Comment by benrutter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benrutter | Hacker News Reader

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I guess maybe if the comparison you're looking at is the one you mentioned? Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.

That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things): - USB charger broke after getting mortar in it - Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen - Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!) - Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.

If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.

So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.

Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.

Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.

Many repair shops will replace your screen and battery for you. It’s pretty standard. You don’t need a Fair phone to do that.

A friend of mine had a broken finger print reader (a few cents online), he couldn't find any repair shop who wanted to repair it (probably because the display would have to removed).

I don't know about Android phones but how often does FaceID/TouchID break? I'd bet it's extremely rare.

I personally don't think it's worth it to buy a Fair phone for the extremely low chance that a component breaks and you can't get it repaired.

> I personally don't think it's worth it to buy a Fair phone for the extremely low chance that a component breaks and you can't get it repaired.

I might be misreading you, but this comes across a little like "that one use case doesn't prove you need a fairphone so don't buy a fairphone".

I don't think most people are evaluating tech like that. Only a zealot is going to consider a fairphone as the only option, they probably are looking at a bunch of criteria and options.

There's no correct answer to "what phone should I buy?" in a way that could be proven / argued for. I think people here are just saying fairphones have great repairability.

That's true-ish. The repairability of phones varies a lot, with some even having batteries glued into the model.

If you're just considering repairability, a fairphone is almost certainly one of your best options. But like you point out, that doesn't mean all other options can't be repaired at all.

But for Fairphone repairs you don't even need a repair shop.

> Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.

That's a fallacy. By buying second hand, you enable the second hand market (people get better prices for selling their first hand phones). There are users who always buy the latest iPhones (or other flagship device) and sell their previous one. In effect you, as a second hand buyer, use the devices in the second part of their full lifetime, the first buyer uses the device in the first part. The device is used the full duration of its usability, which is good, but it's not better than if the first buyer would use it for the full duration. Nothing is saved overall.

> That’s a fallacy.

> Nothing is saved overall.

This might be the most ridiculous POV of the second-hand market I’ve ever read.

There’s definitely some people who are buying new phones purely because they are ok with eating the difference between the new phone’s cost price and the old one’s sale price. I’m certain that’s a tiny niche of the entire market. And there’s the even smaller niche that actually use their phone till its very last breath. On the other hand, there’s an immeasurably larger part of the new phone market, formed of people who just buy a new phone anyways when they feel like it and leave the old one in their drawer.

Source: User surveys and research I conducted in another life

> Nothing is saved overall.

This is not true. You're missing that, if there is no second-hand market, phones get an early, premature grave, meaning more e-waste.

Imagine there are 10 million people in the world and they all want a phone. 1 million neophiles only ever want the latest phone, released yearly. The other 9 million are luddites who are OK with a second-hand phone. All phones last exactly 10 years before failing, and never become obsolete or damaged.

No second-hand market allowed: 1.9m phones sold per year, 1.9m discarded.

Neophiles buy and discard 1m phones (into the dump with 9 years of life left). Luddites buy and discard 900,000 phones (they have no second-hand market to buy from, so they buy new phones, but they use them for full 10 years instead of just 1, so the 9 million only buy/discard 900,000 phones per year on average).

Second-hand market allowed: 1m phones sold per year, 1m discarded. 900,000 less!

Neophiles buy 1m new phones but sell their old phones to luddites, discarding none. Luddites then use them for 9 more years before discarding. There are 9 million luddites with 9 years of phone use meaning they need an average of 1m second-hand phones per year, which happens to be how many are on the market thanks to the neophiles.

> Second hand normally beats everything else

Well, also buying out-of-production new phones (i.e. 1 or 2 gen behind) it's saving phones to be e-waste without having been used even once. Although I guess that companies manage stocks also with this signal in mind, so a 2nd-hand is always better.

Not sure that's valid; in my experience Samsung phones are fairly repairable* and have spare parts available worldwide. Guessing Fairphone parts are much more limited.

* probably much more fiddly than a fairphone though

Can't speak to availability outside of Europe, but parts are sold by the manufacturer directly for fairphone, so they're very easy to get hold of if you can buy a fairphone in the first place.

Me saying "a samsung" probably isn't helpful since different models vary. Here's some ratings and detail of repairing major smartphone models though if you're interested: https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit...

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