this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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This is why I got a Fairphone. I was done complaining about the direction of the mobile market and decided to buy a phone which lets me do all of this and has longer support for software and hardware. It's the best phone I've had since the S3.
It only works for me because I like Android, live in Europe and have big enough pockets, though... the thing is a brick.
Not to rain on your parade (I love the idea of the Fairphone!), but that's actually a bit of misadvertising on Fairphone's part — the SoCs they use are very outdated and near the end of their vender firmware and driver support, meaning they get maybe 2 years of the full support you'd expect when you say a manufacturer "supports" something, and then however many more years of hobbled support. Additionally, they're just really bad about security.
You've got me down a rabbit hole now.
Shorter than expected SoC support is one thing, but the hardware root of trust trusting AOSP test keys which was also stated by GrapheneOS is something else. That's a total amateurish blunder and the only reason it's not a complete disaster is you need to boot into EDL mode first to actually flash a recovery. The verified boot is practically useless.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'm not purchasing another phone from them. Unfortunate, because I liked the removable battery and seemingly long support. Back to the drawing board.
Yeah when I found out about the Fairphone originally I was extremely excited and really wanted one for my next phone, but I use GrapheneOS my pixel right now so I figure I just check why it doesn't support it and sure enough I found this stuff :(
Thanks for the info. From the perspective of GrapheneOS, verified boot for custom firmware is going to be one of the most important aspects and that wasn't something I expected from the device. It would be a nice-to-have for longevity as running an unlocked bootloader is an awful idea. The lack of a secure element also won't help the case. I was aware that "support" might mean "only security patches past two years" which is acceptable to me.
However, I can see your point about fixes from SoC manufacturers as that is a crucial part of these updates. I was aware that the SoC was older but only really thought about performance impacts. In that case, the device will only receive Android platform and kernel fixes?
Maybe I'll have to think about switching to something else after that point, then. I spent about as much as I wanted to on a phone and it will only be unfortunate that I didn't get more years out of it. I've already been slightly concerned that they're steering away from their "mission" and selling ordinary earbuds which are unsustainable by their own standards.
Yeah, if you want long support, what you really want is... an iPhone.
But the EU might push through regulations that would force all manufacturers to support their phones for longer.