Fairphone has introduced the Fairphone 5, a smartphone that has the potential to still be up-to-date and working in 2031 due to the longest software upgrade commitment we’ve seen. It also has the ability to replace 10 different key components if they expire or break. Not only that, by purchasing the Fairphone 5, you’re buying a device made with total care for the planet and its people.
Emphasizing sustainability may not always capture headlines, but Fairphone’s efforts go way beyond those of most other brands. It runs an industry-first living wage program, has obtained SA8000 certification for safe and decent working conditions for the factory where the Fairphone 5 is assembled, takes its materials from fair-mined sources, and claims it has the fairest sourced smartphone battery in the industry too. Its achievements continue with recycling phones to offset new ones sold and using recycled materials to reduce the carbon footprint of the new device.
This may not be “sexy,” but it’s immensely important. What’s really interesting is that Fairphone is also making exciting technical decisions that impact the new phone. It’s promising to upgrade the Android operating system five times and then commits to extending software support until 2031 — plus it hopes to extend this again until 2033. That’s eight years total of software updates, with the potential of stretching it out even further to 10 years. Beat that Samsung, OnePlus, and Apple.
Fairphone has done this by not choosing a recognized commercial
Parts prices vary from 20 euros (about $22) for ports and speakers to 40 euros (about $43) for a battery, and up to 100 euros (about $108) for a new display. Despite this level of repairability, the Fairphone 5 has an IP55 water-resistance rating and is covered by a five-year warranty.
Fairphone 5 design and specification
The rest of the specifications includes a 6.46-inch OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of
Finally, we come to the design. Fairphone models of the past haven’t always been especially pleasing aesthetically, but since it has been working with Above, a Swedish design agency, things have really improved. The Fairphone 5 is thinner and lighter than ever before and comes in a choice of black or blue colors or a cool transparent design. It doesn’t differ much from the Fairphone 4, but it still looks great.
The Fairphone 5 combines forward-thinking business practices for sustainable appeal with out-of-the-box thinking to solve some of the usual
The Fairphone 5 costs 699 euros, which is around $755, and it will be released on August 30 in Europe. Fairphone eventually sold the Fairphone 4 in the U.S. for $600, but it was a non-Google device launched with software company Murena. We will have to wait and see if it does something similar with the Fairphone 5.
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