There’s been a lot of buzz here about the Fairphone here lately, especially with it coming to the US.

On paper, it seems rather nice. Ethically sourced, privacy friendly stock ROM.

But the skeptic in me does say, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.”

What are the drawbacks of Fairphone that seem to be shunned away, or less discussed both by the company and community at large? Why shouldn’t I just buy a Pixel 7a and put GrapheneOS on it instead?

  • Jordan Lund
    4•1 year ago

    I’m a little too reliant on Android Auto and there really is no alternative other than Apple Car Play which is even more restrictive.

      • @Tibert
        5•1 year ago

        It doesn’t support it natively. Fairphone uses /e/os and because it uses microg, android auto doesn’t work directly.

        From this thread, there would maybe be a solution, one answer directs to an xda developer post with magisk : https://community.e.foundation/t/android-auto-with-magisk/47472

        However it needs some tinkering, and it may not be the easiest thing to do.

        • @[email protected]English
          8•1 year ago

          Is this really true? At least my Fairphone 3 came with stock Android and I had to reflash it to get /e/OS.

          I think that they do have a partnership with Murena where they sell /e/OS pre-installed, but outside of that they should come with Android + Google Play Services.

        • melroy
          2•1 year ago

          @Tibert This make sense now to me…! I’m using lineageos, also using microG. I was wondering why Android Auto wasn’t working… but now I get it.

        • Atemu
          1•1 year ago

          Note that this only applies to FP4s bought through Murena. The regular FP4 from Fairphone themselves comes with a stock-ish AOSP with Google apps, not /e/os.

          Only Murena currently sells in the U.S. however. I’m pretty sure you could flash the regular FP4 factory images onto one bought through Murena though.

        • Square Singer
          1•1 year ago

          Stock Fairphone doesn’t use /e/os, but instead an AOSP-based very stock-like ROM. Only the upcoming US version is stuck with /e/ for some reason.