This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
There are indeed good aspects to this product.
But I won't join the "Fairphone good" circle jerk and give them the free publicity, because just like Apple and Samsung, they removed the headphone jack from their phones soon before the launch of these headphones, in other words, artificially creating the problem and need to sell you their expensive solution.
You don't get to ride the "we are pro customer!" free publicity train while also wanting to be the next Apple.
I understand people's desire for a headphone port, but I really don't understand the hate for devices that don't have one. It would be one thing if they vendor-locked Bluetooth headphones so you had to use theirs, but it really just seems like a common sense move in a world where Bluetooth reigns supreme.
As long as a USB-C adapter still provides the same functionality, I really don't see anyone's choices being taken away. If it is one less physical port on the device that helps streamline the hardware, I'm all for it too.
And if it is a dealbreaker, you don't have to buy a fairphone.
The problem is that there are fewer and fewer options with a headphone jack. My current phone has one and I use it all the time.
Bluetooth sucks for a variety of reasons, such as:
I also like using bluetooth headphones sometimes, but having an option is good, and I don't want to bring a dongle around everywhere.
Most Bluetooth headphones are encrypted with a key shared only by the headphones and the host device. Not sure why you think they aren't private. Maybe really cheap or really old headphones might not be so secure, but the vast majority of Bluetooth headphones in use today absolutely are.
Charging and audio quality are legitimate concerns, but again, you still have a headphone port... It's just part of the USB-C port on the bottom of your phone. A $5 adapter completely absolves you of having to use Bluetooth.
I really don't see how needing an adapter is a big enough deal to care about the way people here seem to.
They broadcast the ID and I think type of device. Yeah, the data sent between the devices is encrypted, but that's not really an improvement over wired headphones since the signal is privacy by virtue of not being broadcast everywhere.
A $5 adapter
It's not the price that's the issue, but the convenience. I can't change my phone while using the adapter, and I have to bring it along wherever I go. Why should I need an adapter for something that used to come standard?
What do I gain from not having a headphone jack? A slightly thinner phone due to slightly more space for the battery? My current phone has a headphone jack, and it's no bigger than any other phone, and it has a larger battery than most. Better water resistance? I've never lost a phone due to water.
So I'll flip it around, why do you not want a headphone jack? What about a micro-SD card?
My next phone will probably not have a headphone jack, and I'm annoyed just thinking about it.
The fairphone 4 doesn't have a jack and its from 2021.
So? Their over ear Bluetooth headphones came out on Q1 2023. Two years developing a new category for your company sounds about right.
Plus, their phones are expected to be used for long, so if they wanted to push people towards Bluetooth they'd have to start early.
Plus, this is still irrelevant - how does the fact they screwed customers over in 2021 somehow make it better?
So? Their over ear Bluetooth headphones came out on Q1 2023. Two years developing a new category for your company sounds about right.
So they first removed the headphone jack but intentionally didn't launch a companion device because the customers would just wait for them "to sell you their expensive solution"?
the fact they screwed customers over in 2021
Wait, 2021 customers were not informed about that and got their headphone jacks taken away after already paying? They could not make an informed decision and were screwed over?
I bought the Fairphone 5 and yeah, I miss not having the jack and I see no reason to take it out
They explain very thoroughly on their website why they did it:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-Jack-3-5mm
Yep, same excuses as Apple.
Analogue connector too old, too big, hard to make modular. All proven false by a multitude of other devices.
It might be false, but I think the real reason is that very few people care about a jackstick... I care, but I'm the only one I know, and I only ever hear a small group of people online talk about it being a big deal. In the end I don't think too badly about that specific decision from any phone manufacturer.
Heck, I don't even care about having an audio jack as long as there are two USB-C ports. I'm a down for a unified connector. There just needs to be enough ports for it.
So - takes up too much space, is the main reason :)
I don't care, still worth it to me. As long as I have the option, any phone I buy (including the one I bought last year) will have a 3.5mm jack.
I hated that too at the time, but I have to admit, that in practice this has not really turned into an issue basically ever: My headphones and earbuds are bluetooth anyways and I did get a usb-c to headphone adapter that I store with my earphone’s backup audio cable for the very rare case that I need it (I can count on one hand the instances for when that happened). And in those very few cases I wasn’t about to charge my phone anyways, which is the one argument for why you might want both.
So, I don’t know, maybe it really is time to move on. I will defnitely say that I’m not a big fan of analog cables, so maybe a more general move to USB-C for audio might be the right way to go in the first place?
What I don't get is how no company seems to have worked out a legitimately good service and maintenance model for tech products. Fairphone hasn't invented the wheel here. They're going to make money on maintenance, parts and repair.
I would think there would be lowered costs involved in not having to push out a new product every 6 months and market it to customers who just bought something less than a year ago.
The business models of the current tech giants are very much based on planned obsolescence. Selling you a gadget for $ 1000 every two years will always be more profitable than selling you one very five years and doing service in the meantime.
The costs (overhead) are too high. They make more by simply manufacturing and selling.
Otherwise they'd be doing it.
I'm wondering about that. I've worked with several manufacturers, and their most profitable segment is parts. If you ever want to get the highest annual bonus, work for the parts devision.
Manufacturers of what? Selling and replacing car parts is a much different proposition than trying to replace semiconductors inside an earbud.
The service and maintenance model is largely "replace it".
Everyone looks to a desktop computer where you swap out a stick of ram or whatever. But the real key is to look at laptops. Yes, a LOT of vendors solder the god damned ram in place and so forth which is bullshit. But repairs are generally less "okay, let me re-solder this one connection" since that connection is a via that is embedded in a circuitboard. So it becomes "let's replace that board". And yes, efforts can be made to split up the board more but you lose latency savings and increase the complexity of the boards because you now need to add connection points and so forth.
And then you look at earbuds where... do you even have room for connectors like that? Near as I can tell, Fairbuds let you replace a few pieces of plastic, the rubber earplugs, the in-bud battery, and the charger (possibly just the battery?). That is definitely a step in the right direction but it also becomes a question of how much that even matters. In particular, I am wary of the value-add of the internal batteries since charging a lithium battery is largely "solved" and these have an external controller (the case) that can preserve the battery.
While I think we can do better in some spaces, the reality is that a lot of modern tech is fundamentally un-repairable. Not because of evil conspiracies but just because it is a lot easier to print a PCB and slot in some components than it is to connect vacuum tube diodes. And when so many of those components are fairly complex chips and the damage is less "oh, the metal prong on this chip broke" and more "oh, the via shorted out"?
Stuff like the fairbuds just seem... real stupid to me. Fairphone level "replace and repair" is kind of borderline but I think is generally good. And while I have series issues with how Framework does it and the resulting e-waste, I love the ethos of their laptops.
But We need to pick and choose our battles to be ones that make sense. Will Smith's Tested's Adam Savage just uploaded a video where he gushed about how easy it was to repair a kitchenaid mixer and that is an AWESOME video. That is the kind of repairs that people can meaningfully make. Using an x-ray machine to detect a possible short in a chip and hoping that was the only short... is not.
And in those cases? We need strong warranties AND strong e-waste recycling programs and incentives. Electronics are increasingly disposable for good and bad reasons. The junk drawer full of old phones and swelling batteries is bad.
This article seems to omit the most important fact about headphones - how do they sound?
I love repairability and all, but it hardly matters if I don't want to use them in the first place because they traded off too much quality for repairability.
I get what you're saying, kind of...
But also, most modern earbuds usually sound quite good. Quality in general has become such a bizarre moving target, but here's my take: We've become so used to constant improvement at the expense of satisfaction. I can barely notice the difference between 1080p and 4k. In my mind they're both "good quality" and therefore I'm satisfied. Same goes for audio quality. I've used a few pairs of earbuds and they have sounded "good."
As a culture, we need to stop with throwing away of perfectly good devices, because it's extremely harmful to the planet's occupants.
1080p and 4k isn't really a fair comparison for great earbuds and shit earbuds in my opinion. The comparison there is like 4k and 480p. There is a massive difference between the 2. I have had $30 earbuds that you couldn't listen to a podcast on, and I currently have $250+ Bose earbuds that are fucking amazing for just about everything.
Unless of course you're saying that these earbuds are in fact "1080p" quality. In which case, fair point. I have yet to see someone who's actually used these and commented on the sound quality though. What I've seen from fairphone products is they are consumer friendly at the expense of quality.
I don't think the writer has them on hand - this is a news article not a review.
Codec support is a bit of a bummer. Otherwise I would have bought them.
Biggest complaints I've seen aren't with sound quality, it's with the noise cancelling being bad and the shape of the ear cups (the latter could have just been the shape of that user's ears were the problem).
Mind you, these were reviews from Fairbud XLs released about a year ago. Things could have improved or gotten worse in that time, in any way. I can't tell you for sure.
That said, I don't think it makes sense to correlate focusing on repairability and quality of the product going down. I actually went out and found the reviews I'm referencing simply because the concept is absurd and I needed to know for sure.
Always keep in mind what you say online, Poe's law is forever in effect.
I'd rather they just give me a headphone jack tbh
I'm right there with ya. I know many people prefer wireless earbuds, but I like ripping cables out of my ears at random. Makes me feel alive.
Am I the only one that can't stand the few hundred millisecond delay of Bluetooth audio?
This the type of business the EU has to develop. An entire ecosystem from phones, earbuds to computers and software. It's how you create a conscious and a model.
Unfortunately most people don't care. And since they don't care, they don't buy. These earbuds cost 150€ because they can't afford to buy huge amounts like Apple. I wish they could lobby the EU to subsidise these kinds of devices.
And standards. EU please enforce standards and interoperability, and open APIs.
I love what fairphone and some other companies are doing.
Still some of their earphones got a 1/10 reparability on ifixit, so I’d really check how reparaible these ones are.
Those were the first earbuds they offered, which were just OEM-ones where they main point of attention was on getting the workers a living wage (which is fair enough, they are called “fairphone”, not “repairablephone”), just like the Fairphone 1 where they apparently wanted to collect some experience in the space first.
I have them because I bought my fairphone 4 like one week before they had a free pair with every purchase on offer and wrote to their support, who graciously gave me a voucher as well. I don’t use them a lot, because I do have pretty good over-ear headphones, but they do come in handy on occasion, as they fit into my handbag, which means I am more likely to actually have them with me.
Yeah apparently the newer ones got a 10/10 on ifixit so it’s way better and it’s what I would probably buy if I was on the market.
I wish all their stuff wasn't EU only.
It's hard for a small manufacturer to start selling in overseas markets. It would take a certain volume for them to have the capital to set up shop in the US.
Nothing's fair with FP when they can't give the option of a jack. So much for caring about the environment
