I can’t believe some of the points Linus made against the Fairphone, especially given he’s onboard with the same compromises for the Framework laptop. 🤭
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I have no special love for Linus Tech Tips, but a lot of the defences used by Fairphone are quite weak in my opinion.
“It’s better than the Fairphone 4” doesn’t really matter when I’m comparing the Fairphone to a Pixel phone.
“Who needs to watch 10 hours of Youtube”? Very few people do, but half the battery life in video decode means charging your phone twice as often even if you don’t watch Youtube all day. The unfortunate SIM card/SD card slot placement is also just that, unfortunate; there are good reasons for them to be placed there, but other phones have sliders or slots that will let you live swap either card without even taking the back off, and I think the way Fairphone approached it is suboptimal. It not being designed for easy swapping doesn’t mean that people who do want easily swappable cards are wrong for having their preferences, especially when so many thinner, faster, cheaper phones can do the same just fine.
The inefficient SoC that gets Fairphone 8 years of support is nice, especially for a company that small, but with Google and Samsung also offering 7 to 8 years of support on their phones, it becomes much less impressive. Five years ago, this would’ve been a gamechanger, but right now, they’re doing marginally better than their competition at the cost of a huge dip in performance. What’s worse, is that regardless of it being their fault or not, Fairphone has a relatively spotty history when it comes to patching.
The software gripes Linus seems to take issue with seem to be the LineageOS/Android defaults, or the Google parts (i.e. the stupid Google launcher that Google forces its partners to use, unless you want to ship your own). Still, promises of “we will fix the software in an update” are meaningless to a consumer buying a phone now. I’ve read plenty of “we will patch this” comments from manufacturers over the years, and without a definitive timescale, those promises are worthless.
For a customer who wants the best phone for their money, the Fairphone is objectively worse. It’s marketed at the niche segment of people who are willing to spend extra for a mid-tier phone to get more environmentally and socially conscious hardware. And you know what? I don’t disagree with Linus’ suggestion at the end: even the fairest phone is environmentally costlier than rescuing an old second hand phone.
Most people will be incredibly unhappy with a Fairphone 5 if the alternative would’ve been a Pixel 8. I think it’s fair for LTT to review the phone from a general consumer point of view.
Of course, LTT is also hypocritical as balls, as very similar problems and the very same insane price-to-quality difference is also present for Framework laptops. Expensive hardware, meh software, many suboptimal design choices.
I think their point about framework laptops is actually a stupid one. The fairphone is not a modular device (although they always seem to be trying to claim that), which the framework laptops are. The fact you have to remove the battery to do anything kind of proves that it’s not modular, we’ve seen modular phones so we know what they look like and they don’t look like this.
So it just seems a weird comparison to have made. The fairphone is easier to repair than your average smartphone, but it’s still a lot less repairable than phones from the early 2000s. It’s not a simple repair unless you’re talking about a battery replacement. It doesn’t have swappable buttons, It doesn’t have swappable chassis. Basically it’s a cheap Android phone that costs more money than it is really worth with the justification of environmentalism. I would take a truly modular and easy to repair phone over this any day of the week if one existed, and since one doesn’t yeah I think i’ll go for a Pixel.
The Framework is about more than just the USB bays. They’re also designed to have non-hotswappable repairs for things like the touchpad, the screen, the keyboard, and all kinds of other components that are impossible to replace on other laptops. And there are actually some upgrades you can do to the Fairphone 4, though I don’t think I would bother with the ones they offer if I had one.
The original framework didn’t have motherboard upgrades, those came later. It was lauded for its openness and repairability, but the repairability doesn’t seem to be any better than the Fairphone’s. You can swap the battery, add storage, replace the (web)cam, swap the screen, all without complicated tools, but i think the only real difference is that the Fairphone doesn’t have a removable SSD and RAM package. You can’t upgrade a framework’s CPU without replacing the entire motherboard with it, for instance. Almost everything the Framework was lauded for on launch has been the default on Fairphones for years now, so I think the comparison is quite apt.
I don’t think I’ve used an early 2000s phone where you could replace the camera without a soldering iron, or get access to the screen without breaking the chassis plastic. The replaceable stuff always seemed like a marketing gimmick to me.
The Fairphone has one practical repairability advantage: they promise to keep parts in stock. I could happily get another year or two out of my current phone, but there are no more replacement screens or batteries to be found anywhere. The same was true back in the 2000s; phones with replaceable batteries, skins and back panels would show up, but two years later no shop would stock any of that stuff.
Unfortunately, the modular phones died, because the few phones that did offer modules completely failed. It’s just not viable to create a fully modular device in this form factor.
The original framework didn’t have motherboard upgrades, those came later. It was lauded for its openness and repairability
The original framework came with the claim that it WOULD have motherboard upgrades though (and then they delivered). It was only highly praised for what it was at the time because that’s what the product was (on top of being a product with pretty good specs) and you should never buy a product on the promise of something else.
Unfortunately, the modular phones died, because the few phones that did offer modules completely failed. It’s just not viable to create a fully modular device in this form factor.
I mean lots of people said that about laptops too and then Framework shook things up.
I’m not going to get into it because it’s really not relevant to the point, but it is absolutely not proven that modular phones are non-viable. The only two phones to ever tryid it basically never even were given a chance by their manufacturers before they were killed. They just realized that they would never make lots of money on it because you make more money by selling a new phone, then you ever will by just making modular components.
The fact you have to remove the battery to do anything kind of proves that it’s not modular,
Why?
Especially when you seem to suggest that it’s an easy thing to remove…
It’s not a simple repair unless you’re talking about a battery replacement.
For a customer who wants the best phone for their money, the Fairphone is objectively worse
Objectivity worse in performance, sure. Some people consider more things than just being a fastest bang for the buck. Unethical mining, forced labour, e-waste, data mining, and lots of other things. If you care at all, that is.
If you want to compare that to a product made by a billion dollar company, no one is stopping anyone. There is cost associated with doing things ethically. Small companies aren’t financed to eat those costs to gain the market. It speaks more about principles than anything else.
I don’t disagree with Linus’ suggestion at the end: even the fairest phone is environmentally costlier than rescuing an old second hand phone
is it? The person who sold the phone is most definitely going to buy a new phone and if they sold the phone released last year they will most likely do so every year. The reason there’s a second hand market with a year old phones is because people obsessively buy new phones. How exactly is that environmentally friendly than starting to use a phone made by a company with higher ethics? Surely the later stacks higher in being environmentally and morally friendly?
Duchebag is spouting capitalists “trickle down” economics. Rather than fix the cause, find the flex tape to hide it. Rich people buy new phones, less rich buy phones from the rich, and so on. No one needs to look past the marketing into ethics in how they were made and companies keep profiting in billions by exploitation of the poor. So so environmentally friendly.
People are going to buy new phones regardless. You not buying used phones is not going to change that.
Buying used or refurbished keeps the devices they‘d throw away (or keep in a drawer for 10 years, then throw away), if they couldn’t sell them, from landfills.
Also, I know plenty of people who are well off that buy second hand phones and even more people who couldn’t even afford a Fairphone (which starts at almost 500€ for a 4 and 650€ for a 5) that buy a brand new 200-300€ phone every two years.
And those low end phones are the least environmentally friendly because they‘re definitely unethically made they most likely break more quickly than higher end options, they usually don’t get updates for very long, if at all, and there’s no noteworthy second hand market for them because people just throw them away (or into a drawer) if the phone stops working or when they feel like getting a new one, because who buys a 2 year old low end phone second hand?
Buying used instead is a great option. You get a higher end device for cheaper without anything new having to be made for you. It‘ll still last you years and you’ll have a better experience than with a cheap new phone.
Yes, it would be better if all phones were ethically produced, easy to repair and would last a long time. Especially if there are ethically phones in the sub 300€ market. Won’t be easy to achieve, if at all, and wouldn’t stop blind consumerism but it would make for an even better second hand market. Because, you know what’s better than a fairphone? A second hand fairphone.
Some people consider more things than just being a fastest bang for the buck.
The difference is striking, though. It’s half as fast at the starting line. I can only imagine what’ll happen to it once it runs Android 23 in eight years.
Unethical mining, forced labour, e-waste, data mining, and lots of other things. If you care at all, that is.
That’s fair, but then buying a second hand iPhone should solve all of those issues for you. No additional materials beind mined, no days collection, and the only forced labour you’ll be adding to the market is you forcing open the back to replace the battery.
It speaks more about principles than anything else.
It does, but principles don’t translate to tangible benefits for the products.
How exactly is that environmentally friendly than starting to use a phone made by a company with higher ethics?
It is, unless Fairphone manages to make an impact. To make an impact, they’ll need to convince “normal” people to buy the phone. And to do that, they need to put a phone out in the market place at a competitive price.
It’s good that there’s an ethical new phone out there, but the simple truth is that the general consumer will ignore this thing if it costs twice as much as a phone with similar specs.
Rich people buy new phones, less rich buy phones from the rich, and so on. No one needs to look past the marketing into ethics in how they were made and companies keep profiting in billions by exploitation of the poor. So so environmentally friendly. ^ You need to be pretty rich to be able to afford a Fairphone. I guess the cycle continues?
I’m not sure how companies benefit from a second hand market, though. Second hand flagship phones compete directly with their budget and mid-range models. If they legally could, they’d block you from being able to sell your phone.
And yes, reusing an old phone is more environmentally friendly than buying a new one even if the new one is sustainably built. If you care about the environment, you should be happy with the second hand market, and encourage others to buy second hand phones. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is said in that particular order for a very good reason.
Perhaps the truth is that the review was unfair, because there is no competition to put the Fairphone against. It’s a product built for a specific niche that has no other devices to choose from. But then again, if it only competes in that particular niche, why send one for review to a general tech reviewer at all? There are other reviewers that focus on sustainable technology that would be a lot more positive about this thing, nicely targeting the people who would consider buying such a device.
How exactly is that environmentally friendly than starting to use a phone made by a company with higher ethics? Surely the later stacks higher in being environmentally and morally friendly?
The difference is you can produce only the best phones. There aren’t throw away/cheap phones. The only difference is then how old the phone is.
It’s the difference between buying an old Lexus and a new base model Kia. They both might cost the same, and yeah the Lexus driver almost definitely got a new car, but the Lexus is probably going to outlive the Kia.
That’s the stupidest argument against 2nd hand market I’ve ever heard. It read as you’re too proud and too much nose on your imagined status to buy “used shit”
but half the battery life in video decode means charging your phone twice as often even if you don’t watch Youtube all day
Most of the power goes into the screen. The Pixel 8 has a ridiculously power efficient screen. I have one. It also costs $300 to replace. The Fairphone’s is $100.
other phones have sliders or slots that will let you live swap either card without even taking the back off
Slots and sliders inevitably weaken the phone frame making it easier to break. They also cost more to machine.
even the fairest phone is environmentally costlier than rescuing an old second hand phone.
Replacing a battery to rescue a Pixel will run you $100-200.
Many design choices make a lot of sense when looked through the repairability, durability and cost of repairability lenses.
Most of the power goes into the screen. The Pixel 8 has a ridiculously power efficient screen. I have one. It also costs $300 to replace. The Fairphone’s is $100.
That’s fair. If you intend to replace the screen multiple times, the Fairphone is a better choice. I don’t see why the replaceable screen would need to consume more power, though
Slots and sliders inevitably weaken the phone frame making it easier to break. They also cost more to machine.
$200 Huawei phones from 6 years ago had sliding slots behind the removable back panel. Other budget phones still have sliders. This could’ve been fixed in different ways. Perhaps Fairphone couldn’t figure out the slider without causing other problems, but being unable to live swap the SD card is still disappointing.
Replacing a battery to rescue a Pixel will run you $100-200.
Add that to the $250 for a second hand Pixel 6 and you can buy at least two for the price of a Fairphone. Not only did you save money, you also saved the environment by reducing the e-waste society produces!
Many design choices make a lot of sense when looked through the repairability, durability and cost of repairability lenses.
I agree, but that doesn’t mean the phone isn’t too expensive for its position in the lineup for the general public. I might value the ability to run custom ROMs and the ability to upgrade components down the line that I pay extra upfront, but the rest of my family sure won’t.
I think Framework and Fairphone are solving similar but different problems.
Fairphone is “keep this phone as configured working.”
Framework is more “I have this laptop but it can become this other newer laptop without me needing to buy all the parts again AND I can buy replacement parts.”
It’s really not even remotely the same calculus in my book.
LTT have high praise to the ability to replace the individual components in the Framework, like the trackpad and the screen.
I guess laptops are seen in a different light compared to phones, but I don’t think they should be. Not anymore.
Yes, but replacing the track pad is ALSO in the context of “you can have the latest and greatest laptop CPU.”
You just can’t do that with the Fairphone.
A Framework could hypothetically last forever. A Fairphone still has an 8 year lifespan.
It isn’t just the promise of the ability to replace these components, but the ability to upgrade them.
7 years is only for Pixel and S24 phones. The vast majority of existing Samsung phones will only get 5 years of security updates.
https://www.howtogeek.com/797200/how-long-will-my-android-phone-be-supported-with-updates/
Most common middle- and upper-tier phones, as well as any Pixel and Fairphone (thanks to being more open) will get a custom ROM with updates 8+ years after the release, and you can buy a used 5-year-old phone quite cheaply.
Typing this on my 10-year-old Sony Xperia Z with Android 13. It cost me $0 (found in e-waste) including a data plan (owner forgot SIM inside). The camera has low sensitivity and dust in it and the battery is worn, but everything else is decent. I will open it some day to fix the problems, a replacement battery cost me $10. There is even 4G and NFC, and the 1080x1920 screen is nearly “retina-density” at such small size. I decided to not use the SIM as it could be criminal, and I have my prepaid one in s dumb phone, but I use it for entertainment - the phone fits in my hand and the design is quite timeless. The CPU is a little weak, it cannot decode 1080p30 or 720p60 video in real time, and gets hot quickly on demanding websites.
Most people aren’t comfortable with flashing unofficial ROMs onto garbage bin phones. I’m unironically glad that you have rescued a perfectly good phone but that’s just not a scalable solution IMO. Buying a used phone that you know has a lineage ROM is a more viable path but you’re still back to square one if the battery or port or screen give up on you.
Perhaps, but Linus compares the phone directly to the Pixel 8. Or you could get an iPhone. In both cases, you’ll end up paying less than for a Fairphone.
Yes of course. The point of this phone is to trade cost/perf/etc for improved repairability and business ethics. Long software support is a prerequisite for repairability being useful.
This phone isn’t for people looking primarily for best value.
Chiming in on the SIM/SD: as far as I can remember, my phone didn’t let me hotswap neither SIM or SD, always required a restart to handle it properly.
What phone was this? I can add and remove SIM cards on the fly, and did so once or twice all the way since Android 9. Could be a firmware thing that’s preventing it from working for you, but even then SD cards should still just work; those have been swappable (excluding adoptable storage, of course) since at least Android 4.
All Samsungs - Note 4, Note 8 (had two), S20 FE (current). Always says the media was not safely removed (SD) and requires a restart, or outright refuses to recognize there is even a SIM card until I restart.
If you eject the SD card in the settings, it’ll happily take a new SD card. Just popping it out is how you get a confused OS, especially with the way Android was designed, but that’s why the eject button is there.
The SIM issue is pretty weird. I don’t know why Samsung phones don’t seem to cope with that.
also the fairphone doesnt sell replacement parts for any longer than most regular manufacturers do.
at least the framework offers pretty good modularity.
but other phones have sliders or slots that will let you live swap either card without even taking the back off
Modern phones on purpose dropped SD card support but yeah, slimmer phones still have those sliders. To be fair you need a tool for that, unlike their option.
especially for a company that small
We really have to keep that in mind. When they planned the FP5 they likely had no idea Google would do the same. They take what Qualcomm offers, unlike tech Giants Google and Samsung that can basically dictate update lifespans.
relatively spotty history when it comes to patching
They are the ODM unlike GrapheneOS and comparing them to Google is really unfair. Google makes Android, so they know the code best. They patch very quickly, the updates work for their phones out of the box, less work for GrapheneOS.
Fairphone on the other hand has to maintain a unique device which is way more work, they get early access because of that though.
And their noncompliance with all the GrapheneOS security demands is the reason I dont use it.
seems to take issue with seem to be the LineageOS/Android defaults
Fairphone is Google certified and thus needs to ship unmodified Android including all the Google crap. There is a company called Murena that creates some hacky LineageOS-based OS and sells Fairphones with it preinstalled.
This /e/OS looks nice and has very nice integrations, but is fundamentally flawed and less secure than GrapheneOS for example (microG, depending on unmaintained apps, even slower updates,…)
even the fairest phone is environmentally costlier than rescuing an old second hand phone.
Regular phones dont get 8 years of updates so they will be outdated and should not be used. This argument makes no sense.
I got a used Pixel 6a with 2 years left, so used but way less long updates, so I hope on getting a used Pixel 8 which means roughly 1,7 phones instead of one, should be equally sustainable.
To be fair you need a tool for that, unlike their option.
That’s true (at least for the phones I’ve seen), but there are still other ways. Six or seven years ago, phones had little slide-in slots attached to the motherboard that were accessible by removing the back cover of the phone, for example. There are tool-less ways this could’ve been implemented.
Fairphone on the other hand has to maintain a unique device which is way more work, they get early access because of that though.
This is true, which is why they bought the worse IoT SoC instead of a nornal mobile chip, but they do get access to patches and source code way ahead of volunteer projects like LineageOS and Graphene and still tend to lag behind in terms of releases. I can forgive them for major Android releases, but not for the security updates
And their noncompliance with all the GrapheneOS security demands is the reason I dont use it.
I think most of their demands are quite reasonable, really. “Provide an update for the bug that allows any app to become root/any nearby Bluetooth device to execute code as root within a month” doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me, and neither does “actually patch all the vulnerabilities known up till know”. The TEE stuff is also something a lot secure software relies on.
I guess it’s the Fairphone, not the Securephone. And then again, nobody cares about security anyway. It just adds context to the promised eight years of software support: you get support, but do you get all of the support? Do you gain anything above flashing LineageOS to a different device?
Fairphone is Google certified and thus needs to ship unmodified Android including all the Google crap
Samsung is Google certified and they don’t. They opted to use Google’s skin, with Google’s launcher and a bunch of Google extras rather than develop their own. They don’t need to do that, they just aren’t allowed to modify Google’s launcher if they choose to use Google’s launcher.
I like the idea behind /e/ but their software updates have been lacking.
Regular phones dont get 8 years of updates so they will be outdated and should not be used.
Shouldn’t they? Most people I know don’t give a shit about security updates. Apps still work, browsers still get updated. Someone like me would flash a custom ROM, others would just keep using their Android 9 phone until it no longer works some day. And to be honest, as long as you update your browser, there’s not really that big a risk of getting hacked on Android. That, and the ability to install 'your WhatsApp is outdated click here to install WhatsApp 2024.apk".
There are people thst shouldn’t use old phones (human rights activists, journalists, people in important positions within big companies) but they probably shouldn’t be using Android in the first place, especially not from a company that doesn’t have the capacity to focus on security like Google and Apple can.
Thanks for the nuanced response. Obviously both FP and LTT are defending their own interests and neither are inherently better.
You’re making a lot of good points here, but I feel like this last bit goes against how most people would evaluate purchasing such a phone after the fact.
For a customer who wants the best phone for their money, the Fairphone is objectively worse. It’s marketed at the niche segment of people who are willing to spend extra for a mid-tier phone to get more environmentally and socially conscious hardware. (…) Most people will be incredibly unhappy with a Fairphone 5 if the alternative would’ve been a Pixel 8.
People don’t walk around comparing what they have to what they don’t have based on specifications alone (that’s just successful marketing). Their actual experiences are what matters. The FP is a good enough phone that most people will experience no issues having one. Most people simply don’t need the best of the best, and whether it’s a FP or a Pixel doing what they need their phones to do is of very little consequence to them.
Don’t get me wrong. If you’re price oriented, and you want to get the most bang for the buck, there’s better options. But I would argue that this doesn’t matter all that much for most people’s satisfaction, which is probably much more by affected long support and repairability (even if it’s just that you can swap the battery).
Their actual experiences are what matters.
In that case, wouldn’t the experience be “this is as slow as my old phone”, “the bezels are rather large”, “this thing is super heavy”, “why do I need to charge my phone already”, and “why is it so thick”?
Price isn’t everything, but the 800 dollar segment comes with certain expectations. The Fairphone is a decidedly mid-range phone with a high-end price tag. There are real benefits to that price (the long support and the ethical superiority, for example), but I don’t think consumers really care about that stuff enough not to be disappointed.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have the kind of disposable income to overlook these issues, but I don’t think I would be very satisfied with the Fairphone myself. My current phone is closing in on 4½ years of usage, but it cost just over half the price of a new Fairphone at launch. I don’t think the SoC will be able to keep up with another four years of updates, but the new Fairphone SoC doesn’t seem much faster. I don’t think I’d spend 810 dollars on a phone with 8 years of support when I could just as easily spend 450 dollars twice for a phone that I’ll use 4½ years, and get better performance out of it as well.
Most average phone users don’t give a shit about bezels, weight and stuff, they just buy whatever is put in front of them. If Apple came out with a new iPhone that was heavier, thicker bezelled, slower, people would still buy it because the truth is, they don’t compare anything or look into it besides “this is the latest”.
Speed is such a none issue, all mid-range phones are plenty fast enough for the very large majority of people. Buying flagship phones with the fastest SoCs is pointless to them, they will never get value from it - they just buy them because they are the latest “best shit you need” and they cost a lot more than a Fairphone.
Now the value of replacing a battery on the fly (whether broken or just for more juice) would actually be a lot higher, people used to do that in the past. The ability to repair the phone yourself wouldn’t really matter to most, as they usually just take their phones to a repair shop anyway, but the cost of the repair would be lower.
The Fairphone has a great mission, one that all phones should be going after. They are expensive for what you are getting in terms of specifications, yes, but the company isn’t large enough to make them any cheaper without sacrificing the point of them in the first place. It’s fine to not want one, but comparing them to flagship phones, the same way you would compare an S24 to an iPhone 15, is actually unfair. Not to say you can’t critise it, I think the software is the weak point and some issues were clearly highlighted, not unfixable though.
If price wasn’t a factor and you just handed them to average people to use, then they would most likely be satisfied and would find value in it.
“It’s better than the Fairphone 4” doesn’t really matter when I’m comparing the Fairphone to a Pixel phone.
What, why?
Because as a consumer, I’m not considering buying a Fairphone 4. This stuff only matters if you’ve already determined you’re going to be buying any Fairphone, you just don’t know which one. Which may be the case for some people, but most people don’t exclusively buy Fairphones.
Eh, I stopped paying attention to Linus after the whole debacle last year.
Hmm, no, actually I think I stopped paying attention to him quite a long while ago. I think once they went all in on the clickbaity titles and just non-content, algorithm filler.
I first reevaluated my perception of him (shall we say) after that AWFUL “let’s try Linux” series, and it didn’t exactly get better from there.
The Microsoft ball gargling is ridiculous on its own
The Linux series was one of the best, because it showed what would happen if someone who didn’t know what they were doing tried to move to Linux. Linux shills have been preaching “it’s the year of the Linux desktop” forever now, but since it’s so different from windows and macOS there’s a massive learning curve that only shows up once you’ve switched.
I would bet 8/10 people who have used windows/macOS for 30+ years would have many of the same problems as Linus did. I know I’ve made many of the same mistakes that were made by Linus/Luke in that series, including accidentally nuking my DE.
Linux sucks as a desktop if you aren’t already familiar with Linux from the terminal. There’s a few edge cases, but for the most part it’s not a good experience if you do anything more than web browsing.
I’m no Linus shill, though I do enjoy their content for the most part. He’s not a tech god like people make him out to be, he’s just a slightly above average tech nerd who’s a good presenter. And that’s the audience that the Linux shills are trying to push the OS onto.
I think what you’re saying is that Linux desktop is going to be a bad experience if you come in with your expectations from macos or windows. In neither of those can you “accidentally” uninstall your de because you’re not reading terminal prompt.
This kinds of problems are for people who think they know what they’re doing
Tech doesn’t get wider adoption if you expect every user to know what they’re doing. And without wider adoption, devs don’t get on board and apps don’t get made. Lowering the learning curve improves the experience for everybody, especially with linux where we can have different distributions with different target audiences.
I agree, but we’re not there yet. As of now, you’ll need to at least try to read what you’re approving in terminal
But to avoid this you could run a VM and restore to a snapshot but that’s not really switching to Linux. Windows/Mac users should generally not just jump into Linux but transition to it.
I’m genuinely curious how saying that Linux GUI desktop has issues equates to gargling Microsoft’s balls?
Tribalism I’m guessing is why it’s being said
I liked him when he was more authentic. Back when they were filming out of a house, rather than some compound, just doing silly shit like that whole office water cooling.
Now it’s all about him blowing tons of cash on his house, or his studio, or just shilling/shitting on everything.
blowing tons of cash on his house,
By making a video of it it becomes a deductible business expense. Use backyard pool for water-cooling video? Free pool.
His let’s try Linux series was amazing. Showing how dogshit it really is when you get out of the circlejerk.
For those that haven’t seen it: His Pop-OS desktop environment got un-installed by Apt when he tried to install Steam.
So many people forget that while they understand how to use a Linux terminal and how Linux on a high level works, not everyone does. Plus, learning all of that takes time, effort, and tenacity, which not everyone is willing to do. Linus’s whole conclusion was that as long as that learning curve exists and as long as it’s that easy to shoot yourself in the foot, Linux desktop just isn’t viable for a lot of people.
But Linus has done a lot of public fuck ups therefore everything he says must be inherently wrong.
I’m an absolute mouth breathing imbecile, with no IT/SysAdmin/Otherwise technical background or knowledge outside of what I gained by just being a typical windows user.
I cold turkey switched to linux with relatively few issues with nothing but a weekend of sporadic research done beforehand. Learning curve for everyday shit hasnt been that deep or curvy.
Its not 1997. Linux is not that hard to use, even for gaming. Especially with some modern distros built specifically for the task (like Nobara)
No, its not for everyone, but its not this incomprehensibly obtuse and mystical monstrosity that people try to constantly paint it as, 30 years ago maybe, but not anymore. as long as you can follow basic instructions and have a modicum of common sense (Which is asking a lot from the average person, I know…)
Most people are not interested in tech. To them, doing any amount of research about computers will be a chore and something they will try to avoid. They don’t care about the linux philosophy, or open source, and just want a computer that works for them as quickly as possible. So naturally they use Mac or Windows like all of their friends.
I dont give a shit about my OS.
I didnt switch cause I saw the blessed light of open source software or anything like that.
I switched cause I fucking hated Windows 10, and absolutely fucking loathe windows 11 and the direction they are taking their operating systems. and my choice was to take Windows 10/11, or to go Linux… and I went Linux.
So you can say I switched under duress
Most people don’t care about their operating system enough to switch.
Linux is free if you don’t value your time.
I spend far more time dealing with issues in Windows than I do Manjaro. I only boot my windows partition when I absolutely have to
Fewer years than I’ve been using windows. 20 years of Linux, 25 years of Windows. I personally think the stigma that Linux has is due to the past. I would agree that it was difficult at points in the past.
Fuck, I made a hackintosh and windows was still more maintenance intensive if you’re the type that doesn’t like persistent problems. Most windows users just close error windows until something completely breaks and act dumb when I have to fix their shit. One time, Windows 10 auto update broke and I have to reinstall from scratch because none of the fixes worked. I spent about 10 times longer doing trouble shooting then I would have just doing a clean reinstall.
Yup, and I’ve spent hours troubleshooting dumb fucking issues on Linux servers that often end up with me just blasting it away and starting again because the further I get into it, the more shit I find broken.
Linux is stable and repeatable, that’s why it’s great for servers. But I’ve wasted way too many hours of my life troubleshooting dumb problems that shouldn’t even be problems and often I just say fuck it and rebuild it. I don’t want to do that on my desktop thanks. Especially because sometimes I do random mindless shit. Look how Linus uninstalled his UI because he didn’t know any better. The last time I uninstalled the entire UI on windows was when converting a Server 2012 machine to server core.
But I think the bottom line is, let people use what they want.
My friend only uses arch and there’s a few games we want to play together but it doesn’t work on Linux, there’s also plenty of times we have to wait while he’s troubleshooting shit when we want to play games.
He’s an SRE with about 22 years of experience. It’s not even a skill issue.
We often jokingly say “have you tried using windows?” or “this wouldn’t happen on windows” and dumb shit like that. But he uses Arch and wr all accept that and that there are some issues and the things said are in jest. He sometimes hits us with the same shit. But overall we respect that we want different things from our PCs and I do enough of this shit at work for me to want to do anything at home besides click on some UI shit and things just work.
Its okay to be different and it’s okay if you use Linux and I use windows, bashing on about how bad it is isn’t winning any friends or favor and the general toxicity with this shit puts a lot of people off of even trying Linux.
Step 1: open “pop shop” in the task bar
Step 2: search for “Steam”
Step 3: Click download
This concludes my guide on how to download Steam on Pop!_OS.
afair they fixed and improved stuff since the video tho
- Steam was in the pop-shop at that time.
- The start up guide explains what the pop-shop is.
- Meaning Linus just ignored this user friendly option because…idk why.
That is what he did. Then when Pop Shop threw an error, he looked up other ways to install it, and ended up doing it in the terminal through apt. Though his system was not up to date, so it got messed up and he removed his DE in the process. All he needed to do was make sure to update his system after that fresh install BEFORE he started installing things.
Most conventional OS’s will notify you when you need to do this.
You’re right, I rewatched it for better context. Not a lot of detail on what he tried, it kind of just skipped forwards.
I also think it’s funny how he talks about doing everybody from a newbies perspective while using a Threadrpper and Titan PC with XLR peripherals lol
idk why.
You know why.
Do you think he’d have gotten as many eyes on the video if it went smoothly and he read what he was supposed to?
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“Eyes on the video” is usually dependent on the thumbnail, not the actual content.
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If anything I think it probably would have gotten more eyes if it came off as a viable alternative.
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Agreed. It was pretty refreshing and sobering.
I gave up a while back, and can’t really nail down what actually got me over the edge to stop watching.
Really didn’t help that the one time I checked back in, because I hadn’t seen anything from him in a bit (prior to the latest scandals), all the latest uploads was him being totally unrelatable and barely even tech-relevant while trying to heat his pool with his water cooling loop.
I ignored him for years because of his click bait video images, but then started liking him due to the scrap yard wars. But then quickly grew tired of his regular content after a couple of months with what a shill fest the entire thing was from their begging for likes to begging to buy their merch to begging for patreon.
Who cares what linus thinks he is a youtube shill.
More and more I’m starting to agree with this view, still glad he introduced me to my new laptop (framework 16) though
I heard its good the lap i mean.
I really like it so far, I look forward to using it for a long time
You got one? :o I thought the pre-purchase batches would be sent in March.
I was batch 2, it looks like the first few batches are going out at the same time, also I was lucky as I didn’t order any of the parts that were delayed
Enjoy
What a dumb take. Linus is one of the primary tech reviewers. After he got blasted by GN they got their shit together.
They’re advertisers disguised as reviewers.
They disclose their advertisements through audio and video, altough I dislike them not declaring in title whether it’s a sponsored video or review. Linus said publicly that he wonders why people don’t understand which of their videos is sponsored or not, but going by their titles it’s to be expected.
Watching their video it’s imo pretty obvious what is a review and what is
sponsoredadvertisement.Which reviewers do you find that don’t utilize advertising?
ACG on YouTube I feel does a great job at this if he’s following his publicized guidelines. He doesn’t do any sponsored content nor accept paid for trips from the gaming industry and when he receives a free copy of the game for review purposes he purchases a copy to give away to the audience. Accepting the free early copies and paying to give one away on release seems like a good compromise to ensure he can get the review out near the embargo date.
His primary skill and draw is entertainment. Tech is just what fills the gaps between shenanigans, “isn’t this cool?” and the next self-deprecating remark.
Bullshit. Linus was one of the first reviewers that didn’t say dumb stuff like “buy a really expensive motherboard and a mid range CPU” or “spend 200 dollars on a 1000Watt PSU for your 300Watt system”.
Was that in the past few years?
I watched his stuff before the GN kerfuffle . I’m not unfamiliar with the self-promotion, compound-building as content, antics or free-wheeling vids (or vids made to look that way).
Yes, even the side channel stuff.
The tech signal to total signal is… Low-ish. It’s entertaining, it’s broad in its scope, but I can find denser, deeper stuff if I care about a topic.
The tech signal to total signal is… Low-ish. It’s entertaining, it’s broad in its scope, but I can find denser, deeper stuff if I care about a topic.
I agree, but it is important to point out that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that the videos are aimed at a more mainstream audience. His videos are definitely part of what got me (and many other people) interested in tech.
The LTT stuff that’s currently coming out is high quality stuff.
After GN went off on LTT, Linus reigned in his marketing staff and gave the tech staff more time resources to properly review.
I’ll check it out. Thanks for the update.
Whenever I see Linus I feel like everything is rushed and not thought through. He barely knows what he is holding. He just doesn’t care; he has 20 more reviews he has to record today. Or something like that.
“Deal breaker! It doesn’t even do my laundry.”
That’s honestly my biggest problem with him as well. He makes such a big thing about having 900 videos a week or whatever that it just makes you think that he can’t possibly put any real effort into any of them, it’s literally not possible. Why not reduce the number videos and actually produce better quality content.
Part of the problem is that he has to be in every video or almost every video the channel producers. If you look at something like Corridor Digital they have a number of people who are regularly on camera so individuals don’t have to do a bunch of videos one after another. So each individual video gets more focus.
What’s the point in putting out a badly informed review, all it does is weaken your brand.
Part of the problem is that he has to be in every video or almost every video the channel producers.
I disagree with this argument, him being in every video doesn’t reduce the quality because the videos aren’t written by him, and the products aren’t primarily tested by him. He’s mostly serving the role of an actor/host. I guess it maybe reduces the possibility of re-recording clips, but I don’t think that’s the largest factor in a video’s quality.
That feels like a far assessment. Makes me think that he grabbed the tigger by the tail with his career and is afraid to let go.
I don’t think Linus Sebastian is worth watching during the NCIX days because he always seem like someone who would spend the least amount of effort and say whatever is popular to get the most amount of views. As you can see in this video, a lot of the criticism he made on the Fairphone are really nitpicking and isn’t fair (heh) at all.
For example, the phone thickness, which he measured with a caliper as a point, is not a metric most people outside of reviewers would care about, especially since most people puts a beefy case on their phone immediately anyways, and size is usually the main tradeoff with modularity.
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
That being said, having a long, uncut and unfiltered reaction video towards criticism by having the co-founder improv on the spot was not the smartest thing to do on Fairphone’s part. He came off as defensive and completely unprepared in the video and failed to address the criticism effectively (with some easy rebuttals if he was given even a little time to prepare) effectively, which is not great for PR.
The video could be much more effective if they cut it down to half the length with an actual script. It’s a YouTube video, there’s no reason to do it completely live and unscripted.
For the last part: I’m pretty sure it’s just his thing to do “real” things, instead of scripting, cutting it down, watching it before or anything.
I also very much got the feeling that he acted in a defensive and hurt way, but it’s his real emotion and I can understand it since Linus is bashing the phone much more than “necessary”.
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
Of course the support is great, but some other phones also achieve that without a slow and old SoC.
The Fairphone seems pretty nice in theory but the performance is pretty poor and the price is high.
Poor in comparison to what though? I know what the benchmarks say but I don’t really notice any differences between the Fairphone 5 (what I’m currently typing on) or my previous phones (Huawei Mate 10, Zenfone 6, Zenfone 8 Flip) in terms of daily driving (aside from battery maybe). I’m sure there is for gaming, but that’s the one thing I don’t use my phone for.
I haven’t used it personally but apparently it’s general usage is pretty slow.
All I can say is that has not been my experience and I am curious what exactly people think is slow about it.
I could be entirely wrong, but it seems like some people are conflating benchmarks against current flagships as the day to day experience.
The Fairphone seems pretty nice in theory but the performance is pretty poor and the price is high.
Peak performance was not a priority. I would argue most modern phones are far more powerful than is necessary for daily tasks, often at the cost of battery life.
Also their test of using nothing but a constant YouTube video playback is not reflective of real-world use. Mrwhosetheboss (terrible name BTW) does much more realistic tests.
The cost will necessarily be higher because they are not utilizing the absolute cheapest way of doing things. As stated in the video they specifically source providers who provide their workers a fair wage and sustainably-sourced materials. Hence the name.
What are people using their phones for that require such beefy processing power? I have a Fairphone 4, which presumably is slower than the Fairphone 5, and it is perfectly snappy for all my needs. Actually curious. Is it gaming?
I dunno I just heard it was slow for general usage.
But I also wonder why there exists so many phones that target mobile gaming with external fans and all that.
What games are people playing that require a special gaming phone? Switch emulation or something is the only thing I can think of.
Last I checked all mobile games ran perfectly fine on everything. I don’t really understand non-casual mobile gaming. If I want to play good games I play on a switch, steam deck, or I just wait until I get home and I play in the way I find most comfortable, i.e. using a mouse and keyboard.
Hehe yeah, mobile gaming seems awful to me as well. Never heard about external fans. Seems like going out of your way to have a sub-par gaming experience.
Asus called their fan (and sometimes water cooled I think) contraption" AeroActive Cooler [rev number here]" I think the phone opens up in some way so the fan (or water) works better. It’s pretty cool technology but seems entirely useless to me at least but I have no idea.
To me, the profile thickness is a benefit. Tiny thin phones scream “compressed electronics, overheats fast, difficult repairs”
I think the main reason for a thin phone nowadays is to have it fit in your trouser pocket. (or lack thereof). Having a flip style folding phone (as opposed to a book style) really helps.
I generally wear loose fitting pants and belt, but I can definitely see how it would conflict with tightpants fashions.
Linus is full of shit in a lot of videos
I know what phone I’ll be looking for when the piece of shit in my pocket finally dies. That maneuver where he popped the cover with a fingernail and hotswapped the battery sold me.
Hey, totally unrelated question: Didn’t linus recently take a lot of flak for shady/unfair reviewing practices?
Didn’t linus recently take a lot of flak for shady/unfair reviewing practices?
No, he took a lot of flack for rushing through them with lots of errors.
He’s trash and the people that defend him are useful idiots.
Yeah. He took flack. It was more about the completeness and accuracy of the reviews rather than being unfair… at least from what I recall.
They did a whole show of the matter, suspended uploads for a week or so, did some internal restructuring, hired a new CEO. Linus is now chief vision officer or some such nonsense.
Bluntly, I liked LTT videos more when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house, putting out a couple videos a week…
You knew the information wasn’t perfect and that was fine. It was enough to give you an impression of what to expect. They did a recent comparison that confirmed something I already knew, by taking a smattering of the “same” CPU and testing them against eachother. They found that some were quantifiably better than others. To me this was proof that all reviews are skewed. You never know which way they’ll be skewed, and it really doesn’t matter. The fact remains that all tech reviews are going to be different than personal experience. They’re also going to differ from reviewer to reviewer since, even if they’re using the “same” hardware, that hardware might be slightly faster or slower than other reviewers by a small margin. Once upon a time the hardware was so similar and the differences were so small you could effectively ignore this variance. Modern hardware is so fast that even a small variance can make a pretty significant difference to benchmark performance.
So you have to take literally everything posted as a review with a grain of salt. It’s not accurate to what you would experience buying the exact same stuff off a shelf. As lithography gets smaller and smaller the relatively minor variance will have a larger and larger impact to the final products performance.
It’s the way of things. All things. Whether it’s a car or a computer, some just roll off the line different.
I seem to recall something to the effect of “theft of a prototype:” like a custom water block or something like that he was supposed to review, and then gave a rushed, improper review, and then misplaced or in some way failed to return the prototype. IIRC.
They were sent some form of prototype cooler from a startup for a specific GPU, I believe it was LTT used a different GPU that the cooler wasn’t meant for
LTT complained the cooler was shit and didn’t work up to standard, which is to be expected when using it on something it wasn’t meant for.
And then sold the cooler at some kind of expo or show when the startup specifically asked for it.
This is mostly right, I remember this part clearly:
The water block was a custom block for both a CPU and GPU combined into one mass. It was supposed to sandwich a specific CPU series chip and a specific GPU. They used the right CPU series with it, but used the next GPU up in the series… I think it was built for a 3080 or something and they put a 4000 series on it.
They realized their mistake, even during the shoot, but Linus didn’t want to spend the time, effort and money into retesting it with the proper components, and just steamrolled ahead with the video.
After all that, their team neglected to return the prototype promptly, and took months to even properly communicate with the manufacturer. During those months they held some kind of gathering, either LTX or one of their LANs, and during the event someone suggested the prototype water block for the silent auction, and Linus agreed, so they auctioned it off and gave the money to charity.
There was some drama about it, and Linus did his usual thing of speaking before thinking and digging his grave even further, then eventually made a public apology. They committed to paying the full price for the prototype, well above $20k, if I recall, so that the company could have a new one created.
when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house
Much of the recent criticism relates specifically to toxic/bro culture and a work culture that encouraged cutting corners, mistakes, and burnout. I’m not sure what was going on in the house behind the scenes was a model of a professional workplace.
They did a whole show of the matter, suspended uploads for a week or so, did some internal restructuring, hired a new CEO. Linus is now chief vision officer or some such nonsense.
He hired the CEO a few months prior to that so that they could deal with running the company while he focused on content creation.
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When they ditched the headphone jack fairphone ditched environmentalism.
The fairphone 3+ was their last fair phone.
It’s just another cheap phone now. Made in the same place from the same stuff as other makers, with maybe a year of extra security updates.
They started by doing stuff differently, now they do things the same as everyone else and want to pretend they’re different.
It’s still a modular, repairable phone. That’s objectively different to a regular phone. Not to mention the broad support for ROMs.
I still wouldn’t buy one because of the cost, reduced performance, reduced battery life, and worse screen than other phones. It’s not worth it even if it’s upgradable as it can’t be upgraded enough to stay relevant forever anyway unlike a framework where you can plop in a new motherboard.
Sounds like you didn’t watch the video
I disagreed with the video.
Sounds like you’re too keen to spout fallacies as if you’re in a debating match rather than engaging in a discussion.
I’m stating my point because you contradict the video not because you don’t agree with it.
If the lack of jack stock is a deal breaker for you, then it’s a deal breaker for you. From what I see, they still make phones that are great if not among the best performing phones out there, then they are great in other ways, as explained in the video.
The lack of ethics and increase in waste is a deal breaker for me.
They’re not the best performing. They’re generally slow. Other phones objectively perform better.
Not only did the fairphone 4 ditch a feature I needed and would prevent waste in general for many.
It also caused my housemate who owned one no end of issues with every update. Bluetooth dropouts, touchscreen glitches.
Issues with the camera.
Issues with the microphone
Slow charging.
He’s a beta tester and he’s paid a premium for it.
Support from fairphone has basically been pathetic.
It’s hilarious how many supporters of this company are. It must be like the phenomenon of car drivers supporting public transport. They’re hoping everyone else buys a fairphone.
As they’re not even the most environmentally friendly phone it’s all a bit silly.
Which part of the video talks about the audiojack? I must’ve missed it.
I’m refering to the part about a phone being great on other parameters than just stuff that few users find valuable. They talked bout it when it comes to gaming.
You are wrong but I feel like arguing with you is pointless so carry on.
Ew, who still watches LTT?
More people than are active on Lemmy
That’s
…
SAD BUT TRUUUUE, YEEA
YEAHEAH!
Lol, that bar is not too high though.
insert Roblox oof sound
Linus simply isn’t the target audience for this phone. He says he’s onboard with their mission and everything, but then makes points that aren’t relevant to their mission. Also, if a company as dedicated to their mission as FairPhone (or so they claim, I haven’t personally checked) can make a phone like this, then probably the reason other companies make better phones is really because they don’t care about ethics and morals but cold hard cash.
The point is; he wants a Framework-like approach to modularity and feature set. That means a phone that’s good enough to actually holds its own without retreating to being “ethical” or “modular.”
Fairphone is just the worst deal you can get even if you consider the ethical side of it. This is because rescuing an old phone gives you a much better experience for less than half the cost and keeping tech from the landfill is a lot more ecologically friendly as the work and sourcing was already done regardless of you purchasing the device.
The point is; he wants a Framework-like approach to modularity and feature set. That means a phone that’s good enough to actually holds its own without retreating to being “ethical” or “modular.”
Even Google failed at that and he’s expecting a cash-strapped startup to do so better and ethically at that too? He’s naive, ignorant, or both.
Fairphone is just the worst deal you can get even if you consider the ethical side of it.
It is not, if you buy a new phone. Then it’s ethically better to buy a FairPhone. If all companies were held to the ethical standards of FairPhone, then we could talk about performance, but if you care more about performance than ethics, that’s your deal.
Nice, cc in case this gets hoovered up into a llm?
You got it! 👍
The only LTT review I’m interested in is a review of the culture in the workplace.
I hope Madison is doing OK today.
Hurts so bad to get your 1 in 1000000 dream job to get sexually harassed out of it.
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Odly specific
Fuck Lingus. Who cares what he thinks about anything?
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12 yo’s, probably.
A lot of men who think they are techies because they game or something but really aren’t.
Honestly it’s funny to watch WAN and see him melt down over obvious trolls in chat. Makes me feel a lot better about my own emotional stability.
Don’t know what you’re talking about.
Though I actually did finally listen to Linus’s review. Minus a few stupid things like “it’s too thick” or “I don’t like where the SIM slot is”, I think I mostly agree with him. It seem like the software at least has some major issues if he is to be believed.
It is a little annoying to have to reboot the phone to switch micro SD cards
It’s quite annoying for me, (when i had an sd card slot) i pulled my card and moved files back and forth a lot because androids “file server” is ass at transferring more than a couple things. WiFi transferring is okay but i don’t like having to constantly map files to an ftp or smb so i can access them quickly, i know I’m in the minority on this but really accessible hot swap storage is super important to me. Most of my drives are removable in my main computer so i can toss them in my bag with my laptop and take what i need with me. My v20 had 2 sd cards tucked into it’s case so i could swap between a (retro)rom library, music library, or run system backups to the 3rd.
I actually agree with him on the thickness, especially since I’d put the phone in a case which would add even more girth. It makes it less pocketable, and more importantly less easy to handle. My thumb can’t easily reach all the way across the screen on my current, similarly sized and thinner phone already and the added few millimetres from the case do make it noticeably worse.
It’s not the major thing that’s keeping me away from the Fairphone (I’m just not the target demographic), but certainly isn’t a point in it’s favour.
I agree with a lot of the points LTT had, I was pretty excited for this video when I saw it. But the response was just complaing and excuses instead of just being nice and simple “here’s the issue you had, We can either fix it, or can’t for these reasons…”
Yeah, I was expecting something like “Yeah, this is an issue, we know. It’s that way because we had to make a trade-off to enable …” but it was mostly just lame excuses or just talking about something entirely unrelated to the point being made.
Like the thickness of the device and bezels. Just accept it, the FP is thicc. It’s a conscious trade-off you made. Be open about it. Don’t whine about measuring with the camera bump included (if anything, measuring from the bump gives the FP an advantage since its bump isn’t as thic as others?). If the bezels are a little thicker than the competition, just state why that is (i.e. to make it easier to replace).
Had to stop watching after that or I would have died of cringe.
for sure. I managed to power through but it didnt get better at all
