Fairphone
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Fairphone is a Dutch electronics manufacturer that designs and produces smartphones and headphones. It aims to minimise the ethical and environmental impact of its devices by using recycled, fairtrade and conflict-free materials, maintaining fair labor conditions throughout its workforce and suppliers, and enabling users to easily repair their devices through modular design and by providing replacement parts.[1]
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications equipment |
| Founded | January 2013 |
| Founder | Bas van Abel Tessa Wernink |
| Headquarters | , Netherlands |
Key people |
|
| Products | Smartphones |
| Website | www |
As of 2023[update], the company's most recent smartphone is the Fairphone 5, which it plans to provide with security updates and software support, including 5 OS updates, for 10 years.[2][3][4]
History edit
Fairphone was founded by Bas van Abel, Tessa Wernink and Miquel Ballester[5] as a social enterprise company in January 2013, having existed as a campaign for two and a half years.[citation needed]
In April 2015 the company became a registered B Corporation.[6]
Since version two, the Fairphone is produced in Suzhou, China, by Hi-P International Limited.[7]
In November 2021, the Fairphone 4 was made available.
As of February 2022, Fairphone had sold around 400,000 devices.[8]
In 2023 a consortium of impact investors led by new shareholders Invest-NL, the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, and existing shareholder Quadia, with its Regenero Impact Fund, invested €49 million in Fairphone.[9]
Products edit
| Name | Release date | SoC | CPU | GPU | Memory (GB) | Storage (GB) | Display | Camera | Initial Android version | Battery capacity (mAh) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Speed (GHz) | Cores | Type | Speed (MHz) | Size (inches) | PPI | Rear | Front | |||||||
| Fairphone 1 | Dec 2013 | MediaTek MT6589 | Cortex-A7 | 1.2 | 4 | PowerVR SGX544MP | 286 | 1 | 16 | 4.3 | 256 | 8MP | 1.3MP | 4.2.2 | 2000 |
| Fairphone 2 | Dec 2015 | Qualcomm 801 (MSM8974AB) | Krait 400 | 2.26 | 4 | Adreno 330 | 578 | 2 | 32 | 5 | 446 | 12MP | 5MP | 5.1 | 2420 |
| Fairphone 3 | Sep 2019 | Qualcomm 632 | Kryo 250 Gold+Silver | 1.8+1.8 | 4+4 | Adreno 506 | 600 | 4 | 64 | 5.65 | 427 | 12MP | 8MP | 9/10 | 3060 |
| Fairphone 3+ | Sep 2020 | 48MP (12MP output) | 16MP | ||||||||||||
| Fairphone 4 | 30 Sep 2021 | Qualcomm 750G | Kryo 570 Gold+Silver | 2.2+1.8 | 2+6 | Adreno 619 | 950 | 6/8 | 128/256 | 6.3 | 409 | 48MP OIS, 48 MP Ultrawide, (ToF + Color) sensor | 25MP | 11 | 3905 |
| Fairphone 5[10] | 30 Aug 2023 | Qualcomm QCM6490[11] (IoT/ind. var. of 782G) | Kryo 670 Prime+Gold+Silver | 2.7+2.4+1.9 | 1+3+4 | Adreno 643 | 812 | 8 | 256 +up to 2TB | 6.46 | 459 | 50MP OIS, 50 MP Ultrawide, (ToF + Color) sensor | 50MP | 13 | 4200 |
Social impact and competitors edit
The phone is modular, which makes it easily repairable and customisable by the user. According to the company, increasing the lifespan of a phone by two years reduces CO₂ emissions by 30%.[8]
The gold and silver in Fairphone 4 has the Fairtrade label, also metals used are said to come from conflict-free mines.[12] The company promises a 5-year warranty period and long-term support for software updating and spare parts.[13] In 2017, Fairphone's founder Bas van Abel acknowledged that it was currently impossible to produce a 100% fair phone, suggesting it was more accurate to call his company's phones "fairer".[14][15]
In an interview with Will Georgi, Fairphone founder Tessa Vernink mentions:
“There might be a misconception that as a social enterprise, we don’t operate like a ‘normal’ business, but that’s not true. In many ways, most of our choices are the same — we still need to make money and sell phones — but the outcome and the goals are different. Our focus is investing in social innovation, instead of purely technical innovation. When other phone companies design a new phone, they research new technology — we research supply chain improvement.”[5]
A survey conducted by Franziska Verna Haucke in the Journal of Cleaner Production found:
Surprisingly, the findings show that alternative consumption seems to influence the involvement with the Fairphone and social commitment negatively seems to play a minor role in the model. These aspects point to the Fairphone as a technical artifact, centered on a choice for a sustainable lifestyle.[1]
Shiftphone is another small mobile telephone manufacturer with a focus on sustainability, and also developed a modular smartphone. The founder of Shiftphone considers that the two companies working in collaboration could have more influence on bigger competitors.[8]
Recognition and certifications edit
In 2016, Fairphone's founder and first CEO Bas van Abel was one of the three recipients of the German Environmental Award.[16]
Operating systems edit
Fairphones can run several operating systems, including CalyxOS, DivestOS, /e/, iodeOS, LineageOS, Ubuntu Touch, and more.[17] Murena, the company associated with the /e/ foundation, also sells Fairphones with /e/ pre-installed and offers a warranty for them.[18] As of 2023 the official /e/ support for FP3 is based on Android 12.
See also edit
References edit
- ^ a b Haucke, Franziska Verena (2018). "Smartphone-enabled social change: Evidence from the Fairphone case?". Journal of Cleaner Production. 197: 1719–1730. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.07.014. S2CID 157498710.
- ^ Gibbs, Samuel (8 September 2023). "Fairphone 5 review: could this be the first phone to last 10 years?". The Guardian.
- ^ Porter, Jon (29 September 2023). "The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years". The Verge.
- ^ Hill, Simon (22 September 2023). "The Fairphone 5 Is a Smartphone for a More Ethical World". WIRED.
- ^ a b Homerun.co (27 January 2017). "Fairphone: Calling for Change". Archived from the original on 22 September 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
- ^ "Fairphone - Certified B Corporation - B Lab Global". www.bcorporation.net. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
- ^ Hebert, Olivier (19 February 2015). "The path to finding our new production partner: Hi-P". Retrieved 18 January 2021.
- ^ a b c Schweiger, Francesca (22 February 2022). "The mobile phones you can take apart and repair yourself". BBC News. Berlin.
- ^ "Impact investor consortium invests €49 million in Fairphone" (PDF). Fairphone. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
- ^ Vonau, Manuel (30 August 2023). Vonau, Manuel (ed.). "The Fairphone 5 is here, and it's the sleekest repairable phone yet". www.androidpolice.com. Berlin, Germany. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
- ^ Qualcomm® QCM6490/Qualcomm® QCS6490 SoCs (PDF), 2021, retrieved 30 August 2023
- ^ Gibbs, Samuel (15 October 2021). "Fairphone 4 review: ethical repairable phone gets big upgrade". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
It includes fair trade gold and silver, ethically sourced aluminium and tungsten, plus recycled tin, copper, rare earth metals and plastic.
- ^ "Fairphone's latest sustainable smartphone comes with a five-year warranty". www.theverge.com. 30 September 2021. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
- ^ Douglas Rushkoff (24 July 2018). "How tech's richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
- ^ Bas van Abel 'Fingerprints on the Touchscreen', March 2017
- ^ Lomas, Charlotta. "Fairphone creator: Success is a signal to industry". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ "✏ Operating Systems for Fairphones". Fairphone Community Forum. 6 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
- ^ "Smartphones". Murena - deGoogled phones and services. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
External links edit
Media related to Fairphone at Wikimedia Commons
- Official website
- Fairphone on Flickr
- Ubuntu Summit 2023 - Open Source for Sustainable and Long lasting Phones (presentation by Luca Weiss about Fairphone)