Fairphone: Bang or Bust?

Does anybody here remember Project Ara? This was an attempt by Google to create a smartphone that was made of different modules that could be replaced as different components became obsolete over time. And although the product never really became available to the public (all we ever saw is a bunch of concept images) this philosophy has now re-emerged in another project called “Fairphone.” Just like the idea behind Project Ara, the Fairphone enables you to easily swap out different components to upgrade your phone over time.

When you take a Fairphone product in your hand, you will realize that it may feel somewhat dated in terms of construction, camera performance, and software integration. But this phone still has plenty of charm and ambition. The Fairphone brand is trying to provide a niche product for anyone who is techy or serious about sustainability. This is a phone that’s trying to change how we view our smartphones. Will we continue the trend of buying a new smartphone every 2-3 years and forgetting about/discarding the old one, or will we move towards a new trend of buying smartphones that can last us for a longer amount of time and thus decrease the amount of electronic waste we produce as a society?

Unlike most other phones that we review, it’s hard to really compare Fairphones to leading smartphone manufacturers like Apple or Samsung. Since the Fairphone brand is built around the pillars of sustainability and fair wage labor (rather than building cutting-edge hardware or software) the performance of any Fairphone will lag behind any Samsung or Apple equivalent. But we’re not saying that to discourage you, we just want you to be aware that Fairphone is not at the cutting edge when it comes to delivering top-of-the-line performance or software upgrades. But the Fairphone excels at doing something that no other smartphone can currently do: giving you a smartphone that can be easily upgraded by swapping internal modules.