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jqpabc123 9 hours ago

The new $650 Fairphone Gen 6+ is designed both for longevity and easy repairability.

I applaud the concept but to see how well this actually holds up in the real world, let's check the Fairphone web site.

Where are the parts to repair any version prior to Gen 6? I don't see them listed anywhere.

So it would appear that "longevity" is actually pretty limited.

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thg 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fairphone 4 (2021) parts: https://www.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?catego...

Fairphone 5 (2023) parts: https://www.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?catego...

Parts for the Fairphone 2 (2015) and Fairphone 3 (2019) aren't available anymore, but I suppose that's not all that surprising after 11 respective 7 years.

Afair, they started running out of some Fairphone 3 spare parts around 2024 and kept the ones they still had for warranty repairs. Source: I own one (and switched to the Fairphone 6 early this year).

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jqpabc123 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Afair, they started running out of some Fairphone 3 spare parts around 2024

So "longevity" is actually about 5 years. Or less if you live in the USA.

https://us.fairphone.com/repairs

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paimapi 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

presumably longer if they were more popular and repair shops stock up on the parts. I assume most FP users are fairly tech savvy and would just purchase multiple components that are more likely to fail as a just-in-case (much like I do for bearings, headlights, and other small parts for my car)

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encom 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's 5 years longer than Apple.

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generalpf 8 hours ago | parent [-]

With Apple, you can't repair it yourself, but Apple will repair it for much longer than 5 years.

Not even Fairphone can repair your phone if it's out of parts.

	▲	lastofthemojito 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> With Apple, you can't repair it yourself Generally with Apple, you can: https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair

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rpdillon 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a good point. Ifixit has guides for all the phones, but it reports that none of the replacement parts are actually sold in the United States.

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone

Reminds me of the cold steel throwing axe that I bought that specifically has replaceable handles in case you break one. No one actually sells the handles though!

	▲	Aachen 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Didn't they launch only their first device (considering this is the sixth generation) in the USA a few months ago? Hopefully the replacement parts are yet to come. I'm not sure why it's so difficult, perhaps it's that they're stretched too thin and barely managed to get the base device to market there at all I bought one a few years ago. Good device, too big for my hands (back then, there were still smaller options so I bought one of those smaller ones in second-hand). Not having spare parts available would make me hesitate since that's like 50% of the point (fair sourcing being the other half), but besides that it's a (big) phone like any other
	▲	squishington 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I bought a fair phone 2 when I lived in Germany in 2016. Got a software update when I moved back to Australia. Bricked it. The kernel debug interface has no standard header, and required a fine pitch soldering iron header. I rented a German post box to send it to, as you need a European address for support. I tried to send it twice, and it was refused by German customs. I gave up and now I just buy cheap second hand Motorolas and unlock the bootloader, put lineageos on them. I think giving new life to discarded devices is more ethical anyway.

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VileSquirrel 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's in shop --> "all parts" (under the "spare parts" header)

Here are the ones for the fairphone 4: https://www.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?catego...

I however couldn't find the ones for the fairphone 3. The fairphone 4 is from 2021, which is not that old.

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jqpabc123 9 hours ago | parent [-]

So "longevity" is actually about 5 years. Or less if you live in the USA.

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colingauvin 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Early Fairphones were not necessarily designed for repairability. That is a principle that has emerged significantly in the last few iterations. The FP4 was the first that was really designed and marketed as fully modular from what I remember, and parts are still available.

For the American piece, the FP6 was the first available from OEM in the US.

	▲	hommelix 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I still have various spare parts of my fp2: screen, camera, battery. This was in 2015 and it was modular and repairable. For the fp1, it was possible to replace the battery.
	▲	n_plus_1_acc 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The FP 3 was marketed as "you can replace the camera for a better one"

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MegaDeKay 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A simple Google search showed they are right here: https://www.fairphone.com/spare-parts

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cge 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When I had a Fairphone 4, regulars on the community forum repeatedly reminded everyone that repairability was not a primary goal of Fairphone, ethical consumerism was, and any longevity and repairability was secondary or coincidental.

Yes, that goes against most of Fairphone's own advertising, but it was consistent with my experience of the phone and discussions on the forum: security updates frequently so far out of date that some software could not be run, flimsy components inconsistent with advertising (yes, the battery was nominally swappable, but the snaps on the back would break easily, and support would claim that it was not intended to be removed regularly), parts that were frequently out of stock, and of course, whole new phone designs every generation rather than Framework-like component upgrades.

It seems like they may have improved since then, but those problems, along with the atrocious security (FP4 used AOSP's public test signing keys, with publicly-available private keys, for its firmware) and sketchiness around specs, standards and openness (especially for the camera), generally turned me off the company.