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 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.
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?
Its gaming. I asked this in an old thread before and the response was gaming and emulation. Which is fair if you want the latest and greatest, but general usage on my fairphone 4 is snappy and fine so idk. I dont do gaming on my phone though :)
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.
Fairphone 4 is not slow for general usage, but for gaming it can be slow depending on the load, ye.
Gamecube emulation would be slower than latest and greatest, but those soc’s only have 4 years of support, and thats not up to fairphone’s standardsJust like any hardware, it all depends what you use it for and what your requirements are.
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
You are wrong but I feel like arguing with you is pointless so carry on.
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.
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
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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 don’t care what fairphone or Linus says. They got rid of the headphone jack. A “modular” phone my ass.
The second biggest dealbreaker for me after the small battery.
Ok, they have a USB-C to jack dongle, but guess what USB-C port’s wearout is the reason I was looking for a new phone in the first place.
Port wearout, isn’t that a good reason for a repairable phone?
I don’t know much about the fair phone I do remember a day when cellphone batteries were user replaceable and back then you could get third party larger batteries with larger cases. Is that available for the fair phone?
I’ve got a list of must haves for phones and that is on it. Obviously nothing has met my list in years.
The USB-C pulling double duty for an audio port means it wears out faster. If the port needs replacement sooner, then that goes against their e-waste reduction goals. But look, they have ear buds!
Great, more batteries, more points of failure. Simple is best. I want my wired headphones.
So I could choose, get replecement parts for my current phone (charging board + battery) for 40 eur. Or get a new fairphone for 700 eur, downgrading my battery by 40% and throwing away a functional phone.
Really wish c wasn’t the standard. Breaks so easily
I don’t know what are you doing with your phones. I have never witnessed someone wearing out a USB Type-C port.
Anyway, if you want to be upset at someone, the implementators of USB standards are: Apple, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Renesas Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments.
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ITT people mad at Linus for pointing out all the reasons the phone wouldn’t appeal to a mass market audience
Lemmy as usual disregarding pragmatism to be as dogmatic as possible
“You mean people DONT like a thick, heavy phone with a garbage camera and poor battery life? Well obviously, everyone else is wrong”
Whatever you wanna say about the fairphone, LTT shouldn’t have any say in the review industry after their back-to-back lying to the public AND sexual harassment debacles. They’ve been sleazy for years, taking money from companies they claim to review impartially, and twisting everything into a meme factory instead of putting the tiniest amount of effort into quality reviews and tech journalism.
Linus is absolutely the last guy you should be listening to on anything unless he’s explaining how he managed to salvage his reputation after covering up toxic and predatory workplace behaviour and still coming out the other side a multimillionaire.
back-to-back lying to the public
What?
sexual harassment debacles
… that none of which ended up in the court let alone confirmed. That’s an allegation, not something proven.
They’ve been sleazy for years, taking money from companies they claim to review impartially, and twisting everything into a meme factory instead of putting the tiniest amount of effort into quality reviews and tech journalism.
Straight up one of the points GN made. Which they really did improve upon. They don’t pump out as much content now, as well as generally higher quality content again.
salvage his reputation after covering up toxic and predatory workplace behaviour
:D
coming out the other side a multimillionaire.
Guy created and ran a YouTube channel, expanded it to be a media company. Hosts a forum, sells high quality merchandise (you can look up the coverage of their bag or screwdrivers from places like project farm). Also runs a premium video hosting and live streaming service for creators. That’s what we call “earned it.”
This comment just reeks of toxicity, rather than criticism.
Phones don’t use much energy. I’m not getting the “efficiency” thing for wireless charging. Even new standards are basically the same.
This CEO sounds like he has no idea what he’s talking about
Energy lost as heat during the power transmission. It’s what makes the phones warm during wireless charging. That heat decreases the lifespan of the battery and makes the phone uncomfortable to use, which is why wireless charging speed is limited once the phone reaches a certain temperature. I specifically avoid using wireless charging on my Pixel to extend its battery lifespan since it will live for 7 years and battery replacement is expensive. New wireless charging standards could probably play with frequency and other parameters in order to reduce energy lost as heat, similar to how increasing the voltage in a circuit decreases loss to heat for the same cables.
Yes but that’s mostly relevant when using fast wireless charging. Slow wireless charging doesn’t get that hot. And it reduces friction on the USB port.
Furthermore this phone has a swappable battery so it would be fixable if the battery degraded
I can think of reasons to not to include wireless charging such as repairability. The efficiency is bs as people can still charge wired if they want to.
i’ve got a samsung chargepad thing, it has a builtin little cute fan (internal, not blowing on the phone) - the phone is elevated, laying on a lip so it does not have direct contact. it’s always cool to the touch even tho it charges relatively quick (80% charge limit tho)
Maybe so, but you’ve lost energy to making that heat, now you’re spending more energy to remove it. Ergo, efficiency.
Something can be technically correct. Efficiency.
And not matter at all because phones don’t need any real amount of power.
Not when it’s explicitly defined.
And did you just call a 70% efficient device (staggeringly low by engineering practices in even the 60s) a negligible amount of power? Do you have even the remotest inkling of just how many billions of these chips are produced annually? Assuming only 0.1% will go in phones with wireless charging and that they will only be used for that year, we are talking about an enormous quantity of energy that is wasted. It would be enough energy to push the earth into the sun.
You’re being very dismissive about something you obviously have no real experience in, and there would be nothing wrong with not knowing something if you weren’t making claims simultaneously. Efficiency is a well known, inarguably defined, rigorously studied, timelessly practiced, design concept that the CEO has an obvious working knowledge of. There is no “alternative truth” that is being ignored here, only ones that should be.
Oof, so much hate when confronted with the simple fact that over the course of a phone’s life, wireless charging doesn’t have more than a slight negative impact. And one that isn’t going to be noticed by 99% of users. They will notice the convenience wireless brings though.
But continue to cry from your basement.
No hate. Just annoyed. But you’d probably be annoyed too if I insisted on my uninformed opinions about selling herbalife.
ah, so thats why my solar panels are crying
I guess airflow especially between the phone and the pad could mitigate the heat. I see some charging pads integrate this now.
I specifically avoid using wireless charging on my Pixel to extend its battery lifespan
You shouldn’t bother. I exclusively charge my Pixels wirelessly and keep them around forever as development devices and the batteries on all of them are fine.
The long and short of the lower efficiency of wireless charging is a concept called Free Space Loss
In order for energy to pass through an open space it has to use some energy. Unlike a cable where the pins are contacting and the loss is far lower.
Yes but it’s not massive amounts.
Phones use practically no energy compared to PC’s laptops, washing machines etc.
And if people want that level of charging efficiency… The USB C port still exists…
My latest phone is a xiaomi note 12. It has 120 watt charging and I never knew I’d love this so much! 0 to 100% in 30 min. No need to plan charging any more. Just give it 10 min and you’re good to go. Charging efficiency is maybe the greatest feature I look for now, besides connectivity
That’s not efficiency, that’s speed. I charging efficiency is your charger drawing 35W and your phone only getting charged with 30W.
Honestly, in the best of circumstances, it would be closer to only 20 W getting to the phone by today’s standards.
Yes and no, 120W charging wouldn’t be possible if the electronics in the phone weren’t quite efficient, because there would be too much heat generated.
You are probably right. It’s efficient for me though. I get a lot more charge per minute wasted waiting for it to charge. But it may not be the scientific term of efficiency
But it may not be the scientific term of efficiency
Otherwise known as, “efficiency”
But it may not be the scientific term of efficiency
Ah, yes, “alternative facts.”
Maybe say convenient instead.
I think they meant to say it’s time efficient for them, not that the phone is energy efficient.
The framework laptop is not handicapped in terms of performance nearly as much and has a much more reasonable price for what you get idk what you’re talking about
I don’t watch LTT anymore thanks to Gamers Nexus. I was shopping for a new graphics card for my mother’s desktop and I did see the confusing inconsistencies they were talking about in at least one video.
It just seemed like an improvement to switch to AMD from Nvidia ever since she switched to Linux. I’ll watch this later!
