The Fairphone 5 has a long-term supported Qualcomm SoC which should have up to 10 years support as per Fairphone’s own announcement.
Qualcomm supports the QCM6490 in the Fairphone 5 for 5 years, until 2028. The “eight to ten” years Fairphone is promising is more like how they’ve been supporting their previous phones (as well as they can, but incompletely).
5 years is still much better than the typical 3 though, and probably enough for most people. That level of support matches Apple (minimum 5 years) and Microsoft (minimum 5 years of mainstream support).
The other problem Fairphone consistently has is that they do release security patches, but they do so months to sometimes even years late. Big problem with the Fairphone 4.
On the bright side, Fairphone might’ve figured out how to use proper signing keys this time around:
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That’s good news. Now let’s hope they also stored the private keys securely.
Fairphone is cool but as you pointed out rightfully their updates are still quite slow. But definitely better than many other manufacturers. Beaides that this is all very offtopic as a fairphone doesn’t come cheap.
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Fairphone is not cool:
- Fairphone consistently behind updates:
- FP Security Updates need to be more frequent - The Products - Fairphone Community Forum
- From what I understand each devices is actually maintained by a different ODM, which is why FP3 is sometimes more updated than FP4.
- Suspicious apps being installed automatically: Weird chinese "friDay" Apps on Fairphone 4 - Fairphone 4 - Fairphone Community Forum
- “Support” periods: Is Fairphone really interested in sustainability? - #2 by SkewedZeppelin - The Products - Fairphone Community Forum
- Misleading camera marketing:
- No Qualcomm secure boot on FP3: https://forum.fairphone.com/uploads/default/original/3X/9/b/9b6fee6021b919e855b5258f76de9738d5b04995.jpeg
- Verified boot trusting test-keys on FP3/FP4: Bootloader // AVB keys used in ROMs for Fairphone 3+4 - #11 by SkewedZeppelin - The Products - Fairphone Community Forum
- Removing the headphone jack
- Requiring Internet and a token to unlock the bootloader
- The ‘Keep Club’ which incentivizes users to fork over personal information and shill FP on social media in exchange for coupon codes: Keep club - Fairphone web, how to enter? - #5 by AndreasChris - Discuss - Fairphone Community Forum
- Their partnership with Murena, which is actively harming users with their egregiously poor security handling such as the WebView not updated since December of 2022: https://divestos.org/misc/ch-dates.txt
- And lastly, Fairphone Easy which imo is a predatory (loan) phone rental program.
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Created a new general Fairphone 5 topic in Tool Suggestions just to stop talking about it in that Samsung thread (i.e. just to discuss the new FP5 in one place, not to imply that anyone actually suggested it).
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Do you have a source for the partnership with Murena?
And yes i agree with all the concerns. Yet there is also a lot they do well and certainly better than other vendors. I didn’t mean to recommend it.
Setting new standards and reshaping an entire industry takes serious, long-term commitment – and likeminded changemakers. So we partnered with Murena, to offer their privacy-focused operating system for our Fairphone 4 – as an alternative to Google’s Android.
Looking for a smartphone experience that has all the functionality and values your privacy? This is it. By default /e/OS doesn’t share any data with Google and it’s been designed to offer a great and natural user experience. /e/OS is paired with carefully selected apps, so you don’t have to choose between functionality and privacy. Fairphone 4 with /e/OS preinstalled is now available on our webshop.
Pretty sure their relationship has expanded since then, as Murena is now the official USA reseller: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/16674972235537-Murena-Fairphone-4-with-e-OS-in-the-USA
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