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Cellphones Android Hardware Technology

Planned Sequel To Fairphone Promises an Ethical, Repairable Phone 83

Posted by Soulskill from the remember-when-phones-didn't-involve-ethics dept.
New submitter sackvillian writes: An article in Wired reports on the ongoing development of the Fairphone 2, planned for European release in September. The phone is the follow-up to the Indiegogo-funded original that inevitably had room for improvement. The manufacturers promise a modular phone with an emphasis on repairability and expandability, with otherwise respectable specs (Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, 2GB RAM, Dual SIM, 8MP camera). It runs on a customized Android 5.1. So, the inevitable question arises — would you be willing to sacrifice some performance (and pay a significant premium) for a phone that's repairable, moddable, and ethical?
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Planned Sequel To Fairphone Promises an Ethical, Repairable Phone More

Planned Sequel To Fairphone Promises an Ethical, Repairable Phone

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  • I would (Score:3)

    by tmosley ( 996283 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:39PM (#49946309)
    As long as you can easily replace the screen. WAAYYYYYY too easy to break. Might also depend on the cost of the replacement parts. If a screen is $100, I'd rather just stick with a low end phone that is "good enough" for what I use it for, and just buy another one if it breaks.

  • This is the whole scam behind 'ethical' products. They always claim there's a price premium. It's bullshit.

    • Re:That's bogus. Why should it cost more? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:53PM (#49946429) Journal
      There are presumably people who use 'ethical' as a scam, by just claiming to be, charging more, and sourcing straight from the same sweatshops as everybody else, then pocketing the difference; but why are you so baffled by the idea that 'ethical' would cost more?

      A wide variety of cost-minimization strategies involve doing things that most non-randroids, if pressed on the matter, would concede are 'unethical'. Assorted strategies for flogging more work out of the peons, various schemes for misrepresenting the actual wage being offered, or simply withholding what you can get away with withholding. Cutting corners on tedious and productivity sapping 'occupational safety' nonsense, cheap 'n cheerful disposal of waste products, etc.

      If you are going to forbid yourself the unethical; but effective, cost reduction strategies, what exactly do you think is going to happen?

      • There are presumably people who use 'ethical' as a scam, by just claiming to be, charging more, and sourcing straight from the same sweatshops as everybody else, then pocketing the difference; but why are you so baffled by the idea that 'ethical' would cost more?

        Because we keep seeing reports that say that fair labor conditions would add only a buck or two to the cost of these products, but every time someone says they're being the good guys, they seem to want hundreds of dollars for it.

        • Cost =/= Retail Price

          While fair labor conditions may only add minimally to the COST of production, the marketing department then decides that the retail PRICE of the product can be raised disproportionately to cash in on the cachet of an "ethical" product.

          This doesn't make "ethical" a scam, it just points out that production costs are a tiny percentage of the selling price for most mass-produced consumer goods.

          • Yes, it's the pricing structure, using "ethical", that is the scam. They do the same thing with organically farmed foods. We shouldn't let people charge extra for being "ethical". We need to take the undue profits out of unethical. The burden of incentive rests on the buyer.

          • Cost =/= Retail Price

            Yes. It is often estimated that it "should" cost about 1/4 as much to produce something as the eventual retail price. So there's no justification for adding more than a couple dozen dollars to the price of a product because you're not whipping the employees.

      • There are presumably people who use 'ethical' as a scam...

        Yes, that is the nature of the business right now. And to charge more for a product just for being actually "ethical" is also a scam.

        What I am saying is that companies that see "ethical" as an avoidable expense are sociopathic, and probably criminal in nature. It's like charging more for a bottle of clean water than for same sized bottle of Coke, something I have seen more than once.

        • What I am saying is that companies that see "ethical" as an avoidable expense are sociopathic

          Companies are sociopathic by nature. Their purpose is to seek profit, with any other considerations coming in at a distant second place.

    • Re:That's bogus. Why should it cost more? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ssam ( 2723487 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @01:21PM (#49946665)

      A chunk of the extra cost comes from small volume production. But anyway they are transparent about all the costs https://www.fairphone.com/proj... [fairphone.com]

      • Well, instead of accepting their numbers, let's just demand that the big boys act ethically and keep the costs down. Fairphone will always be a niche market for rich boys to buy themselves some absolution. Meanwhile poor people have to keep buying conflict diamonds, I mean phones, because that's all they can afford.

      • A chunk of the extra cost comes from small volume production.

        That's a flawed circular argument. The small volume production is a result of the greedy excessive pricing (and perhaps also a result of lower quality that consumers don't want to buy). There is no reason that a good affordable high quality repairable phone should suffer from small volume production.

    • All phones are "repairable" if costs are not a consideration. By making an overpriced phone that will likely have very expensive "replacement modules" to facilitate repair, you create a system where no one can afford to repair their phones and, hopefully, where no one will buy the phone in the first place.
    • I would really like it if you give any examples. Which are those products that have being ethical as their primary selling point and at the same time they cost substantially more than their non-ethical alternatives?

      • Go shop at an organic foods store.

        And there's some new cell phone out, can't remember the name... I was just reading about it too... Ah well.. doesn't matter, I sure remembered the price, and it's way outta my league, guess I'll have to make do with whatever throwaway comes out of Santa's sweatshop.

        There is no reason for "ethics" to cost extra. None. It is a complete fraud.

        • There is no reason for "ethics" to cost extra. None. It is a complete fraud.

          So, companies employ slave-level labor, irresponsible waste disposal, etc just because they like tenting their fingers and cackling evilly? Doing things properly costs more money, or we wouldn't have so many examples of companies cutting costs in unethical ways. If we somehow forced every company in existence to suddenly fly straight and do right by their employees and the environment, there would be increases in costs to them across the board. If it was just as cheap to do things in a way that would genera

  • Fuck ethical (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:46PM (#49946369)

    But a phone that I can turn into something I want, remove everything I don't and don't have to throw away just 'cause some wearing part experiences its expected demise?

    Sounds like something I'd want.

  • Phones are all the same... (Score:5, Informative)

    by gatzke ( 2977 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:48PM (#49946387) Homepage Journal

    Most phones these days are all the same. Widescreen display, touch interface. This makes sense.

    I hope we get to a point where you could have a keyboard, a giant battery, different aspect ratio. Every phone now looks like a iPhone (which copied my HTC One m7).

    And BTW, this may be my last comment on /. since they got rid of the comments text under the summary, cut polls from the sidebar, and forced Video Bytes into the feed. These changes should never have been forced onto the community. Some could have been made user options. Very sad day for me thinking about saying goodbye for reals after almost 20 years. :-(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      they got rid of the comments text under the summary

      That was a knucklehead move.

      Everything must feed Facebook, apparently.

    • If you ever find another place that has unalterable, indelible comments, please let us know. And also let us know if Slashdot is deleting comments. This indeed would be the showstopper above all others. The flagging thing is pretty scary. I'm hoping it's just decoration.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gatzke ( 2977 )

        I thought they had deleted some comments that supposedly had copyrighted material.

        Sometimes it is nice to edit a comment, but it can throw off a whole thread.

        I had not really noticed the flagging thing. I wonder what they do with that?

        • Yeah, I'll allow the Scientology exception, for now. But somebody like Dice has the money to fight it, not bloody likely they ever would, it's biting the hand that feeds.

          With comments, you can always post a 'correction'.

    • Most phones these days are all the same. Widescreen display, touch interface.

      You also forgot, spycraft tools for data collections above everything else. I want segregation b/t my modem & the rest of the SoC or I'll just go retro w/ the flip-phone when my last n900 finally dies...

      And BTW, this may be my last comment on /.

      Yup, as I said in my last post two years ago when DICE began screwing with /. & SF. I recently re-added /. to my RSS feeds as they didn't go full advert articles as I expected, like other 'Daily' Tech sites. Regardless, work requires a simple rs232 enabled xp machine and that is all the 'digital' I n

    • Check out https://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org] if you are looking for a new place. It reminds me of /. from 10 years ago, in particular the GUI and interactions. I currently find it marginally useful, as there aren't nearly as many comments on stories as there are here, but hopefully that will change over time if the community grows.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gatzke ( 2977 )

        Yeah, the comments there are weak.

        Sad that Dice would throw away folks this way. For what? They get minimal benefit from screwing with the design and operation of the site.

    • And BTW, this may be my last comment on /. since they got rid of the comments text under the summary

      Why does my Slashdot look exactly the same as it looked six months ago? I've been reading the outraged comments and I still see comments under the summary as always.

      Did someone skip me when Slashdot pushed out the update?

      • Why does my Slashdot look exactly the same as it looked six months ago? I've been reading the outraged comments and I still see comments under the summary as always.

        I don't know. Only my front page looks different, in the same ways people are complaining about - The polls are in the middle (I don't care) and there is a share link where the read more link used to be (clicked it by accident once, hunted for it confusedly twice, now I've got it figured out) but story view does not appear to be different in any way. I personally have long set the interface to be as dumb as possible, so perhaps that has something to do with it?

        • Do you think all that privacy stuff I've got installed like Blur and Privacy Badger is keeping me from seeing the new, improved Slashdot?

          • Do you think all that privacy stuff I've got installed like Blur and Privacy Badger is keeping me from seeing the new, improved Slashdot?

            I don't know, I am only using adblock latitude, cookiesafe, and noscript, though I am permitting slashdot and fsdn to run scripts, and slashdot to set cookies.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

              The only blocker I use is NoScript, with javascript entirely disabled for the whole site, and as a result -- for me, Slashdot's look has changed very little since its earliest days.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

          Why does my Slashdot look exactly the same as it looked six months ago? I've been reading the outraged comments and I still see comments under the summary as always.

          I don't know. Only my front page looks different, in the same ways people are complaining about

          I almost never go to the homepage. I monitor /.'s RSS feed (used to use Google Reader, switched to TTRSS when Google Reader went bye-bye) and go directly to articles that sound interesting. A bunch of other sites are also configured in there, so I

  • Sorry but you can get several smartphones today running android with better than 8MP cameras which are capable of shooting 4k video. Why would someone want to pay a premium for 1080p video?
    • Considering the sensors [cameraimagesensor.com], even an ideal lens would still be diffraction limited [cambridgeincolour.com] at this resolution. Granted with some post processing and anti aliasing you can probably still get slightly better resolution than pure diffraction limited but anything beyond about 10-12MP range on those little sensors is just spiking the numbers, and the difference between 8MP and 10MP isn't enough to really matter. This also assumes that the lenses are ideal f1 lenses instead of the typical cheap f2 to f3 lenses that are used

  • >> sacrifice some performance (and pay a significant premium) for a phone that's repairable, moddable, and ethical

    Today I pay about $50 for each of my and my family's Android smart phones (1Ghz proc, 4" screen, 1GB RAM), plus another $25 for SD card and case. I'm definitely giving up performance, but I'm doing so to get an essentially disposable phone (if a kid loses it, meh). I don't need "repairable" and if I ever wanted to switch phone providers, I could still dump and rebuy all five phones off m

    • I agree with you. I use a Motorola Moto G 2nd gen dual SIM myself, costing about $200 new. That is my upper limit for a phone, simply because it is disposable in my eyes. No amount of cheap replacement parts helps if it gets stolen. I would never pay for a top-of-the-line unit; less so when I get a device whose performance might make it useless once new upgrades of the software rolls out. The allure of the expensive units has always been that they usually lasts longer.

      The crux is that 'ethics' and 'sustaina

  • > would you be willing to sacrifice some performance (and pay a significant premium) for a phone that's repairable, moddable, and ethical?

    To a certain extent, yes. I tend to buy more than I really need and then keep it until it doesn't work anymore. I have the special tools necessary to take apart phones that don't have user replaceable batteries, because I have a fundamental issue with tossing an otherwise functional phone just because the battery won't take a charge anymore. (You can usually find st

  • Phone components (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @01:14PM (#49946589) Homepage
    1: radio 2: screen 3: Camera/flash 4: battery: 5: computer 6:Case - speakers, connectors, ancillary things. All of these have different lifespans. The computer is something most of us want to upgrade yearly. The rest is dependent on damage/random time. I would pay 10% more to get something that let me easily replace any one of these 5 things.

  • I wonder how ethical the OS is (Score:3)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Friday June 19, 2015 @02:16PM (#49947247)

    The main thing that keeps me from buying a smartphone is that I have two choices: pay through the nose or accept an OS made by an advertising company. If these guys find a way to decrapify Android, I'm in.

  • Neo900 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No. Fairphone along with all phones have the same fatal flaw. A cellular modem with extremely buggy firmware built into the CPU with shared access to memory. I'll take a Neo900 thank you. Modem is on separate chip with a watchdog that resets it when it is supposed to be off and tries to do something.

  • I'd pay a premium for a phone that wasn't a wireless beacon for every fucktard in the country.

  • Would I pay more for mobile phones to become an open platform where I can load whatever OS I want and swap out parts with reasonably standardizable interfaces? Hell yes I would.

    While I have no opinion about "ethics" of tin and gold but there is nothing I hate more in this industry than insatiable trend of a few massive companies to continue to consolidate their power over everything.

  • used phones are better, used samsungs are best: cheap, parts, repair documentation, ubiquitous, 5000 to 9000 mAh batteries, mostly root/rom-able.

  • As far as replacing parts is concerned, you can always pop a new battery or memory card (at least on non-iOS devices). By the time a non-replaceable part is gone, chances are that other parts are also getting old and you probably need a new phone anyway. If you want to spare the money buy a ~$400+ phone, and if you don't, you can get a ~$100 model that does everything your old phone did, and use the old phone for a simpler purpose just like you would do with an old laptop. If you still insist on replacing t

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