gemini://jacksonchen666.com/posts/2023-09-08/21-11-52/index.gmi

2023-09-08 21:11:52Z (last updated 2024-04-24 09:21:14Z)

I use a Fairphone 4. It arrived at about 2022-03 and since then, I've pretty much used that phone.

This page may no longer be updated, and additional things will be added to my wiki page.

The first thing I did when I got it is test the camera a bit before I say goodbye to the maximum potential of that camera.

And by saying goodbye, I mean by flashing /e/OS.

I picked /e/OS because it was the only available option at the time of when my phone arrived.

If you don't know, third party Android ROMs tend to not have the best possible camera quality. On the original ROM, I could have a stupid amount of megapixels of image. With /e/OS, I still don't have that. I just have 4k (which is 4 times smaller than the absolute maximum potential).

The flashing process went well, but of course, it did require me to sign the devil's agreement (which someone disagrees with doing).

Some other things that were also required:

1. Connecting the phone to the internet

2. Inputting the IMEI into Fairphone's webpage (which will probably get recorded) for bootlocker unlocking

3. Using the USB-A built-in converter on the cable to be able to access the phone via fastboot (something weird happened, I'm not sure, it's very weird).

Whatever. If you're gonna get a Fairphone but don't want to touch Google at all (not even in setup or flashing), maybe buy a Fairphone from Murena (they seem related to /e/OS) and feel free to flash your own ROM (at your own risk).

Transitioning from iPhone to Android was something else too. It involved a lot of preparation, probably years of it, before I managed to completely pull it off. Of course, the preparation was done before I even got the phone.

What it took is a lot of removing my dependence on Apple's stuff, and that also included my Apple Watch, which is still telling the time after a considerable delay of pressing the button. It has done that for a couple of years now.

The best case scenario for anybody is being able to sign out of your Apple account (or turn off most of the services) and continue functioning normally for months on end. The worst case scenario, you'll have to go decouple yourself from Apple, one thing at a time.

Another thing you might want to do is deregister your phone number from iMessage. That's if you're ready to jump the ship from Apple right now.

It works well as a phone. I can call, I have 5G (which isn't much interesting, also I lack coverage of that locally), and I can do text messages too.

It also has the smartphone aspect of a smartphone: Apps and stuff, and an excessively sized artificial barrier with what you can do, or not. Just like a traditional smartphone that runs either Android or iOS.

The rest will be about the negative stuff (which most mainstream reviewers do not give even a microsecond for, because they only reviewed the phone for

I pretty much have the same brick I had from the start, and I had to get multiple cables because I broke them multiple times (and I also got an inferior cable with less transfer speeds (the cable for that which I also broke)).

Times I broke which cable, and how:

USB 2.0 cable. USB-A converter part came off. Half functional and unused.

USB 3.2 cable. USB-C part came off. Non-functional.

USB 3.2 cable. Current, not broken. The thing that keeps the USB-A to USB-C together with the USB-C part has broken off, and is now separate from the cable.

Transitioning from an iPhone cable to a Fairphone cable is also very different. Because the Fairphone cable is thick, it's also quite resistant to bending. More resistant than say, an iPhone cable.

The cable includes a USB-C to USB-A thing. That thing dangles. Because gravity and it dangling, the thing that holds on to the converting thing may break apart later due to the constant force. Or maybe I've just pulled on it a bit too hard and now it has noticeable tearing.

It makes the phone toasty though! (Under heavy use)

Coverage varies. Check your mobile internet provider.

It doesn't exist. You must buy some crap:

I have a headphone, and connection must be done in these precise steps:

3. If it doesn't work, unplug the headphones and plug it back in

It's also very unreliable. If I even dare turn the headphone plug, half of the headphone will just cut out. You must apply pressure into the plug, and turn the thing. This makes adjustments annoying.

Audio quality though, it's functional and quite similar to my MacBook (AKA not shit). No problems there.

The Fairphone 4 does not have an OLED screen. That's all I really know about the specs.

Screen brightness is certainly a topic, because readability suffers if it's low. So what happens if you go outside in direct sunlight?

Well, first, you may need to switch to light theme. Second, the Fairphone 4 screen will suddenly drop in brightness after sustaining 100% for too long (how long? IDK), meaning everything is now harder to read and see.

That's problematic, especially when you're outside trying to read stuff. Not much further amount of settings can fix that problem, other than maybe letting the display cool down.

I have never broken the actual screen of the phone before, only broken 5 screen protectors (so far as of 2024-01-02).

(Actually, I only broke the screen's pixels, turning them into dead pixels. It comes from playing Phigros aggressively. It's not even visible in most cases anyways (except at max brightness in very dark rooms), so why bother?)

I buy the privacy screen protectors (they're categorized under Accessories). The other option is a blue light filter, which I don't feel like using. There is no screen protector which doesn't have an effect, unless maybe you buy from third party.

The screen protector is apparently super durable or something. I get scratches on it, but not super noticeable normally. I can break it by dropping the phone with the screen facing down the ground, or by the phone turning itself with the screen facing down the ground. Otherwise, it's usually not broken.

The blue light filter screen protector is what I would say, probably dubious. Completely removing the color blue makes for colorblindness, and the sky is blue anyways, so what's even your point if Night Light is a thing in Android?

Yeah so, the touchscreen ghost touches. This is on the Fairphone 4, and there's many reports about ghost touches.

I've experienced quite a bit of it. Here's some bits of information you should know if you have a Fairphone 4 with ghost touches:

Ghost touches are usually extremely fast taps along the top of the notch to the bottom of the screen. It may cause erratic scrolling and keyboard typing (if the keyboard happens to be active).

Turn on "Show taps" in Android developer settings to see the taps. (You'll have to get used to the show taps thing)

Hold your finger anywhere on the screen when you experience ghost touches to stop it temporarily.

Press the power button to turn the screen off and stop that ghost touches that just happened.

Also, because the touchscreen experiences ghost touches, it also experiences failure to... Touch. This has caused many issues of me trying to destroy my phone during rhythm games (blame Phigros and especially their recent charts).

I tried to fix it, but it definitely did not work because I'm still experiencing ghost touches.

Another aspect of the touchscreen being unreliable is that I cannot use fingers other than thumbs, unless I apply a workaround.

I only have 2 thumbs, and some things in Phigros require more than just 2 fingers. So I use other fingers, but I can't because the touchscreen just outright doesn't detect them.

The current workarounds I found so far is:

Placing the phone on my lap, or on a MacBook on my lap as well.

Plugging headphones in (not wirelessly)

Touching the sides phone using other fingers like the pinkies constantly

I have no idea if other people are experiencing this or if this is just a me or environmental issue. Replacing the screen did not solve the issue.

I use my phone too much (I'm a computer addict pretty much). I am also very conservative about how much battery I have left for the day.

I make my phone turn on battery saver mode on 40%, and restrict non-essential apps on 10% (with Open TimeLimit). I can maybe do half a day in that setting before charging is wanted by my brain.

Overnight battery usage isn't that great (maybe 20% instead of like 2%), but that's likely a problem only applicable to my setup, so if it's also bad for you, try turning everything off.

All about the stuff in and on the back of the phone, including the cover and some cards.

I got the special back cover, which has the colored dots. It's interesting, and I also pretty much never see it because I put a case on for further protection (expect maybe the camera part).

The back cover also includes your NFC electronics. The back cover also covers the internal electronics of the phone itself.

I have replaced the back cover once due to me somehow breaking a part of it off. I'm not sure how that happened.

Taking off the cover is a bit difficult the first time you do it. You have to apply quite a bit of pulling pressure. But once you get used to it, it's not too difficult.

Apparently it's Micro SDXC, so up to 2 terabytes. Should've known earlier, so I could've gotten a 512 GB card for all my ZIM crap.

The back cover and the battery must be taken off, so the phone must be shutdown first to do any stuff with the physical Micro SD card.

It's near the Micro SD card slot, which means the battery must be taken off for it to be accessible. Also shutdown your phone first, you'll have to take the battery out.

It's the smallest SIM card size. Or, with the least amount of margins of stuff.

I don't know what happened that lead to this happening to my phone.

In the morning, my phone's SMS stuff was fine, and the SIM card was working.

In the afternoon though, after not touching my phone from the morning, the

SIM card was suddenly... "not there". The Mobile Data switch said "No SIM

Taking out or putting in a SIM card requires taking out the battery, but my

phone hasn't been rebooted since the morning, and I've done nothing to it at

all between the morning and the afternoon.

So I have no idea what happened. I tried the obvious:

- Power off, take out the SIM, put it back in, and boot

I then tried the following: Power off, take out the SIM, boot the phone,

power off the phone, put the SIM back in, and boot. Somehow that made the

The best error message I've seen so far is "Invalid card" in the place where

your mobile carrier name is shown, and I didn't even manage to get a

screenshot. It was "Emergency calls only" when the SIM card somehow didn't

There's not much to say about this, other than "a weird thing happened to my

phone and I have no idea why it happened, and it's not a problem anymore so

Take the back cover off, and you're pretty much in the internals of the phone.

Notice that there are screws. Actually, 2 types: One that the customer can unscrew, and one that the customer cannot unscrew (with screwdrivers from the Fairphone Shop).

The screwdriver can be bought from the Fairphone Shop, or if you already have the right tool, you could just use that tool.

There's not much to say here. It's just the internals.

The case is another accessory. I only bought 1 so far, and dropped the phone many times.

The kind of damage it gets is unique from the screen protector. It tears apart instead of shattering (like a screen protector).

The thickness added by the case makes the phone considerably different when holding it. The thickness will be added to the side and the back of the phone, and the fingerprint sensor will be slightly harder to reach and may require setting up your fingerprints again if it doesn't work well.

I also put some money and some public transport tickets between my phone and the case. I don't think that use case is supported well, so if you're gonna put stuff between your phone and case, maybe don't put thick stuff, as the case doesn't exactly grab the phone quite well.

The fingerprint sensor isn't as reliable as it is on iPhones with fingerprint sensors. It is embedded into the power button, which is on the side of the phone.

The amount of coverage the fingerprint sensor has on your finger is tiny. I pretty much have the worst case scenario, where I must setup my fingerprints just as how I would casually unlock my phone, and setup multiple fingerprints just for a single finger. I ran out of fingerprints space now, and only have about 2 fingers that can unlock the phone.

Here's some tips when setting up fingerprints:

Attempt to cover as much area as possible

Setup the fingerprint just as how you would casually unlock it (that includes how you hold the phone(!))

Add more fingerprints if you can't get it right enough

I use it to unlock my phone. And maybe some apps. That's about it.

I don't do much games, but the only game that I do play is Phigros which is a rhythm game.

The only times I had problems with performance is:

The touchscreen doesn't properly detect multiple touches or fingers other than my thumbs, making things that require more than just thumbs unplayable (see the "Multi-touch being unreliable" section)

The chart gets too laggy when "Show Taps" in Android Developer settings is enabled and the phone is screen recording. Then the chart stutters the fuck out of it. Disabling "Show Taps" is pretty much the only real way.

The song selection screen is laggy (not smooth 60 FPS) when not in low resolution mode, and after completing Chapter 8 (very important factor). I had to enable low resolution mode to get the performance back.

USB 3.2 cable. Current, not broken. The thing that keeps the USB-A to USB-C together with the USB-C part may break off in the future.

Some other stuff that's not really relevant to the phone itself.

The delivery took about 3 months or so. Maybe 6. Not exactly sure which, but months is the scale. /e/OS pretty much supported the Fairphone 4 after my Fairphone 4 arrived, but not when I sent the money for the phone (AKA before it got delivered).

I don't plan to get a Fairphone 5, if all goes well. All going well means my phone is still functional and I still have it. If I lose it or break it beyond any repair (including repair done by Fairphone), I will then have to get a new phone, which will probably be the Fairphone 5.

If all goes well, that means I won't need a new phone. If I do get a new phone while my current phone is still functional, it's probably some short-term thinking (bad), or I have some weird need for an extra phone (edge-case). I'll try my best to make neither true anytime soon though.

The Fairphone 4 works as a phone. I have no complaints about that (other than maybe the limited choice of Android).

This was mostly about some issues I've experienced constantly or repeatedly. That's the touchscreen and cable.

I do not know how well the Fairphone 5 is, because I don't have it, and I will not have it. And if all goes well, I will never have it.

Fairphone 4 Review, Close to 2 Years Later

Note

Before I flashed the phone

Flashing the phone

iPhone to Android

General phone overview

Cable and Brick

5G

Headphone Jack

The screen

Screen brightness

Screen protector

Ghost touches

Multi-touch being unreliable

Battery life

Behind the back

Back cover

Micro SD Card

SIM card slot

The unrecognized/invalid SIM card incident

Internals

Case

Fingerprint sensor

Gaming

Misc.

Delivery

Will I get the Fairphone 5?

Conclusion