I don’t know much about designing a phone motherboard but it’s my understanding that it’s not price of the materials for the traces themselves that adds cost but actually integrating it with the design as a whole. Smartphone PCBs are crazy complex so if not including 3.0 speeds meant the board was easier to design for them and thus cheaper then that’s fine for me. Ultimately they have made the phone cheaper at launch than last gen so they have managed to do that somehow.

I’m a photographer and I don’t find SD card slow for photos and video storage/transfer at all. Obviously they aren’t great for running applications off of but they work very well for transfering files.

Obviously, I can’t seem to convince you that the other benefits fairphone bring outway the fact that they don’t offer usb 3.0 speeds. It is a bummer and weird they had it on the last gen but I would give it up in a heart beat to be able to replace the battery, screen, usb-c port, etc. of my own device on my own with very little hassle. We can agree to disagree on this one

Same, I wish they did a pro model with a proper flagship processor. I’d happily pay much more for that option though they probably don’t have the resources to do 2 phones at the same time. The one in the FP6 seems decent but I’m concerned if it can actually last 8+ years with how bloated apps seem to keep getting. I’m not a power user but my current phone (S20 FE) is inconsistent with loading things and is supposedly on par with FP6’s processor. Hopefully more reviews come out that give more insight into this

They mentioned they did it to save cost. It seems to have worked cause the phone is cheaper at launch than the fairphone 5 was which surprised me. Not aware of many follow-up phones that where cheaper than the previous model.

You do you but for me dead easy battery replacement is far more important than a desktop mode that I personally never found that useful on my S20 FE. Since FP6 has an SD card slot you can always transfer lots of files quickly that way even if it’s a bit more cumbersom requiring a microSDxc card reader

Sure, it doesn’t happen super often but I wouldn’t say it’s ‘not that hard’. For most phones you need a heat gun + suction cup and you do have to be quite careful. Jerryrigerything does takedowns for a living but will still occasionally shatter a glass back. Not saying it’s impossible but most people will never even consider it cause you gotta buy the tools and be very careful. Paying someone to do it is fine but if it’s super easy to do then anyone can actually do it.

Not saying fairphone is for everyone but I do think the tech comunity underestimates how nice it is to be able to easily change a battery yourself.

Samsung has had Dex for years now and it hasn’t changed how people use their phone (for vast majority anyway). Maybe having it built into android will increase adoption but given that Dex is still not that practical or robust, it will be a while until Google’s implementation will be robust. Obviously, it’s a shame the feature won’t be available on fair phone but the phone isn’t that fast or have lots of ram anyway so I doubt desktop mode would truelly be that useful. It’s a shame but, for me, it would not impact my buying decision

It is a downgrade for sure but if it’s not something you use then what does it matter. Fairphone is a tiny company and they felt this was a good place to cut on costs

So do you not care about easily replaceable batteries? If these features are more important than that then unfortunately fairphone doesn’t work for you

I understand it’s not great as it doesn’t future proof the phone but how often are you transfering lots of data or actually going to use android desktop which is completely unproven? If you do transfer lots of data over a cable (I guess backing up videos?) then I’m sure this will hurt but if you do it like once a month then it’s not much of a ball ache. Also, the phone does support microSDXC so you just need to use a different method to do the same thing. Android desktop would be cool but it will take a while before it’s actually robust. Even if it was, you would have to think how you integrate it into your life and if you would genuinely do that.

I currently have an S20 FE and looking to replace it and I hardly ever transfer over usb or use Dex. I personally don’t believe these are deal breakers. For me, a deal breaker is a phone that you can’t easily replace a battery without cutting through adhesive