Company type | Privately held company |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications equipment |
Founded | January 2013 |
Founder | Bas van Abel Tessa Wernink |
Headquarters | , Netherlands |
Key people |
|
Products | Smartphones |
Website | www |
Fairphone is a Dutch electronics manufacturer that designs and produces smartphones and headphones. It aims to minimise the ethical and environmental impact of its devices by using recycled, fairtrade and conflict-free materials, maintaining fair labor conditions throughout its workforce and suppliers, and enabling users to easily repair their devices through modular design and by providing replacement parts.[1]
As of 2023[update], the company's most recent smartphone is the Fairphone 5, which it plans to provide with security updates and software support, including 5 OS updates, for 10 years.[2][3][4]
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.[citation needed]
In April 2015 the company became a registered B Corporation.[6]
Since version two, the Fairphone is produced in Suzhou, China, by Hi-P International Limited.[7]
In November 2021, the Fairphone 4 was made available.
As of February 2022, Fairphone had sold around 400,000 devices.[8]
In 2023 a consortium of impact investors led by new shareholders Invest-NL, the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, and existing shareholder Quadia, with its Regenero Impact Fund, invested €49 million in Fairphone.[9]
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 | 9/10 | 3060 |
Fairphone 3+ | Sep 2020 | 48MP (12MP output) | 16MP | ||||||||||||
Fairphone 4 | 30 Sep 2021 | Qualcomm 750G | Kryo 570 Gold+Silver |
2.2+1.8 | 2+6 | Adreno 619 | 950 | 6/8 | 128/256 | 6.3 | 409 | 48MP OIS,
48 MP Ultrawide, (ToF + Color) sensor |
25MP | 11 | 3905 |
Fairphone 5[10] | 30 Aug 2023 | Qualcomm QCM6490[11] (IoT/ind. var. of 782G) |
Kryo 670 Prime+Gold+Silver |
2.7+2.4+1.9 | 1+3+4 | Adreno 643 | 812 | 8 | 256 +up to 2TB |
6.46 | 459 | 50MP OIS,
50 MP Ultrawide, (ToF + Color) sensor |
50MP | 13 | 4200 |
The phone is modular, which makes it easily repairable and customisable by the user. According to the company, increasing the lifespan of a phone by two years reduces CO₂ emissions by 30%.[8]
The gold and silver in Fairphone 4 has the Fairtrade label, also metals used are 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.[13] In 2017, Fairphone's founder Bas van Abel acknowledged that it was currently impossible to produce a 100% fair phone, suggesting it was more accurate to call his company's phones "fairer".[14][15]
In an interview with Will Georgi, Fairphone founder Tessa Vernink mentions:
“There might be a misconception that as a social enterprise, we don’t operate like a ‘normal’ business, but that’s not true. In many ways, most of our choices are the same — we still need to make money and sell phones — but the outcome and the goals are different. Our focus is investing in social innovation, instead of purely technical innovation. When other phone companies design a new phone, they research new technology — we research supply chain improvement.”[5]
A survey conducted by Franziska Verna Haucke in the Journal of Cleaner Production found:
Surprisingly, the findings show that alternative consumption seems to influence the involvement with the Fairphone and social commitment negatively seems to play a minor role in the model. These aspects point to the Fairphone as a technical artifact, centered on a choice for a sustainable lifestyle.[1]
Shiftphone is another small mobile telephone manufacturer with a 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.[8]
In 2016, Fairphone's founder and first CEO Bas van Abel was one of the three recipients of the German Environmental Award.[16]
Fairphones can run several operating systems, including CalyxOS, DivestOS, /e/, iodeOS, LineageOS, Ubuntu Touch, and more.[17] Murena, the company associated with the /e/ foundation, also sells Fairphones with /e/ pre-installed and offers a warranty for them.[18] As of 2023 the official /e/ support for FP3 is based on Android 12.