Every year, we see the newest and best smartphones from the big brands, such as Samsung, Apple, Google, etc. Regardless of your preferred brand, the messaging is always crystal clear: “Your old phone is not as good as this new phone, so out with the old and in with the new!” While this is usually great for a company’s revenue, it’s not so great for the environment — or the usually underpaid folks who actually produce those phones on the factory line. These are trends the just-launched Fairphone 5 aims to disrupt.
In this sense, the Fairphone 5 is the anti-smartphone. It’s designed to be kept for a very long time by being easily repairable, easily upgradeable, and kept up-to-date with software for an ambitious ten years. In other words, Fairphone wants you to buy this phone and then not buy another until well into 2030. That’s not the message we get from pretty much any other brand.