this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
172 points (96.2% liked)

Android

28190 readers
126 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.

2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.

4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.

5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.

6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.

7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.

8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.

Community Resources:

We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.

Our Partner Communities:

!android@lemmy.ml

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world
Rooki@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
L3s@lemmy.world
_MoveSwiftly@lemmy.world
172
The Fairphone 5 released, is the sleekest repairable phone yet (www.androidpolice.com)
submitted 1 year ago by DannyMac@lemmy.world to c/android@lemmy.world
92 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Two years after the Fairphone 4 and following the release of some audio products like the Fairbuds XL, the Dutch company is back with a new repairable phone: the Fairphone 5. It looks and feels a lot like the Fairphone 4, but it adds choice upgrades across the board, making it the most modular and also most modern-looking repairable phone from the company yet.

The design is largely unchanged compared to the Fairphone 4, but the improvements that the company did make go a long way: The teardrop notch and the LCD screen is finally gone, with an ordinary punch-hole selfie and an OLED taking its place. Otherwise, you’re looking at an aluminum frame, a triangular camera array, and a removable back cover. Here, the company brought back its signature translucent back cover next to two black and blue variants. The dimensions and weight has been reduced ever-so-slightly compared to the predecessor.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can you elaborate on why? Like, I'm not surprised, I just am not involved in this space enough to know why.

[–] ceuk@feddit.uk 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Proprietary drivers/firmware. Basically makes it impossible/very hard to develop custom ROMs/operating systems (the lack of openness makes it super hard to extend/modify/verify the software running on these chips).

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The drivers are well separated via HAL so you can absolutely make custom ROMs/OSes without changing those. The Android OS has way more code above the HAL layer than below. You can't however arbitrarily update the Linux kernel, modify the drivers or fix security issues found, beyond the security support window provided by Qualcomm.

[–] rah@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

you can absolutely make custom ROMs/OSes

You can't however arbitrarily update the Linux kernel

So you can't make free software OSes.

[–] rah@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
  1. Manufacturers (e.g., Qualcomm, Samsung) won't return your call unless you buy in huge quantities, hundreds of thousands or millions of units.
  2. Lack of documentation.
  3. Information restricted by NDA.
  4. Non-free binaries required for lots of hardware.
  5. Generally lording over the market and exploiting their position, to the degree of anti-competitiveness, and as a consequence artificially extending the rein of non-free software in the mobile domain.
  6. Astonishingly poor quality of engineering.
[–] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Are there any better alternatives? The only ones I'm aware of off the top of my head would be Samsung's Exynos, Kirin, and MediaTek. From the little experience I have in the space it always struck me as Qualcomm being the least shitty option, not necessarily the best.