The brand Fairphone is not well known outside of Europe. For those looking for a sustainable phone brand, they offer decent mid-range performance while maintaining their sustainability ethos. The latest Fairphone 5 continues the tradition of offering easily to repair phones while supporting it for a long time.
Specs wise, the Fairphone 5 can be considered a run-of-the-mill mid-range phone, with a focus on mainly recycled materials. It is ultra repairable, and features mostly modern components such as USB C, a large 6.46-inch FullHD+ OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM plus 128GB of internal storage with, get this, microSD expansion up to 2TB. All of these are powered by a 4,200mAh battery.
The cameras on the back meanwhile are a 50MP Sony IMX 800 main sensor, 50MP Sony IMX 858 ultrawide sensor and a Time-of-Flight sensor. The selfie unit meanwhile is a 50MP sensor.
Even though the phone is designed to be easily repairable – which includes easy-to-remove back, Fairphone managed to certify the phone as IP55 water/dust resistant. Fairphone also said that many of the parts are made from recycled materials with 70% of materials being either recycled or “fair focus.”\
What makes this phone stand out is the choice of processor. Instead of the usual Snapdragon chip, Fairphone chosen to use the Qualcomm QCM6490 chip. The chip is an eight core chip that supports 5G and even WiFi 6E. While it may sound different than the usual Snapdragons or Mediatek, the chip has been around for quite some time – it was first released in 2021. It is comparable to the Snapdragon 780G – similar to the one in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G.
Because of this chip, Fairphone has announced that the Fairphone 5 will get at least five major Android OS updates and security updates for the next 8 years. This means that the phone will still be supported until 2031 – unlike other Android brands, which has shorter support windows. Fairphone stated in their press release that they are aiming for the support to extend until 2033.
Samsung, Oppo and Oneplus only gives four major Android updates and four years of security support, while Google is only giving three major software updates.
The Fairphone 5 will cost €699.00 (about RM 3,517), comes in three colours (Matte Black, Sky Blue and Transparent) and available throughout Europe from 14 Septembers onward.
