Fairphone Is Finally Selling Its Repairable Phone in the US

(The company is also teasing its next-generation Fairbuds 2 wireless earbuds, launching later this year, which it says set “a new bar for repairability and performance.”)

I wish they could figure out a type of earbuds that wouldn’t require batteries. Sadly, it seems that technology is either unachievable or lost to time.

Do wired usb-c headphones not exist? Don’t get me wrong, I hate that everyone has dropped the jack and buds can fuck right off, but they’re just advertising those buds as an adjacent product, they’re not locking anyone in.

The big problem for me is that there is only one port, so you can ether listen to something, or, charge the phone, not both. Just having two ports would solve this.

Also, not something I really care about but a lot of people do, the headphone jack is an analog output, where as the USB-C is a digital output, and you need an analog signal to run a speaker. So they need to have their own DACs (Digital-Analog converter), and many of the USB-C headphones have poor quality DACs that loose detail. Used to be the DAC was just in the phone, and was generally of good quality.

Do you have evidence for the Apple USB-C DAC, that is about 10€, losing details over commonly built-in DAC with in ear monitors? That is not my experience nor have I found any reviews reporring that.

Depending on the headphone you want to use, that dongle is insufficient. My kiwi ears astrals sound worse with it and the koss ksc75 are rather quiet. This is with the EU version of the dongle, which has half the power of the US version.

It’s also another damn thing you need to carry around and that can break. There’s no reason not to include a headphone jack. Stop defending greedy design decisions that actively screw you over, it makes you look quite dumb.

I have yet see the need to use iems with excessive power requirements where they end up “rather quiet”, my Kiwi dongle DAC can blow my ears out if I were to long for it. If you do have a need for that, just upgrade the DAC to your extraordinarily high power reqirements. Lighter sized DACs pack a much stronger punch and can facilitate your early deafness if that is your preference. USB-C gives you that flexibility. All of those solutions are perfectly portable, you also don’t need to carry a separate part, just keep it connected.

I am not defending a"greedy decision", the only downside for most people is a bit more wear on the USB-C port and that is a minor issue given how reasonably priced the replacement part is and how easy it is to install.

The ksc75 is not an IEM. You’re also mentioning a completely different (and more expensive) dongle than the one in the comment I reolied to.

And no, more wear on the usb-c port is not the only downside. In some places (e.g. where I live), you simply can’t buy most dongles. I always have to travel or import stuff. You also have one more thing that you need to buy, carry around and that can break.

Stop being a corpo simp. Makes you look dumb.

The kiwi dongle is pretty much the same price as the apple dongle, about 10 EUR. More powerful DACs in the lighter format are more expensive but they are also more powerful than what you’d usually find in a phone with headphone jack.

Yes, the ksc75 is not an IEM, I had to look it up. I was only talking about IEMs before.

In the age of the internet buying DACs is a non issue.

Where I am right now it costs 23EUR which isn’t that much less than the cost of the ksc75. I don’t think that making a dongle requirement is ok. Specially when there’s literally nothing stopping manufacturers from including it.

In the age of the internet buying DACs is a non issue

You clearly don’t know much about the customs processes and restrictions in other countries then.