Not every phone is built for raw performance or crafted like a work of art. Fairphone 3’s modular concept attempts to cut down on waste and disrupt the current smartphone practice of replacing devices before they are properly knackered. Fairphone also hope the concept will deliver fairer trade and working conditions. As noble as this all sounds, it’s still a phone and we are still going to review it.
Not Conventionally Attractive
Everything takes a back seat to modular design in the Fairphone, including aesthetics. With large bezels above and below the screen and being shaped like a brick. It’s not classy, and once turned over its translucent backing leaves little to the imagination.
Displaying it’s removable innards, Fairphone 3 brings me back to simpler times, throwing a 3310 against a wall in anger and then awing at the phone’s durability as it fit back together as though nothing had happened.
Fairphone 3 probably won’t take such punishment. And with nothing more than an IP54 rating it’ll stop some dust and water splashes but won’t survive submersion.
Clunky for its Screen-Size, But A Fine Display
Fairphone 3 is breaking this year’s trend of ‘bigger is better’ with its rather dinky 5.6inch screen. When you see the size of the shell, you’d be forgiven for expecting more screen space. However, Fairphone 3 comes straight out of early 2018 with big bezels and thicc dimensions. 15mm black bars above and below a 1080 x 2160 18:9 IPS display. At almost 10mm thick and 187 grams, it has a little more heft than some will be used to.
Contrast and overall sharpness is impressive considering the modest parts cost. Will you be colour grading pictures with this display? No, but it’s bright, with an acceptable colour gamut, making it perfect for everyday use.
Fairphone is designed to allow you to quickly and easily repair their own phone, using what you might call ‘big boy Meccano’. And with this comes design complications, like how do we give consumers modern features and still make it simple for them to replace those modules. If we turn the phone over and look at the modules, some of these design choices become very apparent.
The awkward placement of the buttons, fingerprint reader and speakers are all to allow open access to the battery, camera, memory slots and other modules. Fairphone (kind of) gets a pass on this one due to the hard decisions they obviously had to make so we could have our cake, and fix it too. That being said, I would have preferred the fingerprint reader about 10mm lower but obviously the battery is in the way.
Acceptable Cameras
Fairphone comes with a 12MP main camera and 8MP selfie cam, I wasn’t expecting much from the camera, but it honestly holds its own for casual photos. Perfect for Instagram and the like.
Small but Swappable Battery
The battery capacity is another casualty of design restrictions. Coming in at a measly 3060mAh, power users will find themselves scrambling for a charger by the end of days work. When compared to most smartphones on the market today, it doesn’t sound good until you remember you can buy a second battery. Who would do that, you ask??
The same person who wants a phone they can fix themselves, or someone on the move who finds that even 4,500mAh batteries don’t carry enough charge for their needs. For the latter, being able to carry around a second, fully-charged battery is an incredibly useful feature we used to take for granted.
Overall Usability is a Mixed Bag
Some users of Samsung or Huawei’s skins might find stock Android a little vanilla for their tastes. However, my only criticism of the stock Android OS is the inability to remove the Google Search bar. When I want to search for something I’ll open Chrome or Opera or whatever.
But it is commendable that there is absolutely ZERO bloatware to be had on Fairphone 3 – although it’s a bit sad that someone gets praise for that. It should go without saying that a new phone should have very few apps pre-installed but too many phone companies take a little kickback to include stuff like Booking.com and Asphalt 9.
Pairing Samsung Galaxy Buds+ with Fairphone, was a nightmare, and I’m still not 100% sure on who to blame. When connected the bluetooth signal seems weak, dropping audio regularly if the phone is in my back pocket.
Fairphone positioned the speaker on the side of the phone, another on the list of design compromises but to their credit, it’s loud and reasonably clear at high volumes.
An Investment in Better Manufacturing
The concept and philosophy of Fairphone is something I think everyone can agree with; technology should not be produced at the cost of the environment and fairness in trade. While I did refer to certain aspects of the handset’s ergonomics as ‘casualties of design’, what Fairphone 3 has achieved, in an engineering sense, is amazing. If you are eager to step away from companies practicing planned obsolescence, Fairphone 3 is a great start.
The one thing I will mention though is this is an investment. For the most part, the factories and suppliers from which Fairphone source their materials would be producing these parts anyway. Fairphone are simply working towards change, which is great, but it should be noted that the markup on price is not specifically the actual cost of the phone, which seems to be a common misconception. It is an investment in better working conditions through a proxy; the Fairphone.
Not Quite Futureproof
It’s worth noting that the parts of the handset most likely to cause performance issues in the future – CPU, RAM and GPU are part of the main body and as of now, there is no way to improve these parts. Until a higher spec body module is available, Fairphone 3 runs the risk of being too slow or of having too little RAM to be a viable daily driver. And with such modest innards, that might happen sooner than you think
Mediocre Specs/Performance
Using Antutu benchmark to compare the Fairphone against three phones within the €400 price range it becomes clear quickly that Fairphones performance is lacking for 2020. After reviewing the benchmarks I also checked hardware specs only to find that they have the same or better screens and cameras. They also come with dual sim options, and expandable storage.
So unfortunately the only reason to buy Fairphone is to invest in a better future for technology manufacturer workers. And is that so bad? You decide, I’m done!
I understand that this phone is not all about the specs and performance, but the mobile market is fickle. And as honorable as their goals are, Fairphone are still competing with other brands with different corporate philosophies.
It’s ultimately up to each individual to decide whether they want to invest in a better future for technology manufacturing, get the best bang for their buck or buy a transient fashion accessory.
Specifications
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 632
- CPU: 4 + 4 cores (1.8 GHz Kryo 250 Gold + 1.8 GHz Kryo 250 Silver)
- Memory: 64GB Storage, 4GB RAM
- Display: 5.65 in (144 mm) diagonal IPS LCD 1080×2160 px FullHD+ 427 ppi
- Rear Camera: 12 MP using Sony IMX363 Exmor CMOS sensor (f/1.8) with dual-LED flash
- Video Capture: 12MP resolution with HDR,1/2.55″ sensor, f/1.8 aperture, autofocus + phase detection, IMX363 sensor, Digital Image Stabilisation, Dual LED flash, up to 8x digital zoom, max. video resolution 3840 x 2160, 4K video @ 30fps
- Front Camera: 8 MP (f/2.0)
- OS Version: Android 9 “Pie”
- Connectivity: 3G (HSPA+):800/850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz,LTE,Wi-Fi: 2.4/5.0 GHz, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth: 5.0 LE, USB-C with support for USB OTG
- Battery: 3060 mAh Li-ion
- Dimensions: H:158 mm (6.2 in) W: 71.8 mm (2.83 in) D: 9.89 mm (0.389 in)
- Colours Available: Slate
A Fair Effort
Fairphone’s mission statement and goals for the future are the real selling points for this device – so if you want to invest in a fairer future for supply workers, this is a reasonable place to start. If you believe in “Right to Repair” you also can’t go wrong here. But if you are just looking for the most bang for buck phone on the market right now, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
