Two years after the Fairphone 4 and following the release of some audio products like the Fairbuds XL, the Dutch company is back with a new repairable phone: the Fairphone 5. It looks and feels a lot like the Fairphone 4, but it adds choice upgrades across the board, making it the most modular and also most modern-looking repairable phone from the company yet.
The design is largely unchanged compared to the Fairphone 4, but the improvements that the company did make go a long way: The teardrop notch and the LCD screen is finally gone, with an ordinary punch-hole selfie and an OLED taking its place. Otherwise, you’re looking at an aluminum frame, a triangular camera array, and a removable back cover. Here, the company brought back its signature translucent back cover next to two black and blue variants. The dimensions and weight has been reduced ever-so-slightly compared to the predecessor.
The major issue for me is availability, they don’t sell the phone here, so if I buy through shipping services I can’t buy replacement parts.
Wait doesn’t that defeat the point then?
It does defeat the point, so I won’t buy a fairphone untill they sell here directly.
NTA but there are plenty of other reasons for buying a Fairphone but yeah, not having easy access to replacement parts is why I haven’t bought one yet. Would love to see a parts infrastructure for them emerge in the US.