Overview:
The community to discuss buying European goods and services.
Rules:
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. No direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments.
Do not use this community to promote Nationalism/Euronationalism. This community is for discussing European products/services and news related to that. For other topics the following might be of interest:
Include a disclaimer at the bottom of the post if you're affiliated with the recommendation.
No russian suggestions.
Feddit.uk's instance rules apply:
Useful Websites
General BuyEuropean product database: https://buy-european.net/ (relevant post with background info)
Switching your tech to European TLDR: https://better-tech.eu/tldr/ (relevant post)
Buy European meta website with useful links: https://gohug.eu/ (relevant post)
Benefits of Buying Local:
local investment, job creation, innovation, increased competition, more redundancy.
European Instances
Lemmy:
Basque Country: https://lemmy.eus/
๐ง๐ช Belgium: https://0d.gs/
๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria: https://feddit.bg/
Catalonia: https://lemmy.cat/
๐จ๐ฟCzech Republic https://lemmings.world/
๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark, including Greenland (for now): https://feddit.dk/
๐ช๐บ Europe: https://europe.pub/
๐ซ๐ท๐ง๐ช๐จ๐ญ France, Belgium, Switzerland: https://jlai.lu/
๐ฉ๐ช๐ฆ๐น๐จ๐ญ๐ฑ๐ฎ Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein: https://feddit.org/
๐ซ๐ฎ Finland: https://sopuli.xyz/ & https://suppo.fi/
๐ฎ๐น Italy: https://feddit.it/
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania: https://group.lt/
๐ฑ๐บ Luxembourg https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/
๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands: https://feddit.nl/
๐ต๐ฑ Poland: https://fedit.pl/ & https://szmer.info/
๐ต๐น Portugal: https://lemmy.pt/
๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia: https://gregtech.eu/
๐ธ๐ช Sweden: https://feddit.nu/
๐น๐ท Turkey: https://lemmy.com.tr/
๐ฌ๐ง UK: https://feddit.uk/
Friendica:
๐ฆ๐น Austria: https://friendica.io/
๐ฎ๐น Italy: https://poliverso.org/
๐ฉ๐ช Germany: https://piratenpartei.social/ & https://anonsys.net/
๐ซ๐ท Significant French speaking userbase: https://social.trom.tf/
๐ต๐ฑ Poland: soc.citizen4.eu
Matrix:
๐ฌ๐ง UK: matrix.org & glasgow.social
๐ซ๐ท France: tendomium & imagisphe.re & hadoly.fr
๐ฉ๐ช Germany: tchncs.de, catgirl.cloud, pub.solar, yatrix.org, digitalprivacy.diy, oblak.be, nope.chat, hot-chilli.im, synod.im & rollenspiel.chat
๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands: bark.lgbt
๐ฆ๐น Austria: gemeinsam.jetzt & private.coffee
๐ซ๐ฎ Finland: pikaviestin.fi & chat.blahaj.zone
Related Communities:
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I am so happy, maybe they will have enough revenue to make even better products
I wish they had a flagship. I would be able to accept compromises of course - thicker, more expensive... But still with top notch components.
There are two things stopping me:
The first one is that for the first time ever, I have a phone that I can just about take on a holiday, not take my DSLR, and not regret the decision. I reckon different people have different thresholds for this, but for me this bar sits at the recent crop of 1" camera sensors (maybe from 1-3 years ago, like Xiaomi 13U/14U, Vivo X100, etc).
The second one is that I tend to get flagships as a way to guarantee some longevity when doing some resource intensive tasks. I consider myself a power user, and while it's true that phones have plenty of horsepower these days, there are tasks that are quite demanding. For example, I use Ente which does local indexing on the phone for the ML image search (which isn't an "easy" task) and I do run small edge-type ML models (such as whisper, of re-train the transformer model in FUTO)... Now I know probably I could do those things on a 2025 mid-range processor, but I worry that by 2027 I will want to replace the phone because the things I want to do will have rendered the phone obsolete. A faster processor allows me to go for an extra year or two without suffering a painfully slow phone, so I'd also want this before making the switch.
FP doesn't need a flagship. There is only one line. That's the flagship. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
This, and in terms of repairability/sustainability, it's hard to make an "everything device" and do it well. Every time you think you got all user requirements covered, another user comes around the corner with a new set of hyper-specific requirements, and you're back at square one figuring out supply chains and design fundamentals. If your aim is to make something repairable and sustainable that is hard to make that way, it's much more feasible to just make two separate devices.
They also take in consideration whether the chips can be produced with fairly paid labour (to a certain level). I believe they have once stated that this was an important reason not to use some chips.
Right, and so anyone who wants an actual flagship phone should skip Fairphone because theyโre not going to like it. Iโm glad we agree.
Unless you are an elite mobile gamer, you don't need a flagship phone.
Even midrange will cover everyone's needs.
Flagships are nothing but marketing bullshit.
Iโve had some midrange phones for a few days. Theyโre fine until I take photo and show it on a display thatโs larger than a phone screen.
So you want one with a top-ish-of-the-line camera
Yes, I would prefer a midrange phone with a flagship camera over a flagship phone with a midrange camera.
I completely agree. I got the FP6 with /e/OS like half a year ago and I love everything about it except the camera. I basically stopped taking photos now and borrow my partner's iPhone for photos instead... ๐ข
I mean, if showing pictures from your phone on a big screen is something you do so often that your phone absolutely has to do that and do it flawlessly, then yeah, I guess a midrange phone is not for you. But that's such a specific requirement, I can't exactly blame a company like Fairphone for not catering to those needs.
What do you use a camera for? If itโs only for scanning QR codes or whatever, fine. But if these are the photos that you take as memories of events in your life, why would you be content with them being grainy and low quality? I suppose itโs a question of what youโre used to.
Most of my childhood memories have been saved on grainy, imperfect pictures and, yeah, I'm content with that and cherish them all the same (probably even more so, because that reflects the time in which they were made). If I want high-resolution photographs of something, I use a proper camera, but there's really nothing about "high-resolution" that implies "treasured memory" to me or vice versa.
Considering that even a midrange smartphone today is leaps ahead of "real" cameras from the past, I guess a different way to phrase your question is "Am I content to have my memories preserved with the image quality of a camera from 20 years ago?". And the answer to that would be a clear "yes". But to each their own.
My compact camera from more than 20 years ago took/takes pictures that are a lot better than the midrange cameras Iโve tried recently. The resolution in megapixels is higher in newer phone cameras, but that is not the same thing as quality. I really do not agree with midrange phones being leaps ahead. With good lighting they might be on a similar level.
Well yes, that's the reasoning I suppose. Some won't like it, and won't buy it.
So maybe it's wise to diversify. I don't know, I'm not an economist
Would be cool to be abke to upgrade the CPU by changing motherboard like with framework laptops, kinda unrealistiv tho
I also wish they would do a flagship but idk if they are at a size to develop and support 2 new phones.
I do think if they put flagship processors their phones that they would be more likely to last a long time and better fit with their selling point. But on the flip side, it then would (probably) be so expensive most people just couldn't afford it. That being said, I'm happy with the FP6 so far. Feels like the snappiest phone I've ever owned even though I had an S20 FE previously which, on paper, has similar performance in benchmarks.
Hopefully one day they either release proper flagships or they make processors upgradable (probably even harder task tbh)
Got my used xiaomi 13T for that big sensor ( + Leica optics for what it's worth) don't know if it's a 1" (checked, its a 1/1.28") but it's enough for me. It would be hard to switch down a lot.
For the rest I don't really care.
My alma mater recently switched to Fairphone for all personel, which makes me very proud.
Your Alabama Mother, or whatever, is very progressive.
Probably a mother from Guelders.
Just got mine with e/OS and have to say that I am really impressed with how well everything works. Of course you have to look for alternatives for some stuff if you want to really put privacy first. But it feels and looks like a good phone. Honestly looking forward to my first repair
Same, been having some issues with receiving group texts but overall the switch has been much smoother that I expected. MicroG works for all the use cases I've tested except RCS but I don't really care about that.
aren't group texts dependent on RCS? maybe that's the problem, no RCS = no group chats
Not exactly. RCS is the default when enabled but it's supposed to fall back to MMS when RCS is not supported. For whatever reason my messages are not doing that, but only in most of my group chats. Messages to individuals and even a couple of group chats work fine using MMS.
We are winning, Gracie!!!
It just makes me so damn happy that Fairphone is gaining traction, Wero is expands on EU coverage and generally the Sun shines and its a good day.
Let's hope hope hope for grapheneos support. Only reason I'm on pixel
After almost going mad trying to repair my daughter's phone I ordered a FP 4.
I sympathize with you. I killed my phone's screen while attempting to replace the battery (poured too much solvent to unglue the battery, which melted or dissolved something under the screen). It's a shame, because the battery replacement was a success, i could use it by connecting a screen. Since then, repairability is a must for me.
I replaced the glass screen and digitizer on my daughters iPad over the holiday break so I share your pain.
Took almost a whole day, mostly clearing out all the glass shards without doing any damage to the display.
Ooh i really hope you didnt pull a bad lottery ticket with that one. I have a FP4 too and its notorious for the display touch eventually developing ghost input problems. Only the 4 though, all the version after are fine afaik.
Ooh, didn't know about that. Does a replacement screen fix it, or is it the actual screen component that's the problem?
Was eyeballing one on ebay...
It doesnt happen with all of them, but fixes are inconsistent. I think replacing the display worked for most people. There is a long fairphone forum comment chain about this issue.
I'm curious why the e/os variant is 50โฌ more expensive than the standard variant with Google Android...?
And the higher price: 2 companies want their time paid.
~ a community moderator from the Fairpone forum
And Google does not, because they sell your data to compensate ๐
Maybe they donate to e/os?
I'd buy one in a flash but they're not yet supported in my country officially (Australia).
Side note this is the first legit silver lining I've seen posted regarding the AI memory crisis, nice to see.
I'm on a 256GB de-Googled Pixel 8A that I'm hoping will last me several years, at least until memory pricing has returned to sane levels.
I got a friend in Europe to forward a Fairphone 6 to me (to Australia). I've had no issues with anything so far.
Mobile data and phone calls work flawlessly. I'm happy to answer any questions about it.
Awesome, thanks for the offer. Do you know if it works OK on all the 4g/5g networks? I generally try to get Telstra via a cheaper provider like Boost, but they've become to expensive so I'm on Amaysim now (Optus 5G).
How much did it end up costing with postage etc from EU?
Finally, any dramas with it so far eg hardware or software problems?
I'm not on a 5G plan so I can't say for that, but 4G works flawlessly. VoIP is supported. I am also on Amaysim.
I paid โฌ42 EUR for shipping from Europe.
No hardware or software problems related to Australia.
I'm running /e/OS. It was more expensive than paying for Google Android then flashing /e/OS myself, but I wanted to support a non Google option.
Banking apps and authentication apps don't work on default /e/OS because they rely on Google Play Services. You can add play services back, but that defeats my reason for using /e/OS.
I love the physical switch. I remapped it to the torch (after 1 OS update) and use it all the time.
I am slightly disappointed by the case. I was hoping it would cover all of the back and sides. It does protect from dropping on a flat surface, but I'm worried about a table corner or gravel scratching the unprotected section.
~~I'm not a big fan of the apple style home screen. I would prefer to hide and/or uninstall apps that I won't use. The best I've got is putting them in a folder. Overall it's still usable and not a deal breaker.~~
Edit: just discovered lawnchair. I'm very happy with it.
Overall opinion: excellent phone, would buy again.
Thanks for that info, appreciate it. Sounds like you and i have very similar usage goals and priorities for phone use. I'm on Graphene and have opted not to install any Google services, which does mean the same limitations re: banking/wallet/AndroidAuto etc.. But I don't mind skipping all those minor conveniences to have complete independence from Google.
If anyone is looking for a Canadian or international order, I just found this U.K. site which multiple threads of Reddit have been talking about. They offer shipping tracking.
https://www.clove.co.uk/products/fairphone-gen-6
https://www.reddit.com/r/fairphone/comments/kkd44p/is_there_a_way_to_get_a_fairphone_in_canada/
I tried buying from Clove from the US, but they want me to upload a picture of my ID and credit card....
Or alternatively:
If you are unable to provide the images, an alternative option is to have this transaction refunded - you can then pay via our secure PayPal gateway or arrange a bank transfer. PayPal allows you to select โPay by Debit or Credit Cardโ if you do not have a PayPal account. For refunds please be aware that if your card currency is not GBP sterling, then the funds returned to your account may be less than the original transaction. Exchange rates vary and your card issuer will most likely need to use a different currency conversion rate for the refund.
1 week later: so I ignored this email and still got the phone!
Loving the phone!
Oh wow, strange!