so you need a dongle for the DAC, and an additional dongle for charging that is also, if I recall it correctly, violates the USB-C standard. did I understand it correctly?

Thank you, this is huge!

I was very, sad to miss out on the entire Fairphone 5 generation, but I gave up and bought a Pixel 8 when they announced the 5 wont be coming any time soon.

Finally I can get a phone that's worth buying (and earbuds as I see they carry the fairbuds now)

You are genuinely the first person I've seen online who understands screen size != Phone size, because bezels exist and are different sized from phone to phone.

My current 6.3" screen phone is virtually identical in size to the 4.2" one I had in 2012.

Plus I don't want to have a dingle I can forget when in a rush.

Just have the dongle permanently attached to your earbuds like it's a part of the cable.

That means the audio still goes through another DAC, lowering the sound quality, compared to an analog 3.5 jack. Also, who wants to further risk wearing out\vreaking their charge port, jack inputs almost seem like they can't break.

You'd ultimately be sacrificing battery size for that Aux jack you hardly use. For most that's not worth it

Probably not a popular thing to say on here, but I think you’ve lost the battle for the earphone jack. It probably just requires way too much real estate to be practical on a modern day cell phone.

Technically it only goes through 1 dac, not "another one". But still, yeah, your phone's dac is most likely a lot better than the one on a $10 adapter. However, the usb-c spec does allow an analog audio signal passthrough. Whether that's available or not depends on the phone I guess.

Honestly, I don't really get the people who complain about the lack of 3.5mm jack on a smartphone. If you're looking for quality you're more likely to get better quality out quality USB-C headphones than quality 3.5mm headphones due to the USB-C headphones picking up less noise and having its own DAC (which is probably better than the phone DAC that 3.5mm would use).

EDIT: I would've been surprised if this take wasn't controversial. But I guess it's a good example how the fediverse is not a leftist echo chamber. You have a loud minority complaining about not being able to use a century old technology that the vast majority in the mobile space has moved away from and any compromise on what you want is unacceptable. That's about as conservative as you can get.

Let me expand, as I usually deal with surveys and population feedback. There's loud feedback, and there's statistically significant feedback.

People who want a headphone jack are very loud. They will interject this issue into every feedback opportunity given. They will mention it on the comment sections, forums, q&a sessions, answer their surveys accordingly, etc. That's all fine and their prerogative.

However, when you look at the statistics. They are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population. They are not statistically significant for decision making. They don't have the volume to move sales significantly. This sucks, of course, and I personally wouldn't mind the return of headphone jacks, smaller phones and bigger batteries as a fair trade for thicker phones.

But unfortunately, the vast majority of the market is pre-occupied with other things. The phone screen is too small, the phone weights too much, the phone is too thick, I want to bring my phone to the pool without fear of it breaking, etc. They are not as passionate about it, not like the headphone people are, but they far outnumber them in several orders of magnitude. In the end, if the product doesn't sell, it won't matter how much it was worth to a single passionate person. It will sink the company if it doesn't have mass appeal. Making phones is already an extremely expensive endeavor.

Okay, I'm going to ask... why don't you use wireless?

Edit: some results are in, and the only reasonable answer is better audio quality, although that's probably no longer true. The rest are fairly weak reasons.

Lol'd at the 10m extension cord though, thanks for that one.

Compared to the Fairphone 5 it has some improvements but also a few downsides:

Pro:

• It's a bit smaller (~4mm) and lighter (~20g)
• Slightly better camera (future tests will tell how much better)
• 120 Hz display
• More RAM and storage (although I feel that the previous 6GB/128GB option was also sufficient for most users)
• WiFi 6E Tri-Band (however you will likely never need this speed)
• Bluetooth 5.4
• Slightly larger battery

Con:

• Backpanel now requires a screwdriver
• Display has less resolution/PPI
• Performance of processor will likely be nearly identical to predecessor (however it's more efficient and modern)
• Downgrade to USB 2
• 600€

My conclusion:
Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice.
Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong.
600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.

I've never met someone that cared about a thinner phone, they've been too thin since 2015..

People that want their ducking hradphine jacks? They are everywhere.

Compared to the Fairphone 5 it has some improvements but also a few downsides:

Pro:

• It's a bit smaller (~4mm) and lighter (~20g)
• Slightly better camera (future tests will tell how much better)
• 120 Hz display
• More RAM and storage (although I feel that the previous 6GB/128GB option was also sufficient for most users)
• WiFi 6E Tri-Band (however you will likely never need this speed)
• Bluetooth 5.4
• Slightly larger battery

Con:

• Backpanel now requires a screwdriver
• Display has less resolution/PPI
• Performance of processor will likely be nearly identical to predecessor (however it's more efficient and modern)
• Downgrade to USB 2
• 600€

My conclusion:
Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice.
Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong.
600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.

Worth noting buying a second hand phone is still better in every aspect and sadly 2nd hand Samsung from 3 years ago is still better and cheaper. Though Fairphone is getting closer with each release!

This is thing with not understanding how statistics work. The point is that your personal experience is biased.

These people are not passionate about phone thickness. They won't start or even have conversations about it. Specially since, for the most part, the companies are already catering to their tastes. But, if placed in front of a survey and asked to rank phone features by their importance for their purchase decisions, the overwhelming majority will rank other phones features way above a headphone jack. Most people on the planet are not audiophiles, and the majority of people perceive wires as an annoyance and an inconvenience.

That is the point of surveying and market research. To check with the actual potential buyers what is worth making. Of course it isn't a guarantee, looking here at the recent flop of the Samsung Edge. But otherwise, a single person's perception of the market will never be complete or accurate.

Was really hoping to see a Fairphone 6a. Similar to the Google Pixel Series.
Just a cheap version of it.
I really don't need 120Hz, OLED or "No Bezels" all i want is big battery and a headphone jack that is all.