Radboud University selects Fairphone as standard smartphone for employees

> Then, I brought it to my local repair shop. The owner had to tell me that they cannot repair Fairphone's

I brought mine to my local repair shop as well and they were completely unwilling to even try to repair it. Then I went home and tried myself and managed by just bending back some pins. The display cable had gotten loose. Have worked fine since then.

Not certain which type of sensor it uses, but in any case painting it wouldn't fix it. The problem with a scratch is now it will register that as a fingerprint ridge, but it is in a fixed location, so theoretically if you re-register your finger on the scanner and always position your finger in *exactly* the same space it would still work, but as soon as your finger moves slightly, the scratches position relative to your fingerprint changes, thus changing the fingerprint that is read. You would have to fill the scratch with the same material that it is coated with, provided the scratch is just in the coating, and it isn't say a capacitive type which you've scratched part of that capacitive coating. Thus for a home-repair likely out of luck I'd think.

I could be wrong, any hardware guys please feel free to chime in over me.

Note: slightly simplified explanation but mostly holds for the three common types of sensors.

> I brought it to my local repair shop. The owner had to tell me that they cannot repair Fairphone's, and that, for him, it is one of the worst companies to deal with.

This sounds like an odd & inconsistent story (from the repair shop guy - I'm not doubting your side of this, only his). Why would he need to be dealing directly with the company for any reason other than to purchase replaceable modules which are consumer-available & what would they be giving him trouble with specifically? Unless he's sending all his phones for repair back to the OEMs, but I'm sure that's not the case.

I wouldn't be surprised if some repair shops simply have a "mainstream brands only" blanket policy & don't consider other brands worth the time it takes to read about.

Otherwise you're right that the fingerprint module is specifically a bit of an achilles heel in their repairability. Even leaving aside the fingerprint reader isn't a separate component, it's also unclear to my why they made the decision not to sell the core module for standalone replacement (even if it ended up being quite expensive).

This is the problem with all of those „gadget but repairable” companies. It sounds great on paper, but the low adoption rate means that parts are hard to come by, the products get discontinued all the time, and your local electronics repair guy has never seen one of those before.

Sadly had a very similar experience about the screen of my FP4, which seems to have a serial fault of producing random inputs whenever it so pleases [1]. Knowing I had bought a phone with great self-service claims, I was confident they could just send me a replacement screen and I could swap it myself. But no, they insisted that I had to send it in, claiming that this would be better for the environment.

I do want to support Fairphone's mission and wish I could whole-heartedly recommend it to friends and family. But this experience and the many software issues have led me to recommend other options instead.

1. https://forum.fairphone.com/t/ghost-inputs-on-fp4/82837

I also had an issue with the power button on my FP4, sadly it became stuck _on_ so the phone just bootlooped and was immediately unusable.

I ended up posting it for repair, over Christmas, which did take about 2 weeks but it was fully covered by the warranty.

I've successfully replaced the USB port after accidentally filling it with sand once, and that was trivial apart from UPS losing the package the first time. I really do appreciate the repairability, even if it could be better.

At least it was the finger print scanner and not your finger that needs replacing. Biometrics as an EXTRA layer of security, on SHARED devices, makes sense. As a convenient replacement for passwords, on a personal device, net negative.

I bought a Fairphone 3, released in 2019.

The charging port wore out. I bought another one in 2023. They still sell that part today. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-3-bottom-module-37

In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015. First-party parts 10 years later, what a concept! https://shop.fairphone.com/spare-parts

I don't know your friend's scenario, but this was mine.

It's not an either-or, like "either buy first-party parts for a Fairphone OR buy a second-hand Samsung". You can buy a second-hand Fairphone too. It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.

    > The charging port wore out.

> Four years later and the model had been discontinued

Which model? Was it the FP1? It sounds like your friend was extremely unlucky - FP2 is 11 years old & there's still (a limited subset of) parts for sale for it (display & camera). FP3 (7yo model) still has all the parts for sale.

That said - I'm critical of another aspect of device longevity: software support. I upgraded from my (still working) FP3 to the FP5 because apps I needed stopped working on the highest version of Android supported by FP3. That Android version is still officially supported by Fairphone & receiving security updates but without major version upgrades the app support can be problematic. Obviously that's ultiamtely the fault of bad app devs, but ultimately it's hard to overcome.

They are currently on the Fairphone 6, and at least in Germany the official online store still sells a wide selection of parts for the Fairphones 3-6, and the display and camera for the Fairphone 2.

Sure, you don't get meaningful hardware upgrades (apparently there were some small ones), and Fairphone are far from the only ones selling spare parts for their phones. But in terms of keeping old phones alive with authentic parts and easy to execute disassembly steps, they are pretty good

I guess maybe if the comparison you're looking at is the one you mentioned? Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.

That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things): - USB charger broke after getting mortar in it - Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen - Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!) - Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.

If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.

So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.

Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.

Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.

I guess it was a Fairphone 2 from 2015? They are still selling screens, cases and camera modules but not the rest of the parts unfortunately:

https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?categ...

I bought a Fairphone 3+ years ago and, as much as I want to support this company, it was a huge disappointment. I switched to an iPhone after using it for less than three years, which is less than the life span I was hoping to use it for.

Within a year, the USB port wore out. Contacted the support as the phone was under warranty and was given two options: Order the replacement part online and get reimbursed for it. Or send the entire phone back, but it would get wiped clean.

I had some data that wasn't backed up and didn't want to loose, and because I couldn't charge it, I decided to go for the first option. It's supposed to be easily reparable, why go through the hassle of sending it back? Well the problem was that the part was unavailable on their store for months. I even looked at third party stores, that specific part couldn't be found anywhere in Europe. After three months of having a "repairable" paperweight on my desk, the part was finally available and I could change it (replacing it took seconds and I've done it while sitting at a café, gotta give credit to Fairphone for that).

Meanwhile, I see my friends with their iPhones getting them repaired within a few days or even the same day! Battery change, charging port replacement, screen change, etc. All could be easily and quickly done by a local repair shop.

In the end I realised it's not about how easy it is to repair your phone, it's about the availability of spare parts. iPhones, especially a few years ago, make it difficult to be repaired. Yet, they are the easiest to get repaired. Fairphone's spare parts are specific to their phones, and even specific to some models. Using generic parts or having some compatible across models would create more need for them = more parts available.

Environmentally speaking, (re)using existing hardware / buying second hand probably beats everything.

I am fine with having a phone with specs that are 3+ years old. I'm not, however, fine with loosing software support shortly buying it or the first repair knocking it out, because the parts are not available or the labour cost makes the repair unreasonable for its value.

Actually, taking on used phones with unknown history means that you'll likely end up 'bottom-feeding' where each unit bought is cheap, but you'll need to exchange them often. This strategy is even harder for less-interested who can't say what's the EOL for a phone model.

Maybe my argument doesn't hold in richer societies where you are effectively subsidised by people who'd still exchange phones every 2 years making them better value.

I often wonder why there still hasn't been a YC-backed attempt to disrupt the "replace your phone every couple of years because your battery became slower" cartel in 2026. Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.

Too much hearsay. Details please

My wife has a Fairphone 4, released 2021. The earpiece broke. I ordered a replacement; it arrived within 3 days and was very easy to replace. So a good experience with that.

This. Fairphone is not much different from any other company or actual hardware. Electronics are modular already…

I gave my 7 year old iPhone XS (which still works perfectly and fast, and gets updates) to my mum. The battery was at 70% so I decided to get a replacement. The local malls repair shop had a spare battery in stock - they fixed it while I bought groceries.

You get longer support than that on Pixels

> I have a friend who bought a fair phone with a view to being able to replace its modular parts. Four years later and the model had been discontinued

I was also very surprised to learn this. Incompatible models are the opposite of modular parts. Fairphone apparently was happy to throw away 95%+ of the value of having "modular" parts.

If e.g. someone's mainboard breaks, they can just give them a new phone and take in the old one, and then use the remaining parts to repair other employees' phones with working mainboards.

Same as any other major employer, surely? At least, you’re describing how it works at my previous employer (large private enterprise).

With all the US/EU issues currently, you might even be able to spin up a company to support European services that need management based on OSS management software.

Ubuntu is pretty strong already in that niche - either using Landscape as a first party management solution, but it also tends to be the distro most-commonly recommended by the big third-party MDM vendors like Scalefusion and Jumpcloud. Not sure what their mobile story is like, but they certainly cover laptop / desktops.

If Android is not a blocker, maybe even then, Jolla, a Finnish company, has been offering a Linux based mobile OS for quite some time. I frankly don't get why other EU companies building the hardware, like Fairphone and Volta, don't partner up with them.

> Android

> without being tied to Google

That's a contradiction.

Made in Suzhou, China.

As far as I know only Gigaset and HMD manufacture in Europe. And even those two only do final assembly in Europe, the components are still made in China.

Technically Fairphone could ship you a box of parts and have you assemble the phone yourself. Then it would be "Made in Europe" (or where-ever you live).

The default OS is not de-googled Android though, but regular Android. You have to buy the /e/OS variant, which is slightly more expensive (or flash it yourself).

But with the long-term support and access to spare parts (the university can stock them), this seems like a good move. Also happy for FairPhone that they are getting more traction.

*designed in holland

In the province* Holland, but the country The Netherlands :)

Partially, AOSP is still made by Google.

This no different from the fallacy of using Chrome and VSCode forks.

> web browser on a device that isn’t serviced by Apple or Google

Which browser though? But what you're describing sounds a lot like a Linux tablet, which do exist: https://itsfoss.com/linux-tablets/

https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_10_v-12264.php + https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/

I was going to refer to the new Jolla Phone, but then I realized that it doesn't have a headphone jack.

The university should push the maintainance to the holder of the phone? That seems unreasonable.

As mentioned in another comment. Universities already have in house it services. Being able to fix the phone right there with spare parts is likely very cost efficient.

If it is like my usual experience with European academia, it may be intended to more heavily push use of Microsoft 365 services, which tend to somewhat assume phone availability. I think that usually universities cannot force the use of personal devices for work, so providing mobile phones on request is one way of moving to a more purely Microsoft service infrastructure. It looks like Radboud is a Microsoft shop, so I would not be surprised.

My university, for example, is gradually removing all office phones (already voip) and replacing them with Teams voip as the only phone system for the university, encouraging personal phone use of Teams, but having computer-based use as the option for people who refuse. As they don't provide mobile phones, however, they can't require Microsoft Authenticator, and so at least officially will still give hardware keys on request (and fortunately still allow TOTP, even if they don't advertise it).

If they already have an IT department, they already have the staff to take care of this additional workload (after a bit of training). How much difference is there really in repairing a "repairable" phone and a computer? Not much really as "repairing" a computer is often just fiddling with the software and / or just about changing an easily available and "standardised" parts. (When was the last time any of us saw any IT department doing actual board level servicing to repair a computer?) It will be the same with the Fairphone too (Fairphone makes it easy to change the battery, the board and the display screen).

If the university didn't make phone repairs themselves they would have to send the phones off for repair, or contract with a local phone repair shop. Or the secret third option: telling your employees to get it fixed and send you the invoice. None of them are cheap, and some of them will make you very annoyed with your billing/procurement/finance people. After a certain scale doing it inhouse makes sense, and with the right phone it's not much more difficult than fixing a business laptop, which is also commonly done inhouse with available spare parts

If they want to use an MDM solution like Microsoft Intune to enforce some security compliance they are kind of forced to provide the device. People typically don't accept their private phone to be managed by their company IT.

> The announcement implies that the university is responsible for phone maintenance and repair

It says "Do you require a (replacement) smartphone for your work at Radboud University?", so it's probably for a handful of board members and the like, not the actual faculty staff.

>They apparently get security updates late and don't properly implement verified boot and attestation.

It doesn't matter if their os gets security updates late, becase security updates depend on the rom maker this case grapheneos.

I was going to keep to myself on this one, but this is a good jump-in point.

The security capabilities of their hardware are what makes GrapheneOS incompatible to target the phone, Not any specific security practices of the developers of Fairphone.

Having said that: if there’s a way to MDM GrapheneOS, I’d be looking at that also!

The n+ patch interval on Lineage, /e/ and the rest of them, that’s plain and simply more days your administrators are at risk of giving up the keys to your castle - and that’s a tough pill to swallow!

These risks don't seem to materialize if you're not targeted by something like an intelligence agency. Not sure publicly funded research has such security requirements, at least by default (they can always buy custom equipment for a project, or just not put such data on devices you take home / out and about). Might be worth it compared to the very real benefits it has around the world by paying good salaries and fairer material sourcing

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.

Its just for the employees who need a phone to do their day job, and isn't owned by the employee

If Holland is anything like Denmark the cost of employee phones can be budgeted as an operational cost, which means it's basically free. I doubt that is their reasoning. It's far more likely this is a part of the massive anti-US tech dependency wave which is rolling over Europe. Digital sovereignty is a hot topic these days.

As far as what people want... it depends... A lot of people have two phones anyway, since they don't want to pay the additional taxation for using a company phone privately. Also because it's easier to turn it off when you're not working. In education I would imagine a lot of teachers/professors would prefer to not give their private numbers to students.

Probably not many, the iPhone only has a 35% market share in the Netherlands.

The Fairphone 6 is a pretty good phone.

I think the choice of Fairphone is about digital sovereignty. It's not only repairable, but it's also available with e/os, an android version which is much more independent from Google

The US hasn't turned out to be a reliable partner in the last few months.

Also whatever the battery size though?

Not that I disagree. I bought a Fairphone some years ago and sold it onward because it simply didn't fit in my hand, but the phone I got instead had a delicious combo of small physical battery and terribly inefficient chipset (2019 Exynos). I'd still make the same choice but it's a considerable downside (thankfully the only downside of this phone besides its age and software support by now)

I looked into the Jelly Star about six months ago. Downsides are the lack of dual-frequency GNSS and eSIM, and blanks in my spreadsheet are chipset speed, unlockability, warranty, slow motion camera speed, screen brightness, storage speed, and battery life (on 2Ah that might not be very much). The IR blaster and FM radio are cool benefits though, and it's very cheap. May be worth a try if you're feeling adventurous and enjoy it being a conversation starter, but I wouldn't expect much longevity from it (battery life or warranty)

The thing is the apps themselves start to be unusable on smaller screens as DEV don't take them into account anymore.

Me too. I've seen that horror too :-)

> I think what we really need is legislation to force all phone manufacturers to at least make the batteries and screens relatively easily replaceable.

We are slowly getting there, user removable/replaceable batteries are part of the following regulation (first link I've got)

https://www.brownejacobson.com/insights/compliance-obligatio...

The big caveat will be that some leeway is going to be given to "waterproof" devices. Remains to be seen how many producers jump on that angle to avoid serviceability.

And with an unlockable bootloader (that can be easily unlocked without needing to contact the manufacturer or require any special software).

I've read that the Fairphone 6 is more like a "regular" phone than the previous one, because it has a standard phone chip (Snapdragon) instead of an IoT one.

They did that to get longer software support from Qualcomm, but now they can get long support for Snapdragon chips.