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Is the fairphone really worth it?
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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10 years ago the Samsung Galaxz S4 released, let's compare its specs with the current phone
Samsung Galaxzy S4 <> Galaxy S23
Display size: 5" <> 6.1"
Resolutuion: Full HD <> 120hz 2k AMOLED
CPU: 4x1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & 4x1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 <> 1x3.36 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510
RAM: 2GB <> 8GB
Storage: 16-64GB <;> 128-512GB
The question is, do you want to run 10 year old hardware even if its software is supported?
Most of that progression was made in the first 5 years, the last 5 years for new phone tech have been a lot slower. I don't know if any spec in the next 5 will really make me want to upgrade, stuff just works atm
I feel like we reached the stage where any improvements are really just incremental and small, you used to get a massively different experience when upgrading your phone even just a year later in the early days, nowadays you can barely tell the difference between new and 5 year old models.
When we get in that state of a technology, we should definitely be looking at how to make our devices last longer instead of renewing yearly / bi-yearly.
Won't somebody please think of the ~~children~~ profits?
That's not the question. There is no singular reason to buy the Fairphone 5 and a purchase is not necessarily a commitment to a full 8 - 10 years of use. Focusing solely on one aspect of the device, like its modular components or the long-term software support, is missing the bigger picture.
But it is the question.
OP wants to know if fairphone will last 10 years. The retort is that even if you can have a phone that is supported for 10 years, you won't want to use it that long.
Even if they use it for 5 years and then move to something else, it still offers benefits that very few modern phones have. And it's still the most ethical by an absolute mile. You don't need to use a Fairphone for the entire support period for it to become a worthwhile purchase.
The newer hardware tends to usually have a longer lifespan. A 10-year old computer today is a 3rd or 4th gen Core i7, still decently powerful. A 10-year old computer 10 years ago was a Pentium 4, pretty much useless.
Same will apply to phones. I had an S5 that I bought in 2014 which by 2019 actually was getting too old, hobbled by it's paltry 2GB of RAM. Bought an S8 in 2019 which already was 2 years old and it's already outlived the S5 by almost 2 years. It's starting to show signs of age but will probably last at least another couple years. I'm expecting the S22/S23 Ultra to last into the 2030s.
So
Not that impressive for ten years of development to be honest. In addition to that there are limits to what is required for everyday usage. Not to make a "640k should be enough for everybody", but browser and messaging only requires a few GB of RAM and will do so for the foreseeable future. 8GB is future proof enough for the vast majority of use cases.
I have 2TB of storage in my PC. The actually important part (documents and programs) take up minuscule amounts of space. The remainder is for AI models, movies and games, all of which I could delete and download again.