Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts
No earphone jack again. That's a bit sad. Even though I mainly use BLT earbuds, I still sometimes wish I could use my wired headphones. It's just a small inconvenience
Why does The Fairphone (Gen. 6) not have an audio jack?
After some of the criticism that we received about removing the headphone jack from Fairphone 4, we did consider bringing it back for The Fairphone (Gen. 6). However, we realized it would be at the expense of increasing the phone’s dimensions. We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack, so we decided to keep the same approach, although it was a difficult decision. We didn’t want to invest in OLED technology for the display and then not have improved the phone’s dimensions and weight. But just like with Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 5, we will still offer an adapter, which has had overall positive user reviews.
"We heard the criticism but decided that no, you would still need an adapter to use headphones, plus a USB-C hub to be able to charge the damn thing while listening to music or watching videos"
Funny how that's the same excuses that we get for modern laptops terrible design. "We HAVE to make it thinner so there's no space! You wouldn't want a laptop that's not complete shit if it meant it'd also be less thin and breakable, now would you?"
I would prefer GrapheneOS (If I can live with the irony of getting a Pixel phone just to deGoogle it...). Sandboxing there is way better. But you lose the Repairability.. Gotta check and compare the new EU metrics too.
Fuck these guys... Seriously. I bought a phone off of them hyped at the idea of the ethics. It didn't work on arrival. Over 3 months later and not one single reply to my helpdesk request (other than the Automated acknowledgement of receipt).
Unbelievably bad user experience, I went from hyped at the concept of reducing my production of electronic waste to beyond disappointed at a brutally bad user experience.
Then to make matters worse, it is difficult to source spare parts for the fairphone 4 (according to a friend of mine who owns one that he bought a while ago)... Like is that not the entire point of the phone, reduced consumption of new phones by supporting repairs. If you're going to stop producing the spares at least release the patents then.. if you really believe in the promoted ideals that you spout... Which they clearly do not.
It turns out that it's just another money hungry company hell bent on burning the planet down to see a line go up, as far as I'm concerned. All gaff to sell shite phones at higher prices.
I just want them to make a true flagship phone. I personally wouldn't mind paying extra for a more ethical phone, if it had all the bells and whistles and wasn't half obsolete straight out of the box.
Interesting that they seem to be using a consumer grade Snapdragon chip this time, typically they used weird chips ment for industry applications if I'm not mistaken. Wonder what sparked the change, did Qualcomm start supporting their chips for longer?
Snapdragon 7s Gen3 is a pretty decent chipset. Decent display too. 8GB RAM is a bit on the low side. Camera is all about how good processing is. It's not that crazy expensive if all works well and considering what their goal is.
I love the idea but the price is too high for the chip given that this is designed to be a longevity phone. A chip like the 7s Gen 3 would make the phone sluggish after a couple of years with how unoptimised todays apps are.
The Gorilla Glass 7i and IP55 water resistance are also concerning given that budget Samsung, Xiaomi, etc phones beat this.
However having components of the phone being easily replacable is a great thing.
If they are all about swappable parts, and being able to upgrade your phone how you want ... Shouldn't this just be a module upgrade... Of the main part? Maybe I don't understand it ... At the very least the old parts should work with the new system right? Unless something major has changed.
Worth noting buying a second hand phone is still better in every aspect and sadly 2nd hand Samsung from 3 years ago is still better and cheaper. Though Fairphone is getting closer with each release!
I would totally buy one of these if they were sold in the US. Sadly, last time I checked the newest phone wasn't sold here. So I doubt this one will be.
I posted this elsewhere but the tech specs for the Fairphone 6 say the following:
USB-C 2.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
I was really looking forward to use this with a pair of display glasses, like the XREAL One Pro, but this seems like the Fairphone 6 might not support display output? That's sad. Especially since the Fairphone 5 had this in their tech specs:
USB-C 3.0 (OTG capable) can be used to connect USB Sticks/SD-Cards/display (also Android™ desktop mode)/Camera/Audio Amplifier/Network-adapters directly
Slightly better camera (future tests will tell how much better)
120 Hz display
More RAM and storage (although I feel that the previous 6GB/128GB option was also sufficient for most users)
WiFi 6E Tri-Band (however you will likely never need this speed)
Bluetooth 5.4
Slightly larger battery
Con:
Backpanel now requires a screwdriver
Display has less resolution/PPI
Performance of processor will likely be nearly identical to predecessor (however it's more efficient and modern)
Downgrade to USB 2
600€
My conclusion:
Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice.
Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong.
600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.
Was really hoping to see a Fairphone 6a. Similar to the Google Pixel Series.
Just a cheap version of it.
I really don't need 120Hz, OLED or "No Bezels" all i want is big battery and a headphone jack that is all.
If I didn't miss it, no wireless charging again... Some one told me they refuse to do it because it wastes electricity. To which I'd say, even just turning on a car probably uses magnitudes more energy than charging my phone wirelessly. I don't want to mess up the USB C port if I don't have to, thanks.
Fairphone has really gone off the deep end. 6 phone models in what? less than 12 years? That's what they call dedication to sustainability? Really?
They used to say the most sustainable phone is your old phone, assuming you can continue to use it. Yet - my Fairphone 1, still in good working order hardware-wise, I had to "scrap" because no more SW updates. When my FP2 hardware (charging port) eventually failed, they no longer sold the relevant spare parts.
What good are exchangeable parts, if they are removed from the shop around the time that a well-treated phone might need them?
Is it me or did they get slightly more vague on their marketing materials, wrt the environmental impact ( at least compared to fp5 ) ?
Also the battery seems a bit harder to replace, as you now need a screwdriver. It does appear to be more flush, so it may be due to size constraints.
Edit: and there's "more" replaceable parts because the back is split in two. That split might prove better for durability tho, because pulling the back on their older phones felt like it would break every time.
I really respect Fairphone and I'm a happy owner of the Fairphone 5, but I find a bit puzzling for a company that suggests its customer should keep their phone for more than the 2.5 years average to release a new model just 2 years after the previous one.
Just my two cents, but they shoul've focused on developing either a tablet or a smartwatch to fill a gap in other markets before announcing yet another smartphone.
I bought an oled phone for 200€ a few years back. What I'd really want is that every smartphone sold in the EU is open, with open drivers and OS with root access if you want to. And some investments by the EU to support open smartphone OS.
Fairphone has been a really disappointing experiment in so-called sustainable tech over the years. They keep making new phones instead of continuing to support the old ones, which might be greenwashing. (Whereas if you got a legacy Framework 13, it's still user-repairable and upgradable.) If they wanted to make a non-upgradable device, maybe it would have been wise to make it high-end to futureproof to work until 4G gets phased out. Fairphone still is not making their products available in the U.S., and Murena is a borderline scam company and I am genuinely shocked Fairphone works with them.
And I've heard their logic with the headphone jack, but I do think AUX is the lesser of two evils as removing it will just lead to more e-waste with broken bluetooth headphones that rarely last as long as good wired ones. Fairphone's own bluetooth accessories have gotten negative reviews for their lower build quality, so Fairbuds are likely not the solution to the headphone jack problem.
For the simple fact that non-Europeans can buy them directly off the website, I would sooner recommend feature phones from Sunbeam as it also has user-replaceable batteries and you can send it in for repairs. Or just any phone used.
I'd love one and have checked back each year after their first model, but they still don't sell to Australia - and I'm not going to buy something I can't get direct parts and services for, and would need to go through third parties for.
If their model is a successful business I honestly thought they would have expanded beyond shipping/supporting only Europe by now, its been a decade since their first model. Maybe they're still not a very big player / modest success?
This looks pretty good. The main issue with Fairphone for me is the price. FP 5 is still about 2x as expensive as Pixel 8. I got my Pixel 8a on promotion for ~250 euros. FP 5 still costs over 500. I never paid more than 300 euros for a phone and I'm not planning to.
This is nice for Europe I guess, and I want to like the fairphone, but unfortunately it's not viable for me.
Besides basic phone features and the ability to run Android apps I have 3 requirements, 2 of which the fairphone fails at. I need it to be usable in the US on my phone carrier. I need to be able to use Google Pay or another mobile payment alternative (that's accepted in most stores). Finally it needs to have at least a 48 hour battery life.
Fairphone unfortunately doesn't work in the US with most carriers, and the one that kills not only it but all the de-googled phones, it doesn't support mobile payment of any kind. I've done a ton of research trying to find some kind of fix for that second point because I'd gladly use something like GrapheneOS if I could, but every time the answer I come to is it's just not possible.
650€ is way too expensive for an unknown phone brand with an unknown OS installed on it smh. i'd love to buy one but considering you can get a samsung for less than 500€
Looks like they hit the nail strong and sharp on this one. I am still using my 2019 Nokia which does not look like it's going bust anytime soon. Too bad, I would have loved to use the FF6
It is an android, which is moving towards an ai for everything trajectory which might be a privacy nightmare, I wonder if the next step of the fairphone journey is to break from android
Think I'm getting it, my Redmi Note 8 is aging and I'm pretty sure the current batch of custom ROMs is basically the last apart from the fact that the kernel is no longer supported, and Xiaomi is closing the doors on custom ROMs more and more it seems. Yeah, the new FP isn't perfect but it seems good enough to pull the trigger, and while the Pixels seemed like a good alternative in some aspects, Google recently made it very clear where they see Android's future, and it's not more open.
I know people complain about big phones, but as a 6'5" guy i LOVE my big screens, and i think i'd struggle with a 6.3" screen. I have a 22U i plan to use for another year or two, and would go larger if i could.