The headline says it all - the FP4 isn´t the perfect phone. In fact, it has some minor to major issues one comes across over the years… and either overcomes them or is content to just live with it.
The major flaws are (to me)
- the ghost touch issue, which i fixed by reseating the screen and heightening the pressure on the connector.
- the weird behaviour when using dual-sim. sometimes, it takes ages to find a new network connection when changing countries or after just driving through a tunnel… sometimes it just works fine. can´t figure out why it behaves like that.
Minor flaws:
- camera sub-par, compared to even a pixel 4a… but it does the job.
I really was thinking about buying the fp5 to get rid of these issues… but then I remembered what I wanted to achieve in the first place when buying the fp4: keep a phone for YEARS. It´s two years old now, and will surely get me through another 3, if not more. one just has to learn to be contend.
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Fp4 stops functioning in cold weather. It says “critical condition” and shuts down. You need to get somewhere warm for a while to get it to start up. 93%battery when the error popped up, and it had 58%battery when I got it running again. I love this phone and company but…
Yeah to me that sounds more like your battery is malfunctioning. Maybe buy a new one and see if the problem persists? I mean you are going to need a new one anyway sooner or later.
I like this phone. FP4. It’s not perfect, and two things are annoying.
One popped up with Android 13. That’s 5g . Before Android 13, 5g was fine. For normal internet connection, it’s not very different from 4g. But, as my FP4 and my data plan and the network support 5g, I thought: why not use it. And thus I found that it works. Well, workED. As from Android 13 it makes the FP 4 crash. Sudden restart. Often. Continuously.
Switch back to 4g: problem gone. Wi-fi: problem doesn’t come back.
Reactivated 5g somewhere where it’s available: crash, reboot, reboot, reboot. Shutdown. Restart properly and immediately switch to 4g. Everything ok again.
Everything? No. One little village, on the Armorican seashore… resists surrender to the Roman Empire. Sorry, this is a strip comic…
That village on fp is named Bluetooth. FP Bluetooth only connects to Bluetooth from FP’s airpod. The old Samsung connected to my radio system for playing sound. Of course that sound was of much higher quality than the Samsung galaxy phone’s sound.
But fp4 simple refuses to connect. The radio system is old enough to not have any interface to its Bluetooth settings. Its manual says it uses Bluetooth 4.1 and fp4 uses “up to” BT 4.2
To be honest: i don’t mind the 5g annoyance for now, I am quite frustrated by the Bluetooth thing, though.
I’m on A13 and have neither issues with 5G nor Bluetooth.
A fix for the “5G bug” is in the making: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/random-reboots-after-android-13-update/101006/181?u=paule
Also A13, no bluetooth issues (nor 5G). Sorry :(
Wait, I have a ghost touch problem with my FP4 as well. Can you tell me a little bit more on what you did to fix that?
Hi there. First of all install the latest update - they tried to improve things on the software side. As a second step, tighten the screws of the screen. Or even better: remove the screen once, and re-attach it. There are further workarounds described in the Fairphone forum.
What’s the ghost touch issue, I think I have it.
Me too I think? I haven’t read about it, but my fp4 sometimes registers random touches in the lower center of the screen. Like someone is randomly tapping on the screen very quickly for a few seconds. The touches are all on a straight vertical line.
I turned on dev mode to see screen touches, can confirm, all on the the vertical centreline. I though it was waer ingress damaging the digitiser ribbon or something.
What’s the fix?
There is no fix i know of :C
That’s honestly not the worst, I was about to buy a new screen assembly and replace it. Would have been annoying if it hadn’t of worked.
sorry to hear… i love my FP4.
I like my fp4 a lot, it’s just a perfectly adequate phone. I do miss hy headphone jack (as I’ve already gone through 7 or 8 different jack adapters). And now after about 2 years, my charging port is dying. Luckily that’s an easy replacement, but I’ll be forever salty about them not including a 3.5mm jack.
I use a Bluetooth DAC. It was like €25 and has lasted me for 2 years so far. The downside is that the battery only lasts for about 4 hours, but bringing a powerbank solves that. The battery is obviously going to wear out at some point and I doubt I’ll be able to replace it, but it’s still better than buying dongles that break very quickly.
It’s far more powerful than anything I’ve had in a phone and the sound quality is perfect. It’s also nice to not be tethered to my phone.
I just didn’t buy a fairphone
not enough suicide nets or hospitalised miners for you?
No