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Fairphone 6 is switching to a new design that's even more sustainable

(www.androidcentral.com)
401 points Bluestein | 5 comments | 23 Jun 25 15:29 UTC | HN request time: 1.241s | source
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strangecasts ◴[23 Jun 25 16:20 UTC] No.44357341[source]▶
Was lucky enough to get my Fairphone 4 on sale, but I'd happily pay full price now - even though the Fairphones are pricey for the specs, unless you absolutely need 24 cores etc. I'd say they are worth it, knowing the company is at least trying to improve the parts supply chain, and knowing you stand a chance of fixing the devices yourself (luckily I've only had to replace the USB-C port, which was trivial)

About the only thing I'd ding Fairphone on is not communicating earlier that they were having trouble getting Android 14 out to the FP4s, but the security patches have been consistent.

(Okay I'm also dinging them on getting rid of the headphone jack, yes I know it's a lost cause... )

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lawn ◴[23 Jun 25 17:02 UTC] No.44357755[source]▶
I've been very happy with my Fairphone 4 that I've had for 4 years now running CalyxOS.

I could probably use it for a few more years but I may upgrade to the 6 if the speakers/microphone are better (and to support the company).

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thaumasiotes ◴[24 Jun 25 05:30 UTC] No.44363093[source]▶
> I could probably use it for a few more years but I may upgrade to the 6 if the speakers/microphone are better

I don't get this. Isn't the whole concept of the company modular parts? Shouldn't you be able to put the better speakers in your existing phone?

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1. Foobar8568 ◴[24 Jun 25 05:47 UTC] No.44363166[source]▶
It's not modular, and each fairphone is not compatible with the previous one. FP3 had an update camera if I remember well but it was the exception.
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2. forty ◴[24 Jun 25 06:39 UTC] No.44363427[source]▶
Yes, people often get that wrong, it's not modular or upgradable, it's repairable, which is already great.

IMO we are far past the point when we should have decided smartphone hardware is good enough, and stop having people upgrade over and over. But I guess capitalism needs to be fed and everything is made to make sure that never happens (including making sure everyone thinks we do need better hardware)

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3. thaumasiotes ◴[24 Jun 25 18:36 UTC] No.44369312[source]▶
> it's not modular or upgradable, it's repairable, which is already great.

Well, I was going to observe that I broke my phone recently for the first time out of more than 10 years of having a smartphone.

But I remembered that while I didn't break it, my Nexus 5 spontaneously broke and couldn't be fixed, causing me to lose about a year of chat history that I would like to have back.

That said, if the parts are replaceable, there is no good reason to prevent you from replacing them with upgrades. That is by far the highest-value use of the ability to replace parts.

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4. forty ◴[24 Jun 25 20:22 UTC] No.44370613{3}[source]▶
Since 2019, I replaced once the battery of my FP3.

I often see people with broken screens. USB ports can get damaged by too many plug cycles etc. None of these reason should justify buying a new phone, but in practice if replacing the part is not relatively cheap and straightforward, this is what happens.

And yes upgrade can be cool too but much harder and probably unrealistic for a small company like this one. Look at how well it works for PC, after 10 years you have to still change everything to upgrade anything (your new CPU socket forces you to change the mother board, and the CPU fan, then your old ram is not compatible, etc and at the end you keep the case and maybe the PSU. And this is on a relatively open ecosystem compared to the mobile world with their SoC/SoM, high space constraints and a single supported kernel etc...)

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5. thaumasiotes ◴[24 Jun 25 20:29 UTC] No.44370680{4}[source]▶
> None of these reason should justify buying a new phone, but in practice if replacing the part is not relatively cheap and straightforward, this is what happens.

The reason that is what happens is that you can't upgrade the old phone. But you have to upgrade the phone anyway, so you take advantage of the only way to do that, buying a new phone.

I wasn't upset when I smashed my phone screen recently, because that phone already needed to be replaced for other reasons.