Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Fairphone 5: MODULAR stock Android!”.
We’Re here at IFA 2023 – and we just saw for the first time in the real life – the fairphone 5, a new sustainable product from fairphone that is ethically sourced, completely repairable, totally modular and is promised to get updates for at least eight years with a hope of 10, full years of Android updates. Now, when I say 10 full years of Android updates, I don’t mean 10 successive Android versions. Fair phone is only going to update the fairphone 5, probably every two years to a new Android version, but you’re still going to get 10 years of Android security updates. So your phone is going to be safe to use and perfectly fully functioning for up to 10 years from time today. Just to put that into perspective, you’re going to be able to buy this phone today in 2023 and then keep using it until 2033.
So we’re talking a very very long time that you’ll be able to use this phone now. Of course, there is going to be some some some drawbacks to that you’re, going to be continuing to use the same phone for 10 years, so you’re going to be locked to some of the hardware. For example, you’re only going to be able to get the same processor, basically, the same display same amount of ram, same amount of internal storage. But if you think about it, that hasn’t really changed that much over the past few years. So I think that you’re going to be super excited about this phone. If this is something that you really value about, the products that you buy in 2021 fairphone launched the fairphone 4.
So it’s been about two years since we saw a new, Fair phone now, what’s the difference between the fairphone 5 and the fairphone 4., the biggest difference is probably the display. The display has thinner bezels than ever before. It’S OLED instead of LCD, it has a 90 Hertz refresh rate and we now have a display cut out for the selfie camera. If you’ll remember, the fairphone 4 had that water drop Notch, which you know I feel like most people – think makes the phone look pretty dated nowadays. Another thing that’s different this year is that we jump from an ip54 rating to an ip55 rating.
Now I know what you’re thinking ip55 is nowhere near the ip68 rating we get with Flagship phones from Samsung and Apple and Google and stuff like that. But remember the fairphone 5 is modular, meaning that you can take the whole thing. Apart with a screwdriver one screwdriver and then put it all back together again with replacement part parts or different parts, upgraded Parts whatever that might be so the fact that fairphone was able to keep this phone ip55 rated against dust and water while still keeping the repairability In the modularity, that’s a big deal and that’s going to be something that Samsung and Google and apple and all the bigger companies are going to have to look at because the EU is starting to crack down on things like this. Trying to force the bigger companies to make their phones more repairable so that consumers can hold on to them longer and fix them themselves. In other words, a lot of the bigger companies are looking to Fair phone, maybe not overtly, but looking at fairphone trying to figure out what they’re doing and what they could start doing in the future. So, let’s get down to brass tacks inside the phone is what is equivalent to a Snapdragon 782g processor. However, it’s not actually that processor, it’s actually. I have to look this up real, quick here, qcm 6490, which is something that’s mostly used in industrial and iot application. So that’s why I’ve never heard of it and you’ve probably never heard of it either.
Essentially, what fairphone did was go to Qualcomm and say we want to up update our processors for longer periods of time, so they looked for a processor that was equivalent to the 782g but would get longer updates from Qualcomm which the qcm does elsewhere. We have eight gigabytes of RAM, we have 256 gigabytes of internal storage, but you can expand that up to two terabytes with the included micro SD card. We have USBC. Unfortunately we don’t have a headphone jack, but we do have a premium feeling device.
It feels a little bit like a Samsung Galaxy s23, a little bit bigger and obviously a little bit more plastic than the aluminum and glass construction that we have with the Galaxy s23. How much does it all cost? It costs 6.99 Euro, which is about a little bit over 700. So that’s pretty expensive for a phone like this, especially when you hold it in your hand, it doesn’t feel like a 700 phone, but remember that fairphone is doing a lot of ethical practices that a lot of other companies aren’t doing. That includes ethically sourcing. All of its materials trying to use recycled materials as much as possible, making sure everybody on the assembly line from the person, that’s giving you know getting the the materials to the person. Putting the phone together is getting paid fairly. A lot of things that a lot of companies don’t do so when you buy a fair phone, you have to be committed to the concept of what fairphone is trying to do. It’S not just about giving your money and getting a phone in return like it is with a lot of other companies and that’s something that you’re either going to be really into or kind of.
Not and ultimately that’s what the fairphone 5 really is. It’S a great phone perfect for a very specific audience and you just need to decide whether or not you are in that audience. Please .