[Fnoord]

> But there is nothing stopping them from standardizing their own and building out support from other players in the industry.

The smaller the device, the more difficult this is. Especially with modularity taken into account. A Framework has modules which are basically USB-C to X where X can be anything (TB, USB-A, USB-C, microSD, etc etc). Easy, if you have the space. On 5-6 inch smartphone? You don't have such space. Furthermore, the SoC is mostly an all in one package on smartphones, in contrast to laptops.

> My point is, during the Fairphone 3/3+ years they seem to be going in this direction. This is why that I bought in the first place.

I rather have them iterate form factor and on long term settle.

[rglullis]

It's precisely because the device is so small that it should be easier for them to come up with a standard. And "modularity" is not a problem if your design is about fixing what these modules are.

All they need is to come up with a design where they can set:

- a standard dimension for the board. - a standard dimension for the camera module. - a standard dimension for the battery. - a standard location for I/O and power: display connector, audio, sd card, digitizer, camera, usb port, 2 sim slots, vcc/ground. - a standard location for battery.

That's all, really. They don't need to optimize for thinness, they don't need to optimize for performance. They don't need to optimize for heat dissipation. They don't need to optimize for screen size or to ensure that their phone has a stupid notch. I don't care if the phone ends up being 1 cm thick or if it ends up with a 3 mm bezel. First, the people who care about silly things like that are the people who buy whatever "innovation" is being pushed by Apple or Samsung. Second, the phone will likely end up in a protective case anyway so all these details are just stupid vanity metrics.

All I know is that they had the chance of having a repeat customer in me, but they are throwing that away if they expect me to keep buying whole new phones from them.

[Fnoord]

Fairphone 2 went this way. Unfortunately it being more modular meant more hardware issues because of friction and such.

So if they went for a standard dimension of everything you mention, it isn't possible on a small scale. Because every device upgrade is an iteration. One might for example have more cameras or more sensors, another time you get an upgrade from microUSB to USB-C, another time the SoC gets updated (they went to an industrial grade now, meant for 8 years of updates). If you look at Project Ara or the project Dave Hakkens' Phoneblocks, these projects are exactly that, and they increase the size of the device massively.

> They don't need to optimize for thinness, they don't need to optimize for performance. They don't need to optimize for heat dissipation. They don't need to optimize for screen size or to ensure that their phone has a stupid notch. I don't care if the phone ends up being 1 cm thick or if it ends up with a 3 mm bezel.

Yeah, that is the gist of your message. You don't care about this, and that, and this, and that, while they need to take it into account. Not as extreme as a non-modular, non-repairable smartphone but still it has to be taken into account. The company is too small for various markets like one where they want the device to be upgradeable between different versions, one where they want a hardware keyboard, one where it is an e-ink screen, one where the form factor is small, etc etc.

For exameple: Look at the small form factor of iPhone Mini and <= 5 inch smartphones. They get axed because there isn't enough demand. And yet the flip seems to be a new rage, seemingly big enough market share.

I get what you described is what YOU want heck I've read it all on the Fairphone forums but the world isn't only about YOU. So that they lose you as customer, who cares? They get more customers in return.

[rglullis]

> One might for example have more cameras or more sensors, another time you get an upgrade from microUSB to USB-C,

There is no need to change your main board dimensions for that.

> small form factor (...) get axed because there isn't enough demand. And yet the flip seems to be a new rage, seemingly big enough market share.

Is it really? To me it looks like they push for the foldable phones while downplay the small display ones because they can ask for a higher price on the new gimmick and therefore have a higher profit margin

> So that they lose you as customer, who cares? They get more customers in return.

If they are favoring "get more customers" over "create a product that reduces global environmental impact / gets away from planned obsolescence", then they are no different than all the other companies and all their talk is just marketing. As with any bad ethical decision, it looks good in the beginning and it might even seem as something justifiable, but in the long run people end up noticing the fraud and move on to the next one that promises to do better.