Why is installing a different OS/Custom Rom on phones a huge hassle?
- Unlock bootloader (depending on vendor, you have to do an online verification),
- flash a recovery.img,
- load into recovery mode (which, depending on the phone, might need extra work)
- wipe some caches,
- select new os/rom image,
- pray it doesn't brick your phone.
You'd think someone would've learned a thing or two from the easy graphical installations linux and even windows have been offering since the late 2000s.
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Fairphone makes it as easy as they can to install /e/OS or any other custom ROM, probably because they believe in selling the phone as the hardware itself, with you being able to choose your OS.
like it should be. like we are doing with PCs.
but a fairphone does come with a very uncompetitive price tag, trust me, i own one.
Assuming price isn't an issue, would you recommend it? I've been looking into them for my next phone whenever this pixel decides to die.
definetely, i've only owned xiaomi and huawei devices that were on the brink of not working at all sometimes. compared to that, my Fairphone 4 is pretty reliable.
although the camera could be better, it's perfectly usable. take a look at my cat trying to figure out what a cordless drill is.
i would call CPU performance "good enough" and GPU performance "kinda bad for the money". even though fortnite, star rail and genshin impact run at a stable 30fps on low settings at 100% resolution.
and the battery lasts the day only if you're lucky.
all in all, if has been my companion for one and a half years now and i don't regret spending full price on it. i imagine the Fairphobe 5 being even better, it supposedly performed very well in mkbhd's blind camera test.
and don't get me started about the ability to repair this thing. i've had it disassembled down to the motherboard multiple times, there are no adhesives in there, like at all. the CPU has some kind of hard thermal pad.
How's audio for videos or calls, or auto brightness? Any other annoying things? I'm interested in getting one when my phone eventually dies, but Linus from ltt was having a lot of annoying issues with it.
i have the FP4, and there are definetely some small things. but the major ones all get patched in a couple of weeks. the smaller issues might be bunched into a larger update. there was also the issue of ghost touch with my model, but after contacting support they sent me a replacement screen to swap in.
if you are aware of a certain issue and want to wait until they fix it, they have a changelog for every model. here's the one for the FP5: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/18682800465169-Fairphone-5-OS-Release-Notes
that notification thing is really annoying, but i'm certain they are aware of that and are trying to fix it ASAP. if linus is complaining about your product, that's a lotta bad press.
edit: forgot to answer your questions. volumes are fine and adjustable. although the loudspeaker isn't as loud as i would expect it sometimes. auto brightness works well, but it does sometimes stay bright after going into a dark room. usually i just nudge the brightness down, and it'll work after that.