This Smartphone’s features can be upgraded by yourself -

Smartphones are one of the best inventions in technology, while attending a virtual interview in zoom, or making the tasks easier or even while compromising a crying child. Smartphones, loved by everyone, a majority of its holders tend to own the latest model in the market. That’s the spell for smartphones being sold at a count of 1.6billion/yr. But this company has a different approach to those update seekers, letting them to upgrade their phones by themselves, the latest specifications rolled out in smartphones. For instance, if your phone has 16MP rear camera & you need a 48MP cam, you can buy & fix that Camera-part alone & make quality captures.

Perhaps, if any of the piece got damaged, you can change that too by yourself!

Fairphone – Modifiable Smartphone

This Amsterdam based Smartphone company, takes a leap in mobile manufacturing, just as Google’s dropped Ara, enabling users themselves to repair & remodel the phone. It happens the reason for including a tiny screwdriver in the box.

Turned from an awareness campaign to a smartphone company, Fairphone aims in providing longevity with a modular design in the realm. But the phone-maker doesn’t stop with that. The phone is actually made of 40% of recycled plastic wastes. Beyond repairs, Fairphone also attempts to use ethically sourced materials where possible and offer good working conditions for the people making its phones. This secures the CEO of the firm, Bas van Abel to have ‘German Environmental Award’ in 2016.

“Change is in your hands”

The company affirms the process to be ethical in all ways to the environment. It uses gold from Fairtrade certified mines and tin from conflict-free mines. Started in 2013, the firm had released only four models as of Feb 2021.

Specifications

The 5.65-inch display smartphone has 2 models, Fairphone 3 & Fairphone 3+, as the latest ones. Both equipping Android 10, 4GB RAM & 64GB internal storage with 3040mAh battery, differs only in cameras’ specs, adding 48MP rear & 16 MP front camera to the latest 3 plus model.

It has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 632 from last year, which is a mid-range processor & the company currently works to have users able to swap processors too.

Fairphone brings a nostalgic experience like the 90’s & early 2000’s phones, as its back cover & battery are to be removed to insert SIM or to have any repair or modular works. Also, the mobile looks old-fashioned & bulky.

Read this: 10 Best Things you can do with your Smartphones

Repairing modules

The most exciting thing about the smartphone is its modular nature, not just upgrading the software, but also the hardware. Spare parts for upgrading to the latest version is an effort by the company to make people retain the smartphone, thus reducing the carbon footprints in the world.

The individual parts aren’t that cheap, of course, but given you can place them yourself without breaking everything else in the process it seems like a fair trade-off. A replacement camera costs ₹4440, the speaker ₹1770, the bottom module with the USB-C socket in it costs ₹1770 and the top module with the selfie camera, headphone socket and other bits costs ₹2660. Probably more widely used parts are the screen for ₹7991, the battery for ₹2660 or the back cover for ₹2216.

This gives a 100% score from iFixit, as the most modular smartphone ever made.

Epilogue

The idea of recycling the phones was overlooked by the company in motive to reduce the 50 million tons of e-wastes being thrown every year & thereby serving a purpose to the world.

416,000 smartphones are thrown per day in US and by incorporating the recycling process, 600Mn phones were as of now recycled & the company saved enough energy to power 194,000 households.

The cost of the mobile happens to be $543 (₹39,980), which takes it comparable to Google Pixel 3A & OnePlus 7. Now posing the question of comparison on either of the models, pushes the Fairphone back, as its users experienced a better working performance on Pixels & OnePlus than in modular phone. Putting forth the point of eco-friendliness, manoeuvrability and longevity, Fairphone manages to sell 17,000 phones around the globe last year, amidst the pandemic.