In hindsight, I should’ve added a few more…
Repairability/sustainability: Easy to repair, sustainably produced.
Ethics: Anti-Big Tech (no Apple, no Samsung etc.), good workers’ rights and supply chain. Preferably European.
Privacy: Speaks for itself. Privacy or anonymity, measures that foster it rather than feed data to others.
I feel like Fairphone would hit the Repairability and likely also Ethics (since it’s a certified B corporation), but for Privacy, it’d be a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS… but it’s Google, and given the CLOUD Act…
Maybe I could add accessibility there too, interface customisation (I like the iOS interface ways, but still, it’s Apple), but that’s a separate category.
Buy a Fairphone from Murena, the company behind /e/OS. That way you buy a mostly fair produced phone thats ethical. It’s the most repairable there is and /e/OS is a deGoogled custom rom with many privacy features on top.
For those categories, it’s gotta be Fairphone. Definitely wins in the ethics and repairability categories, and with /e/ I think it would be a decent contender in the privacy bracket.
A second hand Pixel with GrapheneOS might also be a contender. I think buying second hand is a decent ethical choice and GrapheneOS is probably as good as it gets for privacy. Not very repairable though.
A Fairphone with e/OS/ on it.
Preferably directly from the company Murena, as they develop /e/OS. Don’t have to sideload and lock the bootloader or do anything, and devs gotta eat!
That’s what I went with. It satisfies all three for me better than any other option on the market.
How long have you had it and how do you like it? Any major annoyances / limitations?
1.5 months. It’s a worse flagship and it’s roughly priced accordingly. No major limitations or pains, although because of the privacy stuff knocking out google programs by default I’ve had to troubleshoot an app or two to get the onboard settings right.
I’d recommend it to just about anyone except for maybe a grandma. Phones are largely set it and forget it though in my experience so even then it’s a bit of getting every app loaded and set up and then never worrying about it again.
For instance lieferando I haven’t gotten working but nearly every other app was pretty simple.
Rad, I’m sold whenever this thing becomes unusable. I’m on the lighter end of phone use so it sounds like I would lose absolutely nothing.
What do you use for maps?
I use Google maps and Maps which is based on Freemaps if I’m not mistaken. Google’s directions are just miles faster and better than Maps provides but I want to start writing reviews in both and contributing.
Cheers, thank you!
Too bad they went for the iOS look-and-feel 🫤
You could install another launcher?
Of course I could. But iOS look-and-feel on an Android phone by default feels like a weird play.
I just changed to launcher to Kvaerisito. There’s like so many options to install
Kvaesitso, for anyone wondering.
Jolla from Finland.
Fairphone /e/OS version hits all three
I agree, the only (big) problem is that many bank apps don’t work there.
Mine do, and every single bank app I’ve ever used works there as well. Admittedly that’s three, but like 2 big and 1 small makes these claims feel antiquated.
I could fine this post and actually you are right, the compatibility is much better now.
If it lands in there, it has a shit camera! Which sucks
Jolla seems to be still around: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder
and given the CLOUD Act…
I bought my pixel from a local store. Please elaborate about the cloud act
Basically, the CLOUD act states that if a tech corporation has main residency in the US, it needs to provide a backdoor for espionage services, no matter even if data’s stored elsewhere.
Ill need to read into that, but AFAIK it refers to their cloud Servers, not the actual phones
The ‘Fair’ in Fairphone relates to their practice to produce the phone as fairtrade as they can. Mind, it is not perfect and I believe they don’t state that it is fully fairtrade either. This often gets confused that it is fair of them to make it repairable.
I remember when Fairphone firat came out, they talked a bit about their work. Their conclusion was that it was simply not possible to create a phone that had all parts from ethical sources, so picked some specific things to focus on that were high impact and achievable at scale.
It’s likely the most ethical phone you can buy, but that is mostly due to how bad most phones are.
Yes, I think it is nearly phrased the same in the link somewhere. I guess they also have to consider that it doesn’t get much more expensive than it currently is. If I remember correctly they also want to be an example for other brands, and lead the way for other brands to choose more ethical materials.
This is true, I would say it is currently the most ethical smartphone you can buy today, though. If you get it with e.os installed it is also more privacy focussed as well but as a heads up e.os doesn’t work with some banking apps.
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Nah.
You can install postmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, /e/OS and the like on the Fairphone so no Google shit unless you want it.
Fairphone even sells the gen 6 with the option to have /e/OS pre-installed.
They also did with Fairphone 4 and 5
PostmarketOS on Fairphone is afaik FAR from ready for daily driver status. 100% for UBPorts Ubuntu Touch (on gen5 or gen4) though. Also iodéOS in addition to /e/.
Yes it is. Tried it on the 5, doesn’t have speaker drivers, makes it fairly unusable. Alarm clocks, for example, are almost useless if they only work with your headphones.
There’s also https://www.shift.eco/, but I don’t think it beats the Fairphone.
Maybe the Volla Phone also?
Zero (at home) reparability. Their customer service makes it expensive af to repair a unit.
I’m uncertain about the ethical part.
Fairphone
