Comment by Runways
1 day ago
USB 2.0 port is the only thing preventing me from purchasing one. A wild choice since I believe previous versions did not have this limitation.
1 day ago
USB 2.0 port is the only thing preventing me from purchasing one. A wild choice since I believe previous versions did not have this limitation.
I wonder what their reasoning behind the downgrade is. I own a FP4 and even this model features USB 3.0 with DisplayPort support.
IIRC costs and/or size. I agree, silly change. Going from the blue to green theme is another silly change, as is renaming scheme. I like many things this company does, but some decisions I question.
I also bet a smaller, less powerful smartphone with 3.5 mm would sell like hot cakes.
How often do you connect stuff to your phone, and for what purposes? I genuinely wonder!
I can't remember the last time I connected my phone to my computer for other purposes than charging the phone, but that's me and we all use our stuff different ways
You can install Linux on this device. If it had proper dock support, this would be 'the' phone I've been looking for. There is a not insignificant number of users in the forum that are skipping this phone for that reason. It would have been my first.
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fp6-discussion-about-usb-2-and...
There are only 264 replies in that forum total, and not every reply is a unique individual.
I would say that it’s easy to make an argument that this is quite an insignificant number of users even for a niche smartphone manufacturer. I can’t imagine that a lot of people actually dock their phone to use as a desktop. I would be surprised if the percent of smartphone users who do that eclipsed 0.5%.
My understanding in the iPhone world is that the most common use case for fast USB-C connectivity tends to be people doing content creation work where they’re generating a lot of high fidelity camera footage rapidly and offloading it into external storage and other professional solutions.
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Ah, that makes sense, thanks! I tried that way back when Windows phone was a thing (using my phone as a desktop), I even had a small dock for my Lumia 925. It worked well enough for presentations and RDPing into my workstation.
I for one would have loved to be able to plug a screen into the phone for a somewhat better experience + peripherals. With the 12 GB RAM though I hope to be able to runs minimal VMs and then rustdesk/VNC into those for work on the phone? It's not the same though...
I don't need USB for speed, it's all via the network anyway, even pics and videos are in Immich by the time I've found my cable.
DisplayPort Alt-Mode is important for when you smash your phone but you _need_ to access data that is on it. Maybe its your photos, text messages, or access to a banking app. Without DP Alt-Mode you're going to be waiting for a screen replacement to ship, with DP Alt-Mode you're just plugging your phone into your dock like a laptop.
Personally I would have seriously considered this phone if it wasn't for the lack of DP Alt-Mode. It would be a tiny portable Linux computer with an unlimited internet connection available anywhere. It would be the perfect thin-client. My cellular plan limits my tethered bandwidth so using the phone as my computer rather than as my computer's modem has real benefits.
I saved al my sons data from this Samsung S10 using their Dex thing after his screen broke. Was really nice.
FP6+ would have been a no brainer for me if it had such a feature (would need to work on /e/ though) for some light dev work. Still going to buy one though (just messed up my iPhone 12 mini cams and faceID with some of Malaysia's high humidity.)
When we are travelling, we often hook up our phones to a hotel/apartment TV with a DP-Alt to HDMI adapter to use our own streaming services/apps. A phone without DP-Alt would be a no-go.
Syncing music is my main use case where USB 2 is annoying. Beyond that, pulling photos of the phone, but I rarely do that to an extent that USB 2 speeds become a problem.
that said, Fairphones habe a micro SD card slot which you can use for such things
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Honestly, if it was a linux phone...
I currently travel between two office locations, with identical setup (screen, dock, mouse and keyboard, ...) so i just close the laptop lid and plug in the office's type C cable coming from the screen.
Sometimes i bring along my laptop so i keep my work laptop where it's at and RDP into it from the other location (laptop just plugs into the type C cable).
Nothing really special, but it's really nice.
Then, back when google enabled desktop mode on most pixels, i of course tried it. Neat, but it's just a shittier gnome desktop with very few desktop apps. If it was a full fledged windows phone with a KDE-Touch interface that rendered a full desktop when docked, oh boy wouldn't it be neat?
Another thing to consider: For some goddamn reason i have a couple of samsung flaships that will refuse to talk to ADB if i use a 2.0 Cable. Has to be 3.0 or type C <-> Type C
You need to transfer more than 480Mbps over a hard line to and from your phone? Seems like a niche requirement that even iPhone 17 doesn't bother with. Or is it psychological 'nunber must go up and usb number went from 2 to 3 many years ago so now 2 bad'
Even my lgv20 could do an external display.
Previous versions of the Fairphone did have USB3, and also Displayport Alt Mode, so you could plug the phone into a display and use Android Desktop. There's more to a given version of USB than line rate.
I have a fairphone 5 and actively don't like it when it asks me if I want to mirror my screen when I plug it into a charging cable attached to a monitor.
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