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Fairphone

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Fairphone B.V.
Company typePrivately held company
IndustryTelecommunications equipment
FoundedJanuary 2013; 11 years ago (2013-01)
FounderBas van Abel
Tessa Wernink Edit this on Wikidata
Headquarters
Amsterdam
,
Netherlands
Key people
ProductsSmartphones
Websitewww.fairphone.com Edit this at Wikidata

Fairphone is a Dutch electronics manufacturer and social enterprise that designs and produces smartphones with the goal of having a lower environmental footprint and better social impact than is common in the industry.[1] In particular, the company aims to minimize the use of conflict minerals in its devices, maintain fair labor conditions for its workforce and suppliers, and allow users to maintain their own devices. The company was founded in 2013, as a social enterprise with the support of the Waag Society (nl), and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

As of 2022, the company's most recent model is the Fairphone 4, a modular smartphone which supports 5G connectivity, has dual 48MP cameras with optical image stabilization, an IP54 rating and MIL810G drop test certification. It is sold in Europe [2] and the United States. [3] The purpose of modularity is to make the phone easily repairable and customisable by the user, and therefore longer-lasting. According to the company, increasing the lifespan of a phone by two years reduces CO₂ emissions by 30%.[4]

History

A Fairphone employee meeting tungsten miners at the New Bugurama Mining Company in Rwanda
Back of a Fairphone 2 with transparent cover, showing its modular design

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. The company states on its website that it "designs and produces smartphones with minimal harm to society and the environment".[6]

In April 2015 the company became a registered B Corporation.[7]

Since version two, the Fairphone is produced in Suzhou, China, by Hi-P International Limited.[8]

On October 12, 2016, it was announced that Fairphone founder Bas van Abel is one of the winners of the annual prestigious Deutscher Umweltpreis as a "pioneer for a more efficient resource policy in the smartphone industry."[9]

Fairphone's founder Bas van Abel acknowledged in 2017, that it was currently impossible to produce a 100% fair phone, suggesting it was more accurate to call his company's phones "fairer".[10][11]

In November 2021, the Fairphone 4 hit the market. It is a more powerful phone that runs on Android 11 and is ready for the 5G network. The device has dual cameras. The gold in the device has the Fairtrade label, also the cobalt used is 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. The two available versions of the Fairphone 4 5G cost €579 and €649; accessories are available separately.[13]

As of February 2022, Fairphone had sold around 400,000 devices.[4]

Products

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 3060
Fairphone 3+ Sep 2020 48MP (12MP output) 16MP
Fairphone 4 Sep 30, 2021 Qualcomm 750G Kryo 570
Gold+Silver 		2.2+1.8 2+6 Adreno 619 6/8 128/256 6.3 410 48MP OIS,

48 MP Ultrawide,

(ToF + Color) sensor

25MP 11 3905

Price

The Fairphones are priced in the middle of the range of mobile phone prices; for example, the Fairphone 4 in 2022 was priced from €579.[14]

Similar products

The Shiftphone is another small mobile telephone manufacturer with 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.[4]

Recognition and certifications

Tessa Wernink (right) receiving the Tech5 award at The Next Web Conference 2015

In 2015, Fairphone – a certified benefit corporation[15] – won the award for fastest-growing European tech startup at The Next Web conference.[16] Fairphone 2 was the first[17] smartphone to be awarded with a 10/10 score at iFixit for repairability[18][19] and the first mobile phone to receive Blue Angel certification.[20]

In 2016, Fairphone's founder and first CEO Bas van Abel was one of the three recipients of the German Environmental Award.[21]

In 2019, Fairphone won the Partnership Of The Year prize at the Responsible Business Awards.[22]

Operating systems

Fairphones can run several operating systems, including CalyxOS, DivestOS, /e/, iodeOS, LineageOS, Ubuntu Touch, and more.[23] Companies associated with e foundation also sell Fairphones with /e/ included, but Ron Amadeo at ars Technica in April 2020 warned /e/ users, "they'll most likely be on an old version of Android".[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ Chen, Brian X. (8 September 2022). "A Smartphone That Lasts a Decade? Yes, It's Possible". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  3. ^ Lomas, Natasha (5 July 2023). "Fairphone's repairable smartphone goes on sale in US for the first time — in a 'deGoogled' Murena e/OS variant". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b c Schweiger, Francesca (22 February 2022). "The mobile phones you can take apart and repair yourself". BBC News. Berlin.
  5. ^ Homerun.co (27 January 2017). "Fairphone: Calling for Change". Archived from the original on 22 September 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  6. ^ "The Circular Phone – Legal, operational and financial solutions to unlock the potential of the 'Fairphone-as-a-Service' model" (pdf). Circle Economy. 2016. p. 5. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  7. ^ "Fairphone - Certified B Corporation - B Lab Global". www.bcorporation.net. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
  8. ^ Hebert, Olivier (19 February 2015). "The path to finding our new production partner: Hi-P". Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  9. ^ "Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt: Kreative Köpfe als Wegbereiter für globale Ressourcenwende". Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (in German). 12 October 2016. Archived from the original on 7 May 2018.
  10. ^ Douglas Rushkoff (24 July 2018). "How tech's richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  11. ^ Bas van Abel 'Fingerprints on the Touchscreen', March 2017
  12. ^ Gibbs, Samuel (15 October 2021). "Fairphone 4 review: ethical repairable phone gets big upgrade". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
  13. ^ "Fairphone's latest sustainable smartphone comes with a five-year warranty". www.theverge.com. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
  14. ^ "Fairphone 4". Fairphone Shop. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  15. ^ "Fairphone B-Impact Report". Retrieved 10 February 2019.
  16. ^ Van Wijhe, Jelle (24 April 2015). "Tech5: Fairphone named Europe's fastest-growing startup of 2015". The Next Web. The Next Web. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  17. ^ Christian Wölbert, Christian Wölbert (19 November 2015). "Modulares Smartphone: iFixit gibt Fairphone 2 die volle Punktzahl". heise online. Archived from the original on 4 July 2017. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 July 2018 suggested (help)
  18. ^ Fairphone 2 Teardown (Technical report). iFixit. 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  19. ^ "iFixit gives modular Fairphone 2 a rare 10 out of 10 for repairability [Updated]". Ars Technica. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  20. ^ "Blue Angel awarded to the sustainable smartphone "Fairphone 4"". The Blue Angel. 11 January 2022.
  21. ^ Lomas, Charlotta. "Fairphone creator: Success is a signal to industry". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  22. ^ "10th Responsible Business Awards 2019". Ethical Corporation. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  23. ^ "✏ Operating Systems for Fairphones". Fairphone Community Forum. 6 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  24. ^ Amadeo, Ron (30 April 2020). "Fairphone and /e/ team up to build open source, sustainable smartphone". Ars Technica. Retrieved 29 June 2022.

External links

Media related to Fairphone at Wikimedia Commons

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