Maybe it’s the wrong place to ask this question. Anyway I’m asking myself from the date that the murena one was launch this question: where this phone is build, who is it’s manufacturor/constructor.
Leaving big tech is from me a objevtive and thanks to /e/ i think everyone can do it. But what about ethic conserning phone itself and it’s constrction process. Fairphone is a big step forward conserning this point but what about murena one? Is it fair? Who build it? Is it respectfull from workers and for environnement?
Well, this post is going to be in a grayzone.
Upfront:
“I don’t want to discus specific political topics and I also don’t want to give any examples of human right violation nor do I want getting replies containing such.”
But where else could I address this Topic? its concerning /e/ foundation and Murena.
Why has the Murena One to be a “china” Phone (rumors) ?
I do really like my Gigaset GS290 with /e/ OS and the whole Idea and ecosystem of /e/. It is great to see that the store has plenty Fairphones, Terracubes and refurbished ones. But how does the Murena One fit into this sustainability / “better world” paradigm?
Since there are lot arguments about buying in China also the argument it doesn’t matter which phone because it is none the less produced there.
No, it does matter.
/e/ is about to change the world for good. Thats why I also donate via Patreon.
But why for instances had the Gigaset been dropped to be replaced by a Chinaphone? Gigasets are in the same perfomance category (Gigaset - Yes, it has some “made in China”-parts but a growing amount of its manufacturing is done in europe again.)
Sure the price for the alledged Coolpad is lower but it comes at a “non-financial” cost.
Is there at least a point that the /e/ foundation can assure work safety and labour rights for the Murena One phone manufacturing?
edit: this post was its own topic but has been moved into this thread by the mod.
I think you raise some considerable questions there.
I also think that privacy should not come at cost of sustainability / repairability and working conditions in production should be considered as well.
My wild guess would be that there are still some people who cant afford most Murena devices. But still /e/ already managed to solve this problem by offering refurbished phones and also adding the Terracube to the Murena shop, so I cant make sence of it either
In Germany recently another sustainable repairable line of phones called the rephone was launched by a big mobile service provider, which is also not that pricey as recent Fairphone models (~€400). So from my perspective sustainable phones are on the rise as more and more customers and also manufacturers realize that this must be the future.
For my point of view I prefer buy a fairphone instead of murena one typically if the phone is made in china with no labour right or things like that.
Maybe the right way is to keep colaborating with fairphone. What is the point to sell their own phone ? Refurshbish is a good idea and faurphone too. So why ?
In reality one can very well switch to /e/os for cheap, that was my case. I bought a refurbished samsing S9 phone for almost 100€ less than the ones proposed on their shop.
I still made a donation to murena to support the movement and the whole ecosystem offers.
Murena would have a lot to gain if their phone building ethic for the murena one was aligned with their thinking about the os.
One doesn’t go without the other to my opinion.
My old Phone was broken I needed a “new” one. For me Midclass Phone ( no Xiaomi, Huawei ) was preferable and beeing able to flash a variety of aftermarket OS onto it. To check out the possibilites -…etc.
Thats also why I bought it plain not directly at the /e/ shop. Diving into a new os without really knowing if it is usable …I have done this before with Sailfish. Very nice but some Apps I dearly needed haven’t worked on it.
However thats why I’m now Patreon because I’m using /e/ on a Gigaset without buying it directly from the e foundation.
Hence I do really understand that the e foundation needs money to keep up the good work. So a cheap Coolpad gives better margins.
Nonetheless IMHO a cheap Chinaphone and /e/OS with its dedication does not go well. Especially if no Information about the Origin of the Phone is given.
Yes, they didn’t communicate a lot on the origin of their own phone. Maybe /e/ user aren’t interested in or prefer to focus on the software instead of the hardware ?
But maybe not only the code have to be open source but also the main project
…what some people think a handful of dedicated programmers should be able to do: Defeat the tech giants of this world, develop a complete, secure OS, offer an inexpensive smartphone - and have it produced in high-wage countries with sustainable raw materials at the same time?
Dream on!
Apple & Co generate $800 margin with a single smartphone produced in China - but billions of people buy it! /e/ should develop the operating system completely new and bug-free and then give it away for free - and offer a sustainable phone for 300 Euros?
Exactly because of such ideas, earlier, good approaches have failed (I’ll mention the keyword “Jolla”).
The world can only be changed in small steps - and only if many people join in…
Technically, no, I think. (Vietnam, South Korea, the EU (Gigaset)?)
But also, there’s a difference between “built in China” and “designed, built, and controlled by a company in China that may be beholden to their political and security force directives.” (I don’t mean the Murena phone, of course.) Hopefully, the big name phone manufacturers do some quality control and testing to verify integrity of their devices received from the PRC.
(But we should probably leave that discussion aside for the moment.)
The big difference between GAFAM and Murena is that Murena is a foundation. What is its goal? To break even or to grow exponentially to copy the GAFAM model?
Murena’s own approach is more than honorable.
I never said I wanted a cheap smartphone, I just said that it is possible to switch to /e/os at lower cost because this OS is free. Even stronger, murena’s business model allows for ethical phones (and fairphone is not especially “cheap”) via fairphone.
You are right to say that we are sweet dreamers, but we can’t boast of selling a de-googlized smartphone, respectful of data and ethical without even raising the question of how the phones are made.
We are not trying to defeat them but to propose another model!
This is possible via the purchase outside the store murena or even thanks to the reconditioned!
Once again this is the case thanks to the partnership with fairphone
Well for one it is not a Cool Pad S even though the spec look similar. On the China built part, not sure if there is any phone which does not have some component coming from China. Users had been requesting us for a /e/OS phone for a long time, and this is the first attempt at a Murena phone. We will be coming out with more such Murena phones based on the response we get for this initial release. The response so far looks extremely positive.
Yes, I was being hyperbolic. Samsung, ASUS, Purism and Sony aren’t made in China. But even these phones, a lot of the parts are only available from China. I’m not sure that any phone is completely manufactured and has zero parts made in China.
May I rememind you that I was already talking about this argument in the third post of this thread.
Since this knockout argument is raised over and over again.
Yes, as already mentioned its true most phones are made in china or do have at least parts made in china. But also again as others have said its completely different if a company is entirely chinese and not observed through companies having higher labour standards up the supply chain. And also parts/devices can be completely manufactured in a sweatshop and others are manufactured in a human friendly factory site. One should raise the ethical question why is this phone so cheap?
Gigaset is quite cheap albeit having some of the assembly in EU because they could find a way to implement robot assisted workplaces for the manual assembly. This leads to higher quality less rejects making the higher labour standard worth. Just an example.
Against the argument of “yeah but apple and google and are doing it too” - I think the most users here are not using/buying this devices because they have concerns with the ethical standing of the companies. Softwarerelated ethics are going along with a generalized ethic mindest. Thats one argument why we are using /e/.
In addition to this - the /e/ shop product portfolio shows that /e/ and Murena want to target the ethical aware consumer. Otherwise why having Fairphone/Teracube/Refurbished in a row without Huawei, Xiaomi, etc?
Again I do understand the need for money to keep this project running. I think its great that this phone is so well adopted and people want /e/OS.
And I’m 100% sure that this device is great - but I don’t understand the paradox of:
we have a transparent os,
we have transparent cloud services,
we have transparent phone suppliers with ethical dedication…
and because of ethical concerns we sell refurbish phones too
But our first own branded phone is
untransparently produced somewhere? and we don’t even want to talk about where it is produced and how…
This simply doesn’t add up at least not for the /e/ foundation as very well pointed out by @Nicolas_Sas
Thank you for your answer. I’m sure people will appreciate Murena launching its own phone. However, this does not answer the question in the title of this topic: Who is making the murena one?
I’m just asking for some transparency and who is outsourcing/building this phone. That doesn’t mean it’s fundamentally wrong . And yes you can be proud to launch your own phone.
Basically who is the company that provides this phone? If it’s not a Cool Pad S, then what is? I just ask.
