about manufactures for a processor or other parts not supporting it longer and stop giving it driver updates. Same with Samsung and especially Google. They are huge companies that can basically do what they want. They will be able to get a hold of drivers and firmware because they are a huge customer to the manufactures. And they only just started promising those long updates. Meanwhile Fairphone has been trying for years to support their devices that long and had to struggle because they are not a massive cooperation that can influence manufactures like that to the point they now dont use normal consumer grade chips but ones with extended support.
Do they pay you to "yeah but" for them or are you just a simp?
Eh nope. Just stating facts that's all
I've listed facts here. But every time you come up with an excuse to consume more product.
It's not like I'm recommending a specific brand and they're actually some of the most common but you will always justify buying shit you don't need.
You are simping for a private company that exploits labor just so you can feel better about buying another new phone instead of used.
No you didn't list any facts that justifies your point. I already told you why what you said isn't what you think it is. "Every time". Dude I've just told you ONCE after you came back at me that you can't compare massive cooperations against a small company. I don't even own a Fairphone and have never owned one. I keep my phone as long as possible. I'm literally not the type of consumer you think I am. But sure just because I listed literal facts you can't seem to accept, I'm a fanboy of a brand I've never bought from and just pointed out some facts. Whatever makes you feel better I guess
Used phones are ethically better than new phones. That's a fact. If you buy used fairphones then that's even better but they make such a bad product you have to buy it on ethics alone. If you're buying on ethics then again, used is better.
You're just spouting peak consumer copium and claiming it's a fact.
I have never said you should buy a new or even a Fairphone to begin with. You're trying to deflect from the actual discussion and make it look like I said certain stuff I never even said
That's what my initial comment was about so if you're this far without knowing that it's pretty clear you're not reading very well.
My initial answer to your comment made it pretty clear that I was explaining to you one reason as to why these phones are more expensive than other ones. That was it. If you're this far without noticing what the discussion was about maybe it's you that isn't reading very well
And I'm saying they need to have value other than ethics to sell new phones because used are more ethical.
Not making stuff is greener than making stuff.
And I never argued against that. I just gave you one reason as to why their phones are more expensive. Of course used is greener than new.
It's not inherently more ethical though. While it could be argued that more green means more ethical because you are trying to harm the planet as little as possible if you buy a phone that's been produced with exploitation and child labor in its production line you still end up supporting it when buying used because you are part of the second hand market that supports people buying those phones. People will take into consideration if they can ever sell their stuff again when buying something. Those things would have to be weighed against each other if you want to make the statement that used phones are also automatically more ethical.
Buying a used phone that didn't have those things in its production line and actively tries to avoid it would technically be the best choice. But ultimately it's something the consumer shouldnt need to choose anyway. Regulations shouldnt allow for that to happen on the first place.
Backmarket FTW
I'm typing this from a smartphone with Snapdragon 765g, a basically older version of the 778g. The 778g is better in every way compared to the many years older 765g and my phone does not feel sluggish in any way for my use cases: messaging, phone calls, video calls, media consumption, but no gaming. For me the 778g would be the perfect chip (like the 765g was): a perfect compromise between battery life, capabilities and price.
It's not about the processor, it's about the official software support. Some people don't want to have to flash a custom ROM to get decent performance, some people want good performance out of the box from the official software
I have a phone with 732G, it's already super smooth on my phone with the official OS and it still has perfect software support. A newer snapdragon wouldn't have much issues.
Offtopic:
(MediaTek on the other hand is actual and absolute garbage. Don't look at their (probably cheated) benchmarks, they provide absolutely no proper support for their chips. There is a reason why anybody who wants to do custom ROMs or android development tries to get an snapdragon.)How is the CPU choice and official software support related? Genuine question, I don't follow smartphone tech news, I just look up stuff whenever I or someone in my family needs a new phone.
The comment I was replying to said that this Fairphone was going to be sluggish because of the CPU choice, with which I disagreed because I'm basically using an older CPU from that CPU family without issues, so I know that it doesn't have to be sluggish. Not in a Fairphone though, but in a Motorola edge, so the software will indeed be different.
sometimes a phone with a good CPU performs poorly because of poorly optimized software
Often people on the internet will respond to that "well just find a custom ROM and a custom kernel, flash that and it'll be butter smooth!"
So I was assuming that you were implying that "only the CPU spec matters because you can always flash any software" and to that I respond that maybe some people don't want to flash aftermarket software
No, I wasn't, my phone is still completely stock. I use a custom launcher which could slow it down, but no issues there either. The processor just works smoothly in all my use cases and I blame all my connection issues on my network provider (they suck and I have no way of knowing of it's 100% of the time their fault, or only 90%, so I just blame them for every connection issue).