Cocodapuf comments on I want a phone I can actually fix, and Fairphone’s record growth shows the world does too

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

No... You need a phone you can fix if you don't break your phones all the time. That's how you use the same phone for 6 years, like my pixel 4a. I haven't upgraded to another pixel because the newer ones all have some deal breaker, no SD card slot, or a non removable battery, or no 3.5 mm headphone port.

But if you keep a phone for 6 years, they need maintenance. A speaker stops working, the battery life drops to nothing, the touch screen digitizer fails, etc. And then you need to be able to open it up.

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[–] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago

Agreed on all counts. Also, I truly miss my 4a. I kept it for nearly 5 years until Google killed it's utility with that update despite claiming that my IMEI was excluded by the battery issue/payout offer.

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

The battery is the first thing that tends to fail for me.

My phone is a few years old now and recently I wet it down on the inductive charger overnight and missed, so when I woke up it was at 20% battery. I decided that I'd let the battery drain to 0 before charging it, because AFAIK it's still true that it's good to do that occasionally so the battery management software can recalibrate things. So I used it for a few minutes and it very quickly dropped to 9% battery, and then it hung out there for like 10 minutes without moving. I gave up on actively using it to drain the battery and just put on a YouTube live stream and put the phone down. Eventually it moved past 9% battery and slowly drained down to 1%. And at 1% it lasted at least another half an hour just sitting there playing full screen video.

From my experience with previous phones, there's a chance that the battery management software might be able to tune things so that it is more predictable. But, if I'm unlucky it's already in its death spiral. It's a shame because it's still a fairly decent phone. I might want to upgrade anyhow, but it sucks that once the battery goes bad the phone is almost e-Waste. I've used a local guy who does repairs to change the battery in a tablet a few years ago, and it went from having horrible battery life to having good-as-new battery life. But, while the battery is still decent on it, the model is so old it's no longer getting any software updates, which means a lot of apps simply won't run on it. So, even if I replace the battery in this phone, it's getting more and more useless by the day.

If I could load another OS on it, I could find a use for it. I have headless computers and it would be great if this could be a temporary screen / keyboard for those. It could be a dedicated bike computer. I could use its camera and monitor 3d prints. But, none of that is possible if the manufacturer says that it's too old for them to bother with and their app store no longer has apps for it.