Fairphone, a sustainable Dutch smartphone maker, today officially pulled the wraps off its fourth-generation modular smartphone – Fairphone 4. Like its predecessor, the Fairphone 4 uses a modular design and has a repairability score of 9.3 out of 10.
“No part of Fairphone 4 is glued shut, so you can choose to easily repair it yourself with a standard screwdriver,” says the company.
The smartphone industry is considered one of the significant contributors to environmental and human rights issues. The industry is criticised for generating electronic waste, massive CO2 emissions, devastating sourcing practices, and harsh working conditions.
To resolve these issues with a scalable solution, Bas van Abel founded Fairphone in 2013.
What’s new?
Fairphone 4 comes with an updated design, better specifications, a five-year warranty, and a promise of two major Android updates and software support until the end of 2025. The fourth-generation device claimed to be far better than its predecessors which had weak hardware and outdated design.
However, the Fairphone 4 no longer comes with a 3.5mm audio jack. According to The Verge, Fairphone made this decision to be able to offer an official IP rating for dust and water resistance, which was absent in the previous phones.
Fairphone 4 – specifications
- Display – 6.3-inch Full HD+ (1080 x 2340 resolution) LCD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
- SoC – Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G with Adreno 619 GPU
- RAM – 6GB/8GB
- ROM – 128GB/256GB
- OS – Android 11
- Camera – Rear: 48MP (f1.6) + 48MP (f2.2)| Front: 25MP (f2.2)
- Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Beidou, A-GPS, Dual SIM, 5G, NFC, Bluetooth 5.1 + LE
- IP rating: IP54
- Battery: 3905mAh removable battery
According to the Dutch company, the phone has eight easily replaceable parts – the Display, USB Type-C port, a Selfie camera, earpiece, main camera array, loudspeaker, battery, and rubberised back.
Fairphone claims that all of these are easily removable using a standard Philips head screwdriver, which means customers can repair themselves without any assistance. If any of these parts are broken, users can purchase replacement parts from Fairphone.com..
The non-commercial spare part is the core module, which houses the SoC, RAM, ROM, device frame, and fingerprint sensor.
Pricing
The Fairphone 4 is now available for preorder in Europe and will start shipping from October 25th. The device is priced as per the following specifications:
6GB/128GB – €579/£499 (Grey color)
8GB/256GB – €649/569 (Grey, Green and Speckled Green)
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