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I want a phone I can actually fix, and Fairphone’s record growth shows the world does too
(www.androidcentral.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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I've been running a Fairphone 6 for about 6 months now and it's by far the buggiest phone I've ever used. I'd love to keep using it until the security updates stop but it's already such a miserable experience already I can't imagine how bad it'll be in a few years time.
Seriously? Like what did you put on it? I love mine. I basically removed MicroG and kept the basic ecosystem. Got Fdroid. Replaced voice recorder, calendar, call app with Fossify. Put an RSS feed on with Lemmy app, Peer tube, Searchix, and Tuta. Absolutely zero issues. You need to disable the MicroG call home though. Can you reset to factory and just use trusted apps?
If you're miserable, then something is wrong.
I don't have MicroG I'm just using the stock ROM with Play Services. I too replaced most the default apps with foss options with Fossify being a big chunk of them. It's not the apps that are the issue, it's the Fairphone software.
Since my original comment I've already bought a second hand Galaxy S25 Edge as I haven't tried Samsung since the Galaxy S3. Not exactly the privacy focused experience I'd ideally like but the Fairphone is becoming unusable after only 3 months. There's no way I'd be using it in 7 years.
I have had mine 3 months. Never going back. Samsung has a partnership with Google. They take all your data and.call home a lot. Start monitoring through NextDNS and start blocking the domains and you'll see. I'd just reset.or reinstall and try again. Something sounds off.
I've already tried a reset and the issues persist. I've just lost faith with Fairphone. I took a photo yesterday, the preview in the camera app shows a photo has been taken. If i click the preview I get a "failed to load media" warning and if I open the gallery app or file manager the photo is nowhere to be seen. This simply isn't good enough. They've been well known for buggy software all over the internet so I'm not entirely surprised.
Can you elaborate on how it has been buggy? What kind of issues have you come across?
The most annoying bug for me currently is the camera will sometimes just not save photos. It'll appear as though it has worked and then later when I go to look at the photo there's just no sign of me ever taking anything.
The second biggest annoyance would be the touchscreen simply not working sometimes until I lock and unlock the device again.
Finally we have the seemingly random lack of charging where I'll wake up some mornings to find it hasn't been charging at all despite being plugged in all night.
It's been fine for me
I bought a Fairphone 5 when they were somewhat new and immediately flashed an alternative ROM onto it (CalyxOS at the time, though now it's iodeOS as Calyx appears to have gone on hiatus).
Nothing terrible bug-wise, but I have already had to return the phone to be repaired for a fault I couldn't repair by swapping parts out myself... Which considering it's apparently got a number of years ahead of it before it officially gets dropped is a bit worrying.