I really wanted to get this phone, but at 850Eur that’s a hard pass from me. I could let the lack of jack and FM radio slide, as well as some design choices that they made, as sacrifices need to be made to make it modular. But I can find that hardware in phones that cost a quarter of a Fairphone. And then there is the repair cost, where the parts cost almost twice as much as getting a non-fair phone repaired at a shop (even moreso if I were to use aliexpress parts and home repair). Again, I fully expect a repairable and fair-source phone to perform worse than a regular one, but this is like paying iPhone money for a Xiaomi midranger. Also, the 8 year warrranty feels like a scam because the chip they use will be out of production in 4-5 years.
Of course it’s more expensive than other phones with similar specifications.
The main point here isn’t to be fair to consumers by allowing them to repair their phones and giving them upgrades. The main point is to create a phone that is paying living wages to those producing it, and uses as many recycled minerals as possible and seeks to not be an absolute disaster for the planet.
If people stopped a while to wonder why their smaprtphoens are so goddamn cheap, I think people would be lining up to pay more for them. It’s not even remotely sustainable.
I’ve been corrected on the price - looks like I was using an older quote.
I do realize that their point is to make the phone’s manufacturing process fairer, but their older models were more decently priced, so I wonder how much of that tag is actually due the higher cost of manufacturing.
Still, since people switch phones a lot earlier than EoL, it would be nice if there was a way to discourage the frequent switching ( for marginal performance gains ) and instead encourage keeping smartphones until EoL ( which, granted, for some manufacturers is less than 2 years )
Regular companies have an obligation to deposit their annual accounts with the chamber of commerce, but social enterprises tend to go above and beyond because their focus is not on economic gain, but on socio-economic gain.
There is no legal obligation to do anything special when you call yourself a social enterprise, that I know of. But using the description for bragging rights does put your company under increased scrutiny from the community and from researchers.
All kinds of modeling methods have been invented to make social-economic impact part of the businessmodel. Some of those methods are even similar to Alex Osterwalder’s widely used Business Model Canvas.
Some social enterpreneurs also make use of specific constructions using certain legal forms to prevent shareholders from steering the company away from its original goal. For example: some will opt to make a “stichting” (foundation) the majority shareholder of the main company. The stichting having auditing and course correction as their main purpose.
Yeah, just noticed the new price. It’s not available in my country yet so I was quoting the one listed on gsmarena. At 700Eur it does make more sense, as it’s a similar price to the old Fairphone in 8gb guise.
I really wanted to get this phone, but at 850Eur that’s a hard pass from me. I could let the lack of jack and FM radio slide, as well as some design choices that they made, as sacrifices need to be made to make it modular. But I can find that hardware in phones that cost a quarter of a Fairphone. And then there is the repair cost, where the parts cost almost twice as much as getting a non-fair phone repaired at a shop (even moreso if I were to use aliexpress parts and home repair). Again, I fully expect a repairable and fair-source phone to perform worse than a regular one, but this is like paying iPhone money for a Xiaomi midranger.
Also, the 8 year warrranty feels like a scam because the chip they use will be out of production in 4-5 years.Of course it’s more expensive than other phones with similar specifications.
The main point here isn’t to be fair to consumers by allowing them to repair their phones and giving them upgrades. The main point is to create a phone that is paying living wages to those producing it, and uses as many recycled minerals as possible and seeks to not be an absolute disaster for the planet.
If people stopped a while to wonder why their smaprtphoens are so goddamn cheap, I think people would be lining up to pay more for them. It’s not even remotely sustainable.
I’ve been corrected on the price - looks like I was using an older quote.
I do realize that their point is to make the phone’s manufacturing process fairer, but their older models were more decently priced, so I wonder how much of that tag is actually due the higher cost of manufacturing.
Still, since people switch phones a lot earlier than EoL, it would be nice if there was a way to discourage the frequent switching ( for marginal performance gains ) and instead encourage keeping smartphones until EoL ( which, granted, for some manufacturers is less than 2 years )
Fairphone is a social enterprise, and most Dutch companies presenting themselves as such are actually held to certain standards.
I haven’t confirmed this myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually publish all of their expenses so you can do the math yourself.
They have published a full breakdown for an earlier model: Over here
Oh wow I didn’t know they published the cost breakdowns for some of their models thats really cool! Thank you for posting that
Regular companies have an obligation to deposit their annual accounts with the chamber of commerce, but social enterprises tend to go above and beyond because their focus is not on economic gain, but on socio-economic gain.
There is no legal obligation to do anything special when you call yourself a social enterprise, that I know of. But using the description for bragging rights does put your company under increased scrutiny from the community and from researchers.
All kinds of modeling methods have been invented to make social-economic impact part of the businessmodel. Some of those methods are even similar to Alex Osterwalder’s widely used Business Model Canvas.
Some social enterpreneurs also make use of specific constructions using certain legal forms to prevent shareholders from steering the company away from its original goal. For example: some will opt to make a “stichting” (foundation) the majority shareholder of the main company. The stichting having auditing and course correction as their main purpose.
If you would like to know more about social enterprises, the dutch chamber of commerce has published a great article (in english) on the subject.
Are we using different websites? It’s 700 euro for me, not 850. Also it’s 5 year warranty and 8 years of updates.
Yeah, just noticed the new price. It’s not available in my country yet so I was quoting the one listed on gsmarena. At 700Eur it does make more sense, as it’s a similar price to the old Fairphone in 8gb guise.