murena.com Reviews 

DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH MURENA.

I got the fairphone 6 and it's basically a joke to operate with Murena. Their only support is email and they do not respond to inquiries. I will be filing a chargeback with this company.

For several years now, I’ve been using only smartphones running e/os with murena.io as the server for my calendar, contacts, and so on. Currently, I’m using a Fairphone 5 with e/os installed by myself. The system works very well and, in my opinion, is the top choice for an EU resident looking for a smartphone free of US influence. Unfortunately, the number of users is growing only slowly, so the project has to struggle with very limited resources. For this reason, what Gaël Duval and his team have managed to pull off is amazingly good! I love e/os—it keeps me from becoming a serf in the US feudal system.

I have 2 Murena One phones. Both have experienced the exact same problems, eventually ceasing to exist. Fot the first 8 months, both worked well - then the rot as one phone (around 6 months faster than the other) became problematic.

The issues are as such:
WiFi starts dropping, randomly. This cannot be replicated for any other device across on any other OS across the house (I will spare you the lengthy details). On the 2.4 or 5Ghz there are significant issues. WPA/2/3 - no difference. Open network without credentials - doesnt matter...it randomly drops. Both phones.

More problematic, phone 1 started rebooting. Often. It then refused to switch on when not plugged in. It then refused to switch on. It turns out that the piddly connection to the battery had severed (I could hear and feel movement within the phone intimating that the battery had come loose from the adhesive and case). This eventually meant that the phone simply failed to switch on. No bother - I will get a replacement battery! Nope - these cannot be found. Phone 2 has started exhibiting the same issues; time will not be kind tp phone 2.

Finally - if you want ANY service, you MUST return the phone to Murena. In France. And pay ALL the costs AND accept that if they determine that the issue is water-or-anything related (something I cannot say I have experience of Murena doing - but a well known trick of the mobile phone manufacturer generally), then they will not touch it. Responses are slow but the service is incredibly ANTI-right-to-repair. Surely the opposite of a FOSS-based handset.

I have contacted Murena and when I do get a response, they are not unfriendly - just unhelpful and unsympathetic/unempathetic. No different to most service these days, but not great.

And these handsets were expensive when purchased - far more than an equivalent mainstream handset (granted, without the goog/apl bloat).

Overall, 2 stars could be appropriate, as the handsets were OK for 8-12 months. But in reflection, and given all of the above and given how well these handsets were treatd (they were house phones, almost never leaving my property), I would not touch Murena with a barge pole. You would have to pay me to use a handset from them, and I do not htink that is a business model they will likely entertain.

I purchased the Fairphone 6 through Murena and sadly it's nothing more than an expensive and cumbersome paperweight.

The first issue I noticed and unsuccessfully tried to resolve was not receiving text messages. The "customer support" available through Murena is only by email and they take three days to respond to most communications. After a few weeks of trying to resolve this issue, in part because of their slow response time and in part because of their suggestions that often made the phone worse, I asked to return the phone and was told that the phone could only be returned within 14 days of receiving it.
In addition to not receiving most text messages for almost a month, several critical apps, including the app for public transit in Los Angeles, is not able to be downloaded. Of the apps I was able to download, they give me a service error around 80% of the time. The speaker phone is basically unusable, the internet and cell phone service provided through Murena are horrible and don't work half the time, and yeah, the camera is really bad and the overall useability of the phone is worse than a bad early 2000s android.

I got this phone because of their focus on ethical sourcing and sustainability, but seeing as how it's not good for any function that a phone is meant to be used for, it's a waste of money and, sadly, an even bigger waste of resources.

Bought a FP 6 with e/OS and everything including Murena Workspace has been great so far.

Still, I think that for first-time users, it would be great if the phone would guide one though setting up Murena, including importing from Google. Or alternatively something like a Video where they demo setup and migrating to the Ecosystem within just a few minutes.

Import from google (drive, mail, etc.) worked great in the web interface, but it was somewhat hidden. I think I only received an opt-in newsletter showing me that this is even possible.

I think this has great potential :)

This is a review that might be re-written due to my experience is short.

I changed the os on my Fairphone 6, from Android to e/os with the help from the website. The installation process was easy but not without issue. Thanks for the help from a AI site, i maneged to fix the issue and the phone finally worked.

The os is simple and complicated at the same time. Simple, because it's still a type of android and complicated because it has some features one is not familiar with.
Once understanding the functions and App Lounge, the experience is the same as before changing the os, but with more.

The Advanced Privacy feature is great and an eye opener of how much regular apps leak data and drains the phone of battery. Yes, in my experience the phone has prolonged battery after changing the os.

To put this simple.
The battery lost more power with from the same apps running with Android os pre-installed.
After changing to e/os, the battery lost far less power and its all thanks to the prevention of data leaks.

Some downsides with e/os is the camera is the worst. Murena and e/os has to fix it.
The interface is ugly, buggy and crashes when filming while zooming.
Before the change i could film in a club with no audio issue. Now after the change, the sound is awful. Can't film at all in loud places.

Changing to the experience of the Murena ecosystem.
Murena has a lot of suprising services that i didn't know of and i hope this company grows.
The sync from phone to web is instant.
E-mail, calander, contacts, gallery and much more works great in my experience. I was positively surprised "Documents".
I didn't know Murena had a partnership with Onlyoffice, which is a great substitute from the worlds biggest competitor.

I've not yet experinced the payed plans that Murena offers and hopefully the camera issue is fixed soon.

My initial excitment at receiving my new phone quickly dissipated when I switched it on and discovered there was no localisation for Ireland. Now having shelled out 800 euro on a new phone because I was excited by the brand and what they stood for I now find myself in a position where I have to install a new operating system. I should have just bought the android version directly from Fairphone.

Sadly, most likely a scam. Forms are designed to make it impossible to provide correct billing information (perhaps for tax evasion purposes, perhaps just to make it so much harder for defrauded customers to file chargebacks); it is impossible to provide VAT number without the page returning an error. If it was not intended as a scam it means the website was produced by incompetent idiots and one cannot consider people behind it professional and trustworthy, quite a crucial thing in terms of security.