Fairphone's CTO on building a repairable smartphone that lasts
Nearly impossible? How Fairphone built the ethical, repairable Fairphone Gen 6+
Fairphone, a Dutch company now selling in the US, aims to make smartphones that last and are easy to repair. Its $650 Gen 6+ can be fully disassembled in about 20 minutes with a single screwdriver, allowing users to replace 12 parts. CTO Chandler Hatton discusses the design trade-offs, such as a thicker body and lower water resistance, and why the company prioritizes longevity over planned obsolescence.
We're doing something that was long thought to be nearly impossible: delivering high-performing modular smartphones that can last for a very long time.
- heikkilevanto
Happy FairPhone 4 user here. Running 3+ years, only replaced the battery once. Aim to keep it 7-10 years, barring unforeseen events like theft. Not going to replace it just because a newer model is released.
- phtrivier
I suppose it's a testament to their success, but, I have a fairphone 3 from almost 6 years now, and I'm a bit annoyed that they're basically "sunsetting it" (no more software updates, no more spare parts.)
My fairphone 2 had lasted 5 years, but was completely unusable at the end. My current phone works very well (again, huge kudos to the team if anyone is reading this), and I would not mind trying to reach the decade with it - but in a few months, someone (my bank, a shop, a 2FA, whatever) will ask for an unsupported android feature.
I know people will give me names of exotic non-android distros, but will they run my bank's app :/ ?
- Valodim
Not an expert, but I recently heard that apparently not everything is perfect in fairphone land: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...
- mentalgear
Great what they are doing - yet I found Shiftphone to be also fair, equally or better repairable and even more open for alternative Operating Systems. I think Fairphone supports 2 OSes officially, Shiftphone has a whole custom ROM list of ~10.
- OroPla
I've always been a bit curious about Fairphone, but as I only get phones that cost less than $200 (and use them until they physically break), I'll probably never get one.
Still only on my second smartphone, so I'm not worried about producing more e-waste.
- hn_submit
EU regulations already mandate that the batteries should be user-replaceable and other parts easily replaceable. The difference between Fairphone and the competition will narrow in the future.
Except for the fact that Samsung is the 800 pounds gorilla in the smartphone space which you'll know will be around for some time. How long is Fairphone going to last? Maybe the founders want to retire early and sell to the highest bidder.
I'd much rather see them running GrapheneOS or /e/OS on it also.
- artisinal
The recently released Fairphone 6+ runs on Android 16. I had to look that up on Wikipedia, their website doesn't even clearly state that. Android 16 is 14 months old at the moment. Android 17 was released to manufacturers 6 months ago and had a general release 2 months ago.
So why does a brand new phone run an operating system from over a year ago? Does it really take over 6 months to update a phone to a new version of Android?
How am I supposed to believe a company is committing to supporting a phone for a long time when at release it already runs outdated software?
- evolve2k
Anyone have any updates on why this device can’t support or get behind Graphene OS? A repairable and secure phone is my desired option for a phone that’s truely mine and I’m sure this is true for many others also.
From my understanding it’s not there as the Graphene team says that fairphone haven’t taken security hardware seriously and there’s key hardware security features missing that means they are not even interested to look at supporting the device.
Keen for latest updates on this, happy to be corrected.