Fairphone 4, a repair-friendly 5G smartphone, is coming to the market

Fairphone ㅡ a Dutch social enterprise ㅡ is the manufacturer of the most sustainable and easiest to repair phones on the market. Up until now, their devices have been mostly lagging behind compared to the more mainstream type of smartphones, but the upcoming Fairphone 4 could shorten that gap.

A Wi-Fi Alliance entry (via WinFuture) shows the Fairphone 4 will supposedly support 5G connectivity. This is revealed thanks to the name it’s given ㅡ Fairphone 4 5G. The entry itself also hints at a possible release soon, although it is not sufficient enough on its own for us to claim that for certain.

Besides the support for 5G, we also know that the device will come with Android 11; however, we do not have any information on much else. WinFuture states that the version numbers of the WLAN firmware show the phone will most likely be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. Given the history of the two parties working together, it would be a huge surprise to see Fairphone switch to MediaTek SoCs.

It’s also important to note that these devices usually are a bad example of the phrase “bang for your buck”. The predecessors of the Fairphone 4 have all had outdated components inside and a price tag that didn’t match them. The predecessor cost around €469 which was almost as much as the iPhone SE, which was a much more capable handset.

What makes the Fairphone unique though, is how simple it is to swap its parts with replacements. That way, the user doesn’t have to replace the whole phone if it gets broken, which helps with not breaking the bank and with reducing e-waste. The company also pays attention to its supply chain, striving to keep it fair by making sure the materials used come from environmentally friendly sources.

Fairphone is expected to expand on sustainability and repair even further with their newest device, so it will be interesting to see how they push the envelope further. With the right-to-repair talk that’s been a heated topic in 2021, the Fairphone 4 couldn’t be coming at a better time.