Fairphone 2 Review

In today's smartphone climate it makes a change to see something different – and whatever else the Fairphone 2 is, it's certainly different. Built with sustainability and repairability in mind rather than joining the high-end-specs race, this is a phone for the environmentally conscious – which, really, should be just about all of us.

That said, its specifications aren't actually that bad, putting the Fairphone 2 firmly in the mid-range section of the market, but the focus of this handset is on where its components come from, and how long they're going to last.

The Dutch startup behind the phone has been in operation in some form or another since 2010, and this new phone follows up on the first Fairphone, which had a production run of 60,000 devices.

Fairphone has grander ambitions for the Fairphone 2, bumping up the capabilities of the handset, introducing a new design from Fairphone itself and making itself available to a wider market.

The aims of its makers are two-fold: first to produce a smartphone built from materials that are all ethically and sustainably sourced, and second to reduce e-waste with a modular approach that makes the handset simple to repair (and potentially upgrade in the future).

It can be yours today for €525 (around £395/US$570/AU$805. That's by no means cheap – you can get a Nexus 5X or a 16GB iPhone 5S for less – but you're buying into an ethos as well as picking up some hardware.

You're also getting a phone that should last you a long, long time (five years, says Fairphone), which makes price comparisons somewhat tricky to make.

Design

The Fairphone 2 has an eye-catching look, but not in the conventional sense: the back of the phone case I was sent is transparent, so its components are on show, x-ray-style (other backings, including solid colours, are available).

Its inner modules – seven components in all, from the camera to the speakers – are easy to swap out. And yes, that does include a removable battery. Read the complete  FAIRPHONE 2 REVIEW on Flagshipblog.com