Fairphone 5: A Coutionary Tale for a "Repairable" Device

[Futura]

As a member who resides in the USA I had no choice to purchase my device on an alternative market as the supplier refuses to even ship to the USA even when you offer to pay adequately for it. This is a key part of my story that we will circle back to...

Flashing the device is straightforward as any other unlocked android phone that does not require some propiatary nonsense as some do. After testing several operating systems I decided I was going to test /e/OS as these devices are sold with the OS from Murena I assumed that it would be well supported. This was a fatal error on my part.

My /e/OS installer completely froze during the install process and it appeared to happen after the recovery images were flashed and the device rebooted to them. No problem, I'll reboot to the bootloader and just re-flash. I powered the device off and that was the last time my 3 month old Fairphone 5 operated in any capacity.

My device is now stuck in what is called EDL mode, this requires a special cable and possibly connecting to pins on the mainboard to reflash. If I lived in the EU, and purchased it from Fairphone this would likely be covered under warranty, that is far from the case.

This is where the bigger issues with Fairphone come into play:
This device is marketed as "easy to disassemble and repair with just a screwdriver" or something to that affect. The problem is Fairphone will not sell a new mainboard, and say its due to IMEI number changes.
What good is a device you can easily repair if you can not purchase the parts to do so?

One would also think that you can buy this cable it is from qualcomm due to the chipset of the phone and just restore it yourself. That is another issue that goes back to Fairphone as well. They will not release the "firehose" files that could restore my phone back to a working state. Not very "fair" if you ask me.

If something breaks on your phone there is one facility in France that you need to send the device to (that is if you have a EU address) to get it repaired. That is no better than any other device that you can not take apart.

As a technician that has worked primarily in the PC market but also cell repairs for 30 years these seem like company policies are not very repair friendly when we look at customer facing repairs. Supplying parts is a bare minimum requirement to repair anything.

Where does that leave my device? The rep that I chatted with this morning said their system will not even process a repair unless you have a EU address as its apparently "tied togther". The repair itself (mind you this is connecting a cable to my device and flashing a file) were talking 5 mins TOPS is in the ballpark of $46 USD. That hinges entirely on me having a EU address though.

I honestly thing Fairphone is a step in the right direction, but if your thinking of getting into one assuming its actually a repairable device, think again.

EDIT: I forgot my favourite part!

I bought my device on Ebay from the seller "macromart_uk" and the device was listed as new. My guess is macromart_uk repacks these because during my chat with the fairphone rep they informed me that the previous owner of the device I bought "new" had it diagnosed as an issue with the mainboard. I had them verify the IMEI again and it looks like my new device that I paid a premium for was indeed not new at all.

Word of caution to anyone out there thinking no returns is fine because the device is new, its probably not ok.

[wgarcia]

@Futura Sad to hear about this. If you had any acquaintance living in the EU may be you could do it with an intermediary.

In my case I had to only change the screen, and that worked as expected, just the part from them and a screwdriver.

[Futura]

@wgarcia
Thanks, glad to hear something might be repairable. Were you able to buy the replacement parts direct from fairphone?

I can hire a post redirection service, thing is I can get a refurb oneplus n10 or similiar device for less it would likely cost in shipping, plus whatever is going on with this tariff nonsense would hit me again.

Even if I went through with all that, I would still have a device that has a mainboard issue that FP will not replace or sell me a new one.

[kugiigi]

Sadly, this is the reality for us who buy devices that aren't officially supported in our region regardless if it's very repairable or not.

I actually didn't know they don't sell mainboards. That's good to know so I will have to avoid any damage to it
I would assume the IMEI is a legal thing that they have to comply?

In any case, I hope you still find a way to fix it. I think someone in the community has the tool and capability to do this. Not sure where they live though.

[wgarcia]

@Futura To be fair, one has to say that they clearly state in their web page what parts they have for replacement. Not too many, apart from the screen, from memory, the USB port, the camera and the USB port. But those are the ones that break most frequently, at least for me.

[gpatel-fr]

@Futura

FYI a repair guide exists for the Fairphone and the word 'EDL' appear in a schema so finding the points on the motherboard to trigger this mode is probably doable. Knowing how to use it is another story of course. The 'special cable' is also proposed on the Internet but it seems expensive

[mango]

Does this mean a new cheap 12-16GB RAM USB3.0 display out easy to remove bootloader blocking device has to be ported sooner than soon? Seems like Fairphone 5 monopoly is slowly forming.

[Futura]

@kugiigi
Right, this is the reality of living outside of the serviceable area, I had not anticipated the parts to not be sold at all though.

Yes, they have to comply with EU law with IMEI thing, I don't see how buying a device with a new IMEI differs at all from buying a part with a new IMEI can they not just register it the exact same way. Its activated and registered that way with my mobile carrier.

Thanks, I am looking into a parcel forwarding service, I had fully accepted the fact that I am outside of the service area and my warranty would be void. That is not at all what my issue is with this situation. Its the whole we are not going to supply the part that has CPU/RAM/Storage soldered to it and is the common failure point of internal electronics.

@gpatel-fr
I went down the rabbit hole as far as setting up a Win10 VM, UBS pass through, installing the qualcomm drivers, booting windows into test mode and having the device (qualcomm low level firmware) fully recognized via type-c to type-c cable.
Main issue is, as you said figuring out how to use that tool, and needing the files to flash onto the device which Fairphone does not supply to anyone aside from the repair facility. At least from what I have read with anyone posing about their FP5 stuck in EDL mode.

Basically the /e/OS corrupted the bootloader and recovery partitions on the device and its stuck in a low level emergency flash state from my rough understanding.