At a time when Android OEMs are steadily increasing device support windows, it’s impressive to see that a device from 2015 is only now hitting the end-of-life phase. The device in question is the Fairphone 2, which is set to be unsupported from March 2023.
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Ethically minded smartphone maker Fairphone is now pushing out Android 10 to 2015’s Fairphone 2 and, in turn, offering the longest support period for any Android smartphone to date.
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When Project Ara arrives, one of its first and more established competitors will be Fairphone. In a teardown, iFixit found the company’s second generation modular phone to be highly repairable, giving it a 10 out of 10 rating…
Fairphone, today, opened up pre-orders for its second generation ethical smartphone. The Android-based Fairphone 2 can be pre-ordered in Europe for €529.38 (roughly $575 USD) and is designed with easy of repair at the forefront of its design. Fairphone hopes to sell 15,000 pre-orders and is aiming to ship them by November this year.
Unlike most phones on the market, the Fairphone 2 isn’t really about having the best specifications or performance. Rather, it’s about changing the industry. Fairphone seeks to create an ethical product that improves worker welfare in its assembly plants and tries — as much as it can — to only source components and materials ethically. It uses conflict-free tin and tantalum in its parts and openly maps its supply chain for all of us to read through.
What’s more, the Fairphone 2 is modular. It’s designed so that anyone can open and repair the device for themselves with little experience or technical knowledge. The company will even sell spare parts to customers when things go wrong. You’ll also be able to upgrade parts in the future.
If you’re curious about specs, you’ll be glad to know the Fairphone sounds like a pretty decent handset. It has a 5-inch full HD (446ppi) display with 0.7mm thick Gorilla Glass 3 on the front. A quad-core Snapdragon 801 chip keeps things ticking over along with 2GB RAM and 32GB inbuilt storage. Its main camera boasts 8MP, while the front facing sensor is 2MP. A 2,420mAh Lithium-Ion battery finishes of the main spec list.
You can pre-order the phone (Europe only) from Fairphone.com from today.
The Fairphone 2 is an interesting concept, and its promotional video might have you believe that the company just wants to jump in and compete with Project Ara before Google gets to even introduce its modular phone. But while the Fairphone 2 is definitely modular in its own right (although not quite the same way Project Ara is), the phone represents a push across the board to rethink how smartphones are made—from mining to reusability…
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