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The Fairphone 4 is the only smartphone that comes with a screwdriver. [credit:
Fairphone
]
Fairphone is unique in the world of smartphones. It’s pretty much the only company trying to build a sustainable device that isn’t glued together and hostile to the repair community. Today, Fairphone is announcing a brand-new flagship: the Fairphone 4, which brings an updated design and better specs while still shipping with all the modularity you would expect.
The base specs for the 579 euros ($671) model include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G SoC, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. There’s also a 649 euro ($753) version with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. On the front, you’ll get a 6.3-inch, 2340×1080 LCD with slimmer bezels (compared to the Fairphone 3 design) and a teardrop notch for the 25 MP front camera. The 3905 mAh battery is Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.1 compatible, so if you have a compatible USB-C charger (not included in the box), you can take the battery from 0-50 percent in 30 minutes. The phone ships with Android 11 and has a side fingerprint reader in the power button, a MicroSD slot, and the option for dual SIM usage via the one physical nanoSIM and an eSIM.
Surprisingly, there isn’t a headphone jack, which seems like something Fairphone’s demographic would really have wanted. Wired headphones last indefinitely, while Bluetooth buds turn into garbage after a few years when the batteries die. It seems antithetical to Fairphone’s sustainability pitch to tell people to run out and buy Bluetooth headphones.