With the flagship smartphone market in a continued state of stagnation and more people making an effort to be more sustainable with their tech purchases, it feels like a good time for the to arrive. It’s been nearly two years since the first launched, and as you’d expect, its successor is another highly repairable modular smartphone designed to last you a long time.
The Fairphone 6 is smaller and lighter than its predecessor, and ships with a 4415mAh battery that Fairphone says will last you nearly two days. You can get 50 percent of juice back into the phone in 25 minutes with a 30W charger. When that battery inevitably degrades a few years down the line, it’s one of the 12 components in the phone that can be swapped out after removing a few screws. Nothing in the phone is glued down, so tinkering is fully encouraged here. That said, like the Fairphone 5 before it, its water and dust resistance is only rated at IP55, which means it won’t take well to a swim.
The Fairphone 6 has a 6.31-inch 1,116 x 2,484 OLED display with up to a 120Hz refresh rate, which is a jump up from the previous model’s 90 Hz panel. You get 256GB of internal storage which is expandable by up to 2TB via microSD, and the phone is powered by a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3.
As for cameras, you have a 50MP main rear lens with up to 10x digital zoom, which is flanked by a 13MP ultra-wide camera. On the front, there’s a 32-megapixel selfie camera. On paper, the Fairphone’s photographic arsenal is actually a fairly sizable step downgrade from its predecessor, which used a 50MP lens for all three cameras.
The Fairphone 6 runs Android 15 and its maker guarantees updates until 2033 (on top of the phone’s five-year warranty). There’s also some custom software called Fairphone Moments. Activated by flicking the lime green-colored switch on the side of the device, it’s effectively a minimalist focus mode that lets you streamline your phone to show only five apps of your choice. You can have multiple Moments collections, from essentials to more relaxation-oriented apps.
As well as the phone’s modular innards, you’re also free to replace its backplates with custom alternatives with built-in features like a cardholder, finger loop or lanyard. And that remains the main appeal of the Fairphone brand. The fairly mid-range specs are less important than its future-proofed, anti-wastage design.
The Fairphone 6 is available to buy for €599 (around $695), and comes in three colors: Cloud White, Forest Green and Horizon Black.
