I found them very expensive for their specs (meaning that for the same money I can buy a phone which is 2 times better and will last more).
Also, exchanging component doesn’t mean that when the processor or the camera are old and outdated you can simply swap it with a newer one.
Now I was curious and checked Fairphone 5, which doesn’t seem so bad (especially with 5 years of warranty). So I will keep it in mind!
CHF 200 is about my limit for a phone. I don’t see any major increase in value-for-money above that price. Of course, that applies to my use case, and may be different for mobile gamers or people who use their phones for serious photography.
Of most value to me are the length of availability of OS and security updates (I’ve had some perfectly working phones that I’ve had to replace because some authentication app mandated by my job or other non-discretionary service wouldn’t update anymore and refused to work), battery life and decent but not perfect camera.
I hate the afternoon spent removing bloatware when I change phones, so I try to keep that as sparce an experience as I can, which means buying newer versions of not top of the line phones in the CHF 400-700 range when I have to replace my current one. I currently have a Galaxy A34 which I’ll keep until it’s not workable anymore. I’ll probably avoid buying a Samsung again since dealing with the bloatware was extra tiring.
Price. And one device less to charge.
You can get much better-sounding wired IEM than wireless earbuds that cost the same.
Also, the „default“ choice for wireless earbuds for an iPhone user would be Apple’s AirPods - in turn, someone with AirPods can reasonable be inferred to have an iPhone (although I know AirPods owners that don’t have one).
Wired IEM don’t allow for such assumption - to most casual audio listeners, they probably are signalling that you’re too poor or cheap to afford wireless headphones.
Might be true, but I don’t care about sound quality given I mainly hear audiobooks and podcasts.
TBH, the freedom of not having a cable connected to your phone is priceless for me. Also, it does not have to be AirPods. I for example use some much cheaper bluetooth earphones.
I use wireless earbuds but also wired ones. Wired have higher quality and no latency and quick to use (no pairing delay). Both have their place.
Hi there,
I’ve used a Fairphone 1, tested a Fairphone 2 and now use a Fairphone 4 as private cell phone (I may get my hands on a Fairphone 5 for testing soon, as well). But I can tell from the model 4 that they have indeed markedly improved.
What I like about it:
Of course, the last point is a wholly different discussion. The most sustainable option is not buying a phone or getting a used one. Certain aspects of cell phone manufacturing cannot be done in a satisfactory maner from a sustainability point of view.
But I just want to mention that most Fairphone user may not buy that phone for the specs or the design. To the best of my knowledge, the Fairphone is the only phone that is widely available for that particulare clientele.
The “sustainability surcharge” is approx. 200 CHF, if you compare the Fairphone 5 with a Samsung A54 (digitec: ~600 CHF vs. ~400 CHF). For me, that’s OK.
Cheers,
J.
Am I the only one using his former phone (and only this) for banking-authenticating apps? I would like to thank @hedgehog wherever he may be because he suggested this setup and I am perfectly happy.
My everyday phone (a 500 CHF xiaomi) has no banking apps because it gets dropped every 2y. OTOH I can only pay bills when I am near the ebanking phone.
As @Wolverine wrote, some apps require the latest OS and security updates to work, which older phones won’t get anymore at a certain point.
I buy the new iPhone with medium storage every 2-3 years. But not the pro version.
Selling my old one for about 300 and buying the new one for ~900 CHF.
That‘s 600 every 2-3 years for a top of the line phone that I use hours every single day. It‘s my most used device and therefore needs to be fast and reliable. It comes down to about 0.5 CHF per day, which is really not much considering how much I use it.
I usually get a new Caviar Snowflake every year:
You know, typically a diamond or two fall out, but I really want my phone to look new, so I just get a new one.
(frankly, they’re also a bargain at less than half a million bucks)
Ladies, gents, I’ll show myself out.
That’s the way to live YOLO 
Usually I just get some 250 CHF device every 3-4 years, when the old one doesn’t get security updates anymore.
Because nobody has mentioned it:
Motorola makes really nice and not-too-expensive Android phones.
I paid 370eur for a moto g200 5G in early 2022, there’s plenty of successor models in that same price range.
I started a couple of years ago to track all the phones I had in my life, for fun and for nostalgia (Almost 10 years of HTC loyalty). In the last years I also track how much they costed me.
There was the decade from 2010-2019 where having the latest phone truly made sense given the huge upgrades, thus renewing my abo subscription I was getting good discounts. But then prices of phones really increased too much (see the price difference from flagship S7 Edge to S9+ (+200CHF))
Given the rise of low budget subscription, I switched to Wingo and decided to buy the phones full price, got a great offer in 2019 Digitec with a 512 GB S10plus, managed to keep it for 3 years, thus delaying the purchase lifecycle. Now i stick to buy 2 generation old phones, but still feel like I do a big upgrade.
Waiting the 2 years, allows for phones depreciation of 70% which is the optimal price point.
Minor detail, now I’m in the ideal 2 years manufacture cycle, the S21 Ultra was the refinement and perfectioned version of the S20 Ultra which had problems and bugs.
I look forward to the S23 Ultra in 2025 
2001-2003 Nokia 5110
2003-2004 Nokia 7650
2004-2005 Samsung D500
2005-2006 Nokia 6280
2006-2007 Nokia 6300
2007-2008 HTC Qtek 9100
2008-2010 HTC Tytn II
04.2010-11.2010 HTC HD 2
11.2010 - 05.2012 HTC Desire HD
06.2012 - 08.2014 HTC One X
08.2014 - 06.2015 HTC One M7
07.2015 - 08.2015 Samsung Note 4 (Repair Service)
07.2015 - 03.2016 HTC ONE M8
03.2016 - 04.2018 Samsung S7 Edge
04.2018 - 12.2019 Samsung S9+
12.2019 - 02.2023 Samsung S10+ Ceramic (512 GB) - 699 CHF Black Friday
02.2023 - Samsung S21 Ultra 256 GB
HTC. What a blast from the past!
Ah yes, I was also a loyal HTC user back in the day, starting with this one below** in 2007 and ending with the One M7 about 10 years later. Pity they disappeared (as their own brand).
** HTC P3300 Deluxe - Anybody else make use of this offer from Swissquote back in 2007? It was a pretty awesome offer, but I guess I paid for the “free phone” in trading fees and annual costs and then some in the end, so Sq “had the last laugh”…
I have always been the type of person who wouldn’t pay more than 250€ for a new phone, especially when phones (and all tech devices pretty much) are built to last 2 years only nowadays,
However, I love photography, I have no camera, and I was tired of having phones with shitty cameras. It took a lot of reflection to finally decide to do it, as I was very concerned to be paying as much for a phone as I did for a laptop, but I ended up buying the Samsung S22 Ultra at the end of 2022. It cost 1.300€ at the time but I bought it with the Black Friday discount plus a corporate discount and ended up paying 800€. I am immensely satisfied with the phone (and the camera quality) and I’m now just focused on treating it well so that it lasts for at least 5 years.
It would make more sense to buy a decent camera!
That’s not my experience with the Apple devices I own and owned. They get the updates to the newest OS for about 6 years and if something breaks it’s usually the battery on heavily-used devices, and this part can be replaced for a fraction of the cost of a new device.
