Fairphone 6

I purchased a Fairphone 6 thinking I was going to solve a lot of issues I had with more popular phone models. This has not been the case. I think that when all is said and done, Fairphone will have done more to hurt the concept of device repairability than help it. Examples: Within a month of purchase, the little upper speaker grill/mesh sticker fell out. Now this is why I bought a Fairphone - a few clicks, a few days wait and a few screws later and I can easily replace it... not the case. They wanted me to warranty/send in my phone for a sticker replacement on "the world's most repairable phone." Not a great first impression. Another system update they shipped bricked my sim card. No support, no help, just me with a permanent fear of installing any updates in the future.

Unfortunately, there were quite a lot early reports of users whose FP6 volume buttons broke or their logic boards during charging. Both are components that are not user-replaceable and it often takes Fairphone 4-6 weeks to repair them. Similarly, the head band on their FairBuds XL regularly break for a bunch of people (user replaceable, but you still have to go through their slow support if you do not want to pay for the replacement yourself). Fairphone (in contrast to Apple) are also known for introducing really bad bugs and then not fixing them for months. Like how the FP4 could only keep a single app in memory after they introduced a memory management bug or how currently a lot of FP6 users are affected by a bug where WiFi stops working (due to an IPv6-related bug) that has been reported in March . https://forum.fairphone.com/t/dns-over-tls-ipv6-issues-apps-... Then there are the really weird design decisions on the FP6. Like, they put the fingerprint scanner in the power button, which makes it nearly impossible to use it one-handed with your left hand if you actually want to unlock it or use fingerprint unlock in an application. And they put the power button on the exact opposite side of the volume down button, so you make a screenshot when you want to lock the phone half of the time. And then we haven't talked about the hardware. The speakers are pretty mediocre. The camera is only mid. The SoC even caused render slowdowns in 2026 in /e/OS, it's going to be wholly un…

> so you make a screenshot when you want to lock the phone half of the time I share that pain. I use a Fairphone 6 as my main phone, and my only real gripes with it are the extremely weak haptic engine and that power button placement.

Pinephone is close to useless. Fairphone 5 I think is as good as it gets if you want to avoid android. It is annoying though that fairphone 6 is not working with linux.

The Fairphone 6 is about double the price of a comparable phone like Motorola Edge 60 Fusion. All these branded "fair" or "open" products are just not competitive and 99% of people aren't willing to pay such a big premium for what's essentially a concept https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=13955&idPhone...

'Solved' by having measurably worse ingress protection than leading smartphones?

Still no headphone jack, which is a real bummer. Unfortunately it's not really for me with that limitation.

A year since Android 16 release, and they're still selling outdated, not fully secure Android 15? https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6 Im afraid if you value security (and in the consequence, privacy), this is not a phone for you. Shame. I like the hardware (beyond the security parts, which are predictably..... well.... Not up to the current political climate and raging attacks).

A camera with optical zoom would be indeed nice. For me another feature is what disqualifies it. Fairphone 6 would have been otherwise acceptable for myself, as it has quite decent specifications, but it only has USB 2.0. Other smartphones at around the same price not only have USB 3, but also DisplayPort 1.4 (e.g. from Motorola). I hate when I see even on many smartphones over $1000, that they save a few cents by implementing USB 2 instead of USB 3, and a few dollars at most by not implementing DisplayPort. The SoC used in Fairphone 6 supports both USB 3 and DisplayPort, but its designers have saved a few external components by not offering these features. Pixel is also disqualified for me by the same reason. Unfortunately only some smartphones made in China offer complete features and without excessive locking of the phone.

This is good to know, but they certainly do not advertise this feature as existing. On Google Store there is no information about this and other sites, like Gsmarena, also do not have any information on it, unlike for the smartphones from other vendors that have DisplayPort. On some older Pixel models, it has been discovered that DisplayPort existed in hardware, but it was disabled in software by the Google operating system. It could be enabled only by replacing the OS. I see that you also do not use its native OS, so this condition may have remained true. About newer models, it was supposed that the hardware support might have been removed. How did you discover that DisplayPort exists on your Pixel 10? Was this mentioned in its user manual? Do you have the plain Pixel 10 or some Pro version? Do you happen to know whether you have DisplayPort 1.2 or 1.4? I.e. which is the maximum resolution at which you have used it, can it do 4k @ 60 Hz on a monitor or projector? Did you have to use the audio jack because the smartphone does not know to send the audio through DisplayPort, or was that a limitation of your projector (or perhaps of some DisplayPort/HDMI converter that you may have used)? Having this feature and not documenting it for the potential buyers is even more stupid than not implementing it, as this can lead to lost sales. Like with Fairphone 6, I have considered buying Pixel 10, which at least has USB 3, but I have eliminated it from the possible choices for the lack o…

i guess that you have to make compromise somewhere The Fairphone 5 used a QCM6490, a qualcomm industrial chip with a 10y support timeline The Fairphone 6 uses a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 with ane stimated 3-4 years of support At least for the 5 the compromise was motivated, in the second case i just don't feel like the low performance is a worthwhile compromise.

Really sad. Based on what I had read yesterday, when I still hoped that it will have the same USB 3.0/DisplayPort like Fairphone 5, I was considering very seriously to upgrade my rather old ASUS smartphone to a Fairphone 6. However, if it lacks USB 3.0/DisplayPort, which can be acceptable for a $200 smartphone, but never for a $600 smartphone, then Fairphone 6 is completely disqualified from my point of view. Unfortunately, only some Chinese smartphones, e.g. from Motorola, offer USB 3.0/DisplayPort in smartphones with decent price/performance ratios and up-to-date Qualcomm SoCs, starting as low as $400.

The tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following: USB-C 2.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output? That's sad. Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs: USB-C 3.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/display (also Android™ desktop mode)/Camera/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly But maybe it was not used enough?

Still no headphone jack makes this a nonstarter, lame.