Jamie
pfm Member
I got mine in store. It is also available for the same price in Boots and Amazon for the same price. Only real glitch is that it does not have the 2 minute timer that rechargables have.
Right To Repair
- Thread starter Tony L
- Start date
awkwardbydesign
Officially Awesome
Just got one in store. The last one, with the brush missing, but I have plenty of those. I just need a holiday to use it!
My rechargeable doesn't have the timer anyway.
Nytechy
pfm Member
Braun repair their toothbrushes. Free if you can persuade them that you haven't had it long...
Recently had the USB connector wear out on my Fairphone 3+, sadly they were out of stock of the replacement module, though the Fairphone forum helped me charge my battery outside my phone while I waited for new stocks to came in. The spares stock situation is a bit of a farce but I guess they are a small company and have been focussing on newer product manufacture ... still, once the spare came, it was a simple job as the hardware is designed to open (no glue, back pops off with a thumb nail, then a few screws with just a screwdriver and a spludger required) Fairphone provide the screwdriver with the phone and a credit card works as a spludger. As Fairphone like to say, if you can't open it, you don't own it ...
They also recently released Android 13 for the Fairphone 3/3+ which will keep it going for a few years longer. This is quite an big deal for a small company since the chipset manufacturer did not extend support to Android 13 so they had to port it themselves. Like all OS upgrades there have been a few teething problems, not least Google moved the goalposts on fingerprint reader approvals for secure apps so you can still e.g. unlock the phone with the fingerprint reader with Android 13 but not necessarily access e.g. banking apps with fingerprint unlock anymore. It is hard to keep a phone going for as long as they have and stay secure, this is why others just release one or two OS versions and a few security patchs for a year or two then run away. Not Fairphone. It looks like a brick and is expensive for a mid phone but it is delivering on longevity through ease of repair and software updates long after every other manufacturer would have told you to buy a new one.
They also recently released Android 13 for the Fairphone 3/3+ which will keep it going for a few years longer. This is quite an big deal for a small company since the chipset manufacturer did not extend support to Android 13 so they had to port it themselves. Like all OS upgrades there have been a few teething problems, not least Google moved the goalposts on fingerprint reader approvals for secure apps so you can still e.g. unlock the phone with the fingerprint reader with Android 13 but not necessarily access e.g. banking apps with fingerprint unlock anymore. It is hard to keep a phone going for as long as they have and stay secure, this is why others just release one or two OS versions and a few security patchs for a year or two then run away. Not Fairphone. It looks like a brick and is expensive for a mid phone but it is delivering on longevity through ease of repair and software updates long after every other manufacturer would have told you to buy a new one.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
FWIW This is just one aspect of the way Mazzucato and others have described the modern economy as about 'rent' and 'wealth *extraction*' being the new norm under the cloak of being ownership and value. In 'established' theory, capitalism is about wealth creation via 'work' and 'capital'. But this is now largely a convenient fiction. FWIW even I was shocked by some of what Mazzucato has reported about how this is employed by the drugs companies to 'justfy' prices wildly higher than their development and production costs. Yet is the norm.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
One reason I prefer Linux and RISC OS. Versions are open and genuinely compete to offer you what you might prefer.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
FWIW I keep meaning to look into Fairphones. However my need is for a mobile *phone* not an all-singing, all-dancing 'device'. I just need one to make 999 or taxi calls when we are out. Not for conversations or browsing or emails, etc, etc. my snag is that current cheap phones all seem to be 2G/3G only. So will brick in a couple of years time when those nets are switched off!
Tony L
Administrator
I agree in principle, but the iPad is such an amazingly usable and convenient device I couldn’t go back to a conventional computer of any description, and I find Andriod pretty awful in comparison. RISC OS is a lovely idea, but just feels like abandonware in practice. I don’t think it can even display most modern websites/web apps etc. It is like trying to work with OS/2, BeOS or NT4 in 2023. Some folk try, but I’m not one of them!
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Well, both commercial and Open versions of RO continue to be developed and ported to various new Arm-based hardware. (And the commercial version often makes code available to the Open source side, etc.) Long item on this from Upton (of RPi fame) and the support he gives as new Pi, etc, hardware appears. It is frustrating that it lacks an equivalent of ALSA for audio. But really scores in other areas. And, yes, browsers that can 'do' modern webpages exist. I do use one part of the time, but prefer a lighter browser. You can also, of course, on some hardware dual boot RO and Linux. I just use two different boxes, for that, though.
RO is different, though, to the 'usual OSs' so anyone trying it needs to be willing to explore and not expect a Doze-alike.
Tony L
Administrator
I’ll try it again when my Pi 5 turns up, but the last Pi version I tried was absolutely hopeless. I like the idea though. My core issue with any of this these days is I work 98% of the time on the iPad. A conventional computer no longer fits my workflow at all as my ‘job‘ is this place, and content generation and admin is just so much easier on a high-spec tablet than even a laptop, let alone chained to a desk somewhere. I only boot up my proper computer (an old MacBook Pro) to do the accounts or if I want to use Logic Pro X (a DAW). Absolutely everything else is done with either the iPad or iPhone, and often not from home, e.g. most of my posts today were written on a tram or at the museum where I volunteer now and again.
It is annoying as this modern way of working does appear to be largely at odds with Right To Repair-friendly products. I just couldn’t go back to the 1990s-style way of working though. Whatever I do it needs to work seamlessly from a high-spec tablet and smartphone. This is just the technology of our current era.
It is annoying as this modern way of working does appear to be largely at odds with Right To Repair-friendly products. I just couldn’t go back to the 1990s-style way of working though. Whatever I do it needs to work seamlessly from a high-spec tablet and smartphone. This is just the technology of our current era.
You are a Luddite Jim and you know it
2G and 3G are already off in the US and the rest of the world is following. My children's generation would think actually making calls quaint, obvs you use an app, 999 sure but not an everyday need one hopes, while Taxis are an app too. Ah nothing is perfect but the ability to have a half decent camera, ability to record a video, work on Office documents, browse the web, do emails, store e tickets, chat and video call colleagues and friends from an easily portable device, that can also entertain me while travelling with music, films, and games is a boon. Not to mention free sat nav so I don't get (too) lost getting places.
For work I need Windows, nothing else will do, colleagues that go Mac/Linux end up dual booting, many embedded software tools are only really available on Windows. Apple made steps towards repairability with more recent devices, while backtracking in another sense, check out the link for the iFixit view. For me they have the ability (as they have their own processors and OS) to allow devices to run for decades, but for commercial reasons choose not to, they also have history in making older stuff die early (battery gate). They will not change, so I avoid using them, while I recognise their qualities I find their approach in this area unacceptable. So my next laptop, when my current one hits the buffers, will probably be made by a bunch of ex Apple employees who also got fed up with their approach, Framework. Currently I have a Dell XPS15, Dell's considered response to MacBook. It is a decent beast and with a healthy extended warranty it has been a good work horse but once that runs out I will need to consider my options as it also has its frailties (two mobos so far as the main USB C used for docking stops charging every few years it seems).
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Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
You are a Luddite Jim and you know it
2G and 3G are already off in the US and the rest of the world is following.
The central problem isn't that 2/3G are going. It is that even when I bought a *new* phone - with the aim of having one that would work using the 'higher' bands so NOT stop working when 2/3G go - I found that the NEW PHONE ALSO is limited to 2/3G! So they are still selling them! We don't have any 'Internet of Things' devices, but I suspect these will also be operating using 2/3G.
That said. The only need I have is for a mobile phone to call a Taxi home or a 999 because my wife may have a fit when out and we need help or a ride home.
BTW The trick the new phone (and others I've looked at recently since) deploy is to specify the radio frequency bands, without mentioning what may be 2/3/etc 'G'. Fortunately I can mostly decode that. Indeed, I can use a USB dongle to check what the phones may radiate in terms of the spectrum and externals. But I wonder how many other people also have wanted a 'new phone' and - unawares - got a 2G/3G one that will brick soon.
Doesn't help that webpages give all kinds of vague and conflcting statements about *when* 2/3G *will* cease. Some say it partly continue until 2033! (For the sake of IoT, etc, perhaps) Others tell me that O2 may last till 2025.
Its a misleading mess.
It is a mess, one I am in the middle of having designed a cellular IoT-ish device. From the perspective of designing for IoT globally, 2G or 3G or both are already gone in mojor markets. Here is a UK centric view from Ofcom:
"Each MNO has confirmed that its 3G network will be switched off first, starting from early 2023:
• Vodafone is starting its switch-off in early 2023
• EE plans to start its switch-off in early 2024
• Three expects to switch off by the end of 2024
• Virgin Media (VM)-O2 has not yet announced its planned 3G switch-off date.
--snip-- none of the MNOs have set a specific date for 2G switch-of"
Most cellular IoT is already NB-IoT or LTE-M or lower Category LTE 1, 1 bis or 4. Nobody is going to design a new system on 2G or 3G and the growth has all been recent in terms of numbers of devices (though lots are e.g. WiFi). There is, of course, old stuff sat on 2G and 3G. They can still but for data it can be patchy, if you try to use 3G now for data you will see what I mean, it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, even with a good network connection. My assumption is network providers give data bandwidth to 4G/5G in preference to 3G even if they have not actually turned it off yet! I guess new designs, if not suited to NB-IoT or LTE-M will move to 5G RedCap.
It should be possible to look up new phone specs and see the cellular generations they support, somewhere like gsm arena, here is my Fairphone 3+, that shows:
"Each MNO has confirmed that its 3G network will be switched off first, starting from early 2023:
• Vodafone is starting its switch-off in early 2023
• EE plans to start its switch-off in early 2024
• Three expects to switch off by the end of 2024
• Virgin Media (VM)-O2 has not yet announced its planned 3G switch-off date.
--snip-- none of the MNOs have set a specific date for 2G switch-of"
Most cellular IoT is already NB-IoT or LTE-M or lower Category LTE 1, 1 bis or 4. Nobody is going to design a new system on 2G or 3G and the growth has all been recent in terms of numbers of devices (though lots are e.g. WiFi). There is, of course, old stuff sat on 2G and 3G. They can still but for data it can be patchy, if you try to use 3G now for data you will see what I mean, it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, even with a good network connection. My assumption is network providers give data bandwidth to 4G/5G in preference to 3G even if they have not actually turned it off yet! I guess new designs, if not suited to NB-IoT or LTE-M will move to 5G RedCap.
It should be possible to look up new phone specs and see the cellular generations they support, somewhere like gsm arena, here is my Fairphone 3+, that shows:
| Network | Technology | GSM / HSPA / LTE |
|---|---|---|
| 2G bands | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 | |
| 3G bands | HSDPA 800 / 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100 | |
| 4G bands | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 20, 26 | |
| Speed | HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A (2CA) Cat6 300/150 Mbps |
Pleasant surprise for a Karcher product. My parents WV2 (handheld vacuum that sucks up window condensation) suddenly stopped charging. Not knowing if the lithium ion cell had failed or a component on the charging circuit board I headed to the internet for guidance.
A full new device costs £65. But a new cell which then needs a pair of tin snips and a soldering iron to fit is £9 + delivery. I was ready to chance a cell and hope the board etc were still okay. Then I came across the Karcher Outlet website.
A refurbished full device £35, not bad. But then I found they were selling the motor/circuit board/cell assembly for £20. Both including delivery cost. I have bought the motor assembly, meaning I can carry over the suction head, water reservoir and external charger, which are all no tool required clip on parts.
Top marks would have been achieved for a push fit cell change design.
A full new device costs £65. But a new cell which then needs a pair of tin snips and a soldering iron to fit is £9 + delivery. I was ready to chance a cell and hope the board etc were still okay. Then I came across the Karcher Outlet website.
A refurbished full device £35, not bad. But then I found they were selling the motor/circuit board/cell assembly for £20. Both including delivery cost. I have bought the motor assembly, meaning I can carry over the suction head, water reservoir and external charger, which are all no tool required clip on parts.
Top marks would have been achieved for a push fit cell change design.
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ff1d1l
pfm Member
My son and Mrs ff1d1l each have a Framework laptop. Very nice, fast and no complaints from either. Modular, configurable and upgradeable.
Jono_13
Duffer
Sonos are making steps in the right direction now, glue-less assembly, better packaging and more recyclable materials...
Sonos environmental report
Sonos environmental report