Looking For Sustainable Tech? This New Repairable Phone May Be For You

If you’re looking to make more sustainable buying decisions, one of the best changes you can make is to buy a longer-lasting smartphone. This new handset from Fairphone is designed to last for the best part of a decade, and it's built with the climate in mind using recycled materials.

Fairphone has been offering Android phones for over 10 years, and its latest is the Fairphone 6 set to be released in August. Nearly two years since it last announced a phone, this is the company’s most high-spec device yet.

Unlike most smartphone makers, Fairphone has decided to reduce the size of its next-gen handset moving from a 6.46-inch display on the Fairphone 5 to a 6.31-inch LTPO OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Fairphone's mission is to make its phones as easy to repair as possible, so they’re modular and avoid restrictions like glued down parts. For example, you can easily repair the battery, screen, and 10 other elements of the phone with parts from the company and a normal screwdriver. There's no need for a complicated repair kit.

(Credit: Fairphone)

For the sixth generation, Fairphone has also introduced modular accessories where you can remove the back of the phone to include a new backplate that can hold your credit cards or one that attaches to a lanyard.

Inside the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, which we previously saw powering the Nothing Phone 3a. This isn’t a top-tier chipset, but in PCMag’s review of the Nothing Phone 3a, we found it offered excellent performance. That handset was paired with 12GB of RAM, while the Fairphone 6 is limited to 8GB of RAM.

There’s 256GB of storage on the Fairphone 6, and you can include a microSD card to take it up to 2TB. There’s a 50MP main camera, 13MP ultrawide, and 32MP selfie camera. Interestingly, on paper this is a step down from the three 50MP cameras on the Fairphone 5.

The phone features eight years of software support. Since the release of the Fairphone 5, we’ve seen a lot of Android makers extend their own software support windows, but none of them have managed to beat the eight years offered by Fairphone. There's also a five year warranty included.

(Credit: Fairphone)

The phone is on sale in the US, but it only comes from a retailer called Murena. This company sells smartphones that are “deGoogled” by running open-source /e/OS software.

"We have removed many pieces of code that send your personal data to remote servers without your consent," Murena says. "We don’t scan your data in your phone or in your cloud space, and we don’t track your location hundred times a day or collect what you’re doing with your apps."

It's great for those who want to improve the privacy of what they do on their phone, but it means the handset costs more in the United States. In Europe, the Fairphone 6 is on sale for €599, which is around $700. In the US, the phone will cost $899 from Murena. The handset is available to pre-order now, and it'll be available at some point in August.