Three Key Features Of The New Fairphone 5

Jun 21, 2023

Today saw the launch of the Fairphone 5 from the Dutch manufacturer Fairphone. The handset continues the company’s different approach to the smartphone market. The phone gets a full release later in September, and we’ll have a full review then. For now, a few areas are worth highlighting: the longevity of software support, the modular nature of the phone, and the ethical approach that Fairphone brings to the market.

Fairphone 5

Fairphone continues to work as ethically as possible in the consumer electronics market. It looks to source materials from sustainable sources and use recycled or ethically mined materials as much as possible (with the company quoting seventy per cent of the handset uses these grades of materials). It also ensures a living wage is paid to those who work on the assembly line for the phone and its components.

Fairphone’s approach shows that it is possible for manufacturers to make a difference and to show that consumers demand this approach.

One of the curious specification choices, at least at first glance, is the use of Qualcomm’s QCM 6490 chipset rather than the almost ubiquitous Snapdragon series used by countless smartphones. Fairphone has made this choice to allow for a longer support window from Qualcomm, which in turn will enable Fairphone to offer a longer support window on this handset.

That software support window is five years of Android updates and at least eight years long for security updates; Fairphone has an ambition to take this out to ten years, keeping the phone active until 2033.

That’s great for the software, but can the hardware last ten years? Fairphone has an advantage here; if you’ve been following the company, you’ll know what it is. Just like its predecessors, the Fairphone 5 is a modular phone. With a regular screwdriver, you can disassemble the phone, remove the broken module, order a replacement from Fairphone, and screw it all back together.

Add that to a five-year warranty, and Fairphone has set up the handset for a long and productive life.

The Fairphone 5 is available to pre-order now and will be released on September 14th, when I’ll have a full review of the innovative handset.

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