Fairphone 6 redefines what a truly durable smartphone should look like

A screwdriver, a piece of plastic and then that’s it. If you want to dismantle Fairphone 6 He will only need any other tools than these two, as proves to dismantle the phone performed very recently by Ifixit.

Like Fairphone 5, 4, 3 and 2 before him, this new model from the Dutch company inherits a pretty 10/10 on the site’s repairability scale. But disassembly and modularity of the phone tell only a small part of the story.

10/10, 8 years of follow -up and 3 year warranty

Admittedly, it is pleasant to see that all of the parts of the Fairphone 6 can be changed with a single screwdriver. Just as it is interesting to realize that the most often changed parts (battery, screen, USB-C port) have been designed to be particularly easy to replace. But, unlike most other manufacturers, these characteristics are almost expected from a fairphone now.

Where the manufacturer is strong this year is on the rest of the durability ecosystem. To realize it, nothing could be simpler than going to consult The new energy label associated with the phone. The mobile obtains an “A” in energy consumption, in resistance to falls and, obviously, in repairability. Only small downside, the sustainability of the battery is announced at 1000 load cycles (against 2000 for certain Samsung mobiles) and the telephone is not waterproof.

If you look more at the information contained in the label, we can also notice, as Fairphone announced during its conference, that the phone is guaranteed 3 years and should receive 8 years of update. Commitments that go beyond what is done in most other manufacturers, who generally stick to legal obligations.

Efforts on all fronts

Finally, there are many spare parts, easy to find and relatively inexpensive if we believe the repairability index associated with the phone. A tiny black point again, the delivery times can be a bit long, still according to the self-assigned note by Fairphone on the French mobile repairability index.

To accompany these pieces, we find Disassembly guides on the Fairphone website and in pictures On the company’s YouTube channel. The availability of parts and documentation should not be overlooked, since it encourages to repair rather than replacing. We would have liked the guides to be translated into French, but the illustrations are well thought out so that this does not pose too many problems.

An exhaustive approach to sustainability

The Dutch manufacturer shows here that it is possible to build a really repairable smartphone by taking into account the sustainability of A to Z. This seems obvious for a box like Fairphone, but it is far from being a widespread characteristic in the industry.

If many smartphones have made efforts on repairability since the arrival of the hexagonal index, the rest does not necessarily follow. The availability of parts is not always ensuredtheir discovery either, and prices are sometimes exorbitant. As for the guides and tutorials of repairs, they are often absent, buried in abstruse or squarely submenus on third-party sites, making their consultation complicated.

Fairphone 6 has an exhaustive approach to sustainability which takes into account all the proponents of this ecosystem, namely: repairability, software monitoring, availability and accessibility of spare parts, the provision of documentation necessary for repair and a long -term guarantee. Few other manufacturers can say as much.

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