Slashdot Mirror
World's First Modular Smart Phone Hits the Market
An anonymous reader writes: Out before the much anticipated Google Modular Phone Project ARA, is a new phone from Fairphone: The Fairphone 2. This phone is claimed to be the the worlds first real modular phone. Fairphone is more than just a phone manufaturer but a social justice movement . Fairphone is a project of Waag Society, Action Aid and Schrijf-Schrijf to raise awareness about conflict minerals in consumer electronics and the wars that the mining of these minerals is fueling in the DR Congo. The Fairphone 2 build consists of 5-inch Full HD LCD screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop,Dual SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Qualcomm quad core processor.
The entire thing is a joke. The phone is made in China in the same factories and suppliers as other phones. The difference is that their suppliers say "sure, we only use tungsten from Colorado, not from the Congo". And the hipsters fly home happy.
I couldn't care less about all of the "fair trade minerals" or "conflict free tungsten" or whatever. Not that I'm for using slave labor in mines or against having livable wages at factories that aren't deathtraps, but I think promoting that through buying an expensive phone is a useless feel-good measure best left for hipsters trying to assuage their 1st world guilt.
That said, I really hate how the current phone market is trying to make phones into fashion accessories that you throw out after you get tired of them in 6 months. I build my own PCs to last through several upgrades before they get to the point where I feel the need to scrap the entire thing and get a new one. My current motherboard and case are bordering on 6 years old, ram was 4 years old when I last upgraded, I'm on my 2nd CPU, 3rd video card, and 4th primary hdd. I upgrade often enough that almost all of the parts that didn't flat out fail have filtered down to other systems (and often other systems after that). I see no reason why cell phones can't work the same way, and think it's great that fairphone is attempting to make something that's modular and easily fixable/upgradable. Hopefully it'll take off enough that it encourages other manufacturers to do similar things with modular phone design.
It's the vegan of phones. Terrible specs at the price point at that.
Because manufacturing doesn't work that way. Their Chinese supplier makes their phone. The supplier supplies the electronics and the raw materials. It isn't like Fairphone sends them a shipment of tungsten saying "hey use this to make our phone". It is just a bunch of hipsters with a gimmick.
Because it is silly in practice. I can get iPhone parts on ebay and "repair" my phone. Go check their shop. You can find iPhone equivalents on ebay. And think about it: if the phone is upgradable, why isn't the Fairphone 2 upgradeable from the Fairphone 1??? Christ, the stupidity never ends.
You can do replace individual components with an iPhone too with parts off of ebay. Oh and why isn't the Fairphone2 available as an "upgrade" for the Fairphone1? You just need to "plug in" the upgrade, right?
You can do replace individual components with an iPhone too with parts off of ebay.
Oh, really?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You suck at reading bullshit. There is nothing concrete in that quote.
Goals are something you'd like to reach. They aren't things you're currently doing. You never need to reach a goal.
Willingness to work on something means nothing. I'm willing to give everyone in the world a million dollars, but I'll never do so.
A commitment to transparency isn't a plan. It's a 'we'll make a committee and never let anything useful come out of the meetings'.
"production partners we engage with directly" means no one. They can define "engage with directly" however they want.
Identifying areas that needs improvement doesn't mean improving them.
They're going to create worthless assessments as the first step in a process to create a policy of creating more worthless assessments before making changes that might have an impact on something.
They're going to look at each step of the production line, ignoring how it fits in with all the other steps, and see how they can make that step more profitable by itself. Then they might actually make a change to make it more profitable. "Investigate" has no promise of action and they don't even say what they're investigating for. You will assume they're investigating what you want them to investigate and someone with different ideals will read the same paragraph and believe they're investigating what that person wants investigating.
You shouldn't read anything released by a corporation. It's all meaningless and will damage your brain.
Just what I want and desperately need, more militantly dysfunctional subjectivist Marxist bullshit in my objectively functional technology.
Before I know it my pull requests are going to be totally triaged by feels and privilege checks, my render times will be doubled due to mid-bucketing RGB diversity checks, and my login password will have to include an entire freaking ASCII table so none of it feels unfairly excluded by the Literaryarchy.
Because manufacturing doesn't work that way. Their Chinese supplier makes their phone. The supplier supplies the electronics and the raw materials. It isn't like Fairphone sends them a shipment of tungsten saying "hey use this to make our phone".
Citation needed, again.
How the fuck do you know how their setup works? You haven't provided a single link to support your bullshit; you probably haven't even looked at their site.
Put up a link or shut up. Fairphone has put up claims, feel free to debunk them if you have anything other than bullshit:
It is just a bunch of hipsters with a gimmick.
No, it's a bunch of whiny, cynical assholes bitching because someone is making an effort to provide consumers choice - a choice that whiny, cynical assholes don't want to look into in the slightest, never mind a choice they'd make.
Fine, if you don't want one no one cares. But just because someone shat in your cereal, don't have a whinefest about someone else making an effort.
Yes you can. You can replace the same number of components on the iPhone as you can the Fairphone. How do you think the hundreds of iphone repair shops do it? I can't believe people fall for this kind of stuff.
I saw what you did there. You're moving the goalposts.
Obviously a legitimate, Apple-approved repair shop can fix your phone without bricking it.
Per the article I linked to -- which you ignored -- repair shops that use unapproved Apple parts can permanently brick an iPhone.
And you're saying a consumer can fix their iPhone with parts they just buy off eBay? Yeah, good luck with that.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Apple released a fix for this issue days after it made the media.
Oh dear ... AC, it appears you're right:
http://www.techtimes.com/artic...
http://www.techtimes.com/artic...
Sorry, 110010001000.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You realize you are using an 8-bit CPU in an Arduino to communicate to a 32-bit RISC inside the cell module you bought?
I also would like to call BS on there being any such thing as a "open source hardware" for a cell radio.
The goal of fairphone is not to sell many phones. Instead their primary goals are to make the production process of phones transparent, show how things can be improved for humans and environment in all steps from resources to assembly, and they have encourage you to use your phone longer. Exactly what you want. The fp2 should even last longer than the first.
This exactly what FP promotes. The best what you can do for laborer and the environment, use the phone as long as possible.
in my opinion, taking away the ability to earn at least a little money is only going to hurt the mostly innocent bystanders.
It looks like they're still putting money into poverty stricken areas:
It appears they've made an honest effort to source things intelligently.
Reading these comments (not the one I'm replying to) bitching, moaning, and whining about "hipsters" getting a "feel good" from stupidly being duped through the entire process, I'm pretty fucking disgusted with Slashdot today.