Nearly impossible? How Fairphone built the ethical, repairable Fairphone Gen 6+

Skip to content Unscrewed Fairphone’s CTO explains how and why the Dutch company builds a different kind of smartphone. You can fully disassemble the Fairphone Gen 6+ in about 20 minutes. Credit: Ryan Whitwam You can fully disassemble the Fairphone Gen 6+ in about 20 minutes. Credit: Ryan Whitwam Smartphone longevity didn’t used to matter. In the past, before you could wear out or break a phone, there was always some shiny new thing to buy. Today, we expect our smartphones to go the distance, but they’ve also become less repairable and, in many cases, more fragile. Fairphone, a Dutch smartphone maker that has just entered the US market, thinks about phones differently. The new $650 Fairphone Gen 6+ is designed both for longevity and easy repairability. There are trade-offs to this approach if you’re used to the standard glass and aluminum sandwiches filled with glue, gaskets, and teeny-tiny screws. But the drawbacks could be worth it for the right buyer. Fairphone CTO Chandler Hatton told Ars that Fairphone’s goal is to provide a compelling mobile experience while also enabling the user to “fully own” their device. At the end of the day, this is what a lot of people say they want in a smartphone. Take it apart, put it back together These days, Google, Samsung, and Apple support phones with software updates for the better part of a decade, but will the hardware last that long? And what happens when it needs a repair? You may be out of luck or out a lot of money, but Fairphone prioritizes the self-repair experience. “We’re doing something that was long thought to be nearly impossible,” said Hatton. “Which is delivering high-performing modular smartphones that can last for a very long time.” The Fairphone Gen 6+ has a 6.31-inch OLED screen, which is, of course, fully replaceable. Credit: Ryan Whitwam The Fairphone Gen 6+ has a 6.31-inch OLED screen, which is, of course, fully replaceable. Credit: Ryan Whitwam Fairphone designs devices to be sustainable, focusing on avoiding conflict minerals, using recycled materials, and paying workers a living wage. Fairphone says it doesn’t want to sell you a bunch of phones, just one that you can keep using even if something breaks. “Our goal is that every single person that purchases a Fairphone uses it for at least five years, and we track that as a KPI [Key Performance Indicator],” said Hatton. The standard way to design a modern smartphone is to cram as much as you can into an aluminum and glass sandwich, with the expectation that it will be assembled once in a factory and never opened by the buyer. Devices rely on glue and awkwardly placed screws to accomplish this, making the internals a little like metal spaghetti. The Gen 6+ is designed so that anyone can replace parts, reducing e-waste and potentially saving consumers a lot of money. If you’ve had, say, a Samsung Galaxy phone for a couple of years and need to replace the screen or USB port, the cost might be higher than just buying a new phone. “There is an incentive in terms of planned obsolescence to replace your device,” said Hatton. “On the one hand, it’s a good way to keep selling devices, but that’s simply not the proposition that we have.” That means designing the phone differently—it’s not just a matter of skipping the glue. Inside, the Fairphone Gen 6+ is clean and orderly. It starts with a pair of T5 Torx screws exposed on the back of the phone. After removing those, the back cover slides off. With the same driver, you can extract the battery, camera modules, USB-C port, display, and more. In all, the phone supports user replacement of 12 different parts with just that one (included) screwdriver. One drawback is that the modular approach makes the phone a millimeter or two thicker than most glued-together phones. The phone comes with a tiny screwdriver, but any T5 torx will work. Credit: Ryan Whitwam The phone comes with a tiny screwdriver, but any T5 torx will work. Credit: Ryan Whitwam The battery stares you in the face once the back panel is opened. You’ll have to remove a few more screws to get it out, but quick swapping isn’t the goal here—this is about longevity. “We know that after about three years, it will be wise to replace your battery with a new one,” said Hatton. “Batteries aren’t meant to last forever, but your phone on the whole can last a lot longer than a battery.” While the Fairphone is designed to be disassembled, what about the long haul? The Fairphone 6+ is mostly plastic rather than metal like a Pixel or iPhone. The phone still manages to feel solid, though, thanks to its internal metal frame, and the company has worked to ensure the device doesn’t become progressively less sturdy as you tinker with it. “When we’re in our product development cycle, we introduce tests that are specifically dedicated to disassembly and reassembly,” said Hatton. “So we’re looking in part at the robustness.” Robots work the assembly line, but humans are less predictable. Hatton pointed to tests that examine, for example, what happens when someone over-tightens screws while servicing their device. Does it warp the casing? Damage any nearby components? Hatton said it takes her 15 minutes to fully disassemble a Fairphone Gen 6+, but she did have a hand in designing it. That said, it shouldn’t take a novice much longer. After a couple of minutes perusing Fairphone’s documentation, I was able to take the phone apart and remove all of the user-serviceable components in about 20 minutes. Everything went back together without issue and still works perfectly, with no new gaps or wobble. The process is pretty intuitive, with most of the parts held in with flat board-to-board cable connectors. Just pop them off with a spudger or your fingernail, and the component lifts right out. There are a good number of screws to remove to get all the way down to the metal frame and screen, but again, they all use the same T5 Torx bit. Specs at a glance: Fairphone Gen 6+ ($650) SoC Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 Memory 12GB Storage 256GB plus microSD Display 6.31-inch 1116×2484 LTPO OLED, 10–120 Hz, 1400 nits Cameras 50 MP f/1.88 primary, 13 MP f/2.2 ultrawide, 32 MP f/2.0 selfie Software Android 16 Battery 4415 mAh removable battery, 30 W wired charging Connectivity 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth v5.4, SIM+eSIM Measurements 156.57 mm × 73.28 mm × 9.6 mm, 193 g Colors Cobalt Blue, Horizon Black, Forest Green Glass backs are common on smartphones because they’re good for radio performance, and they add significant rigidity to the design. But they’re also easy to crack and difficult to remove (they’re almost always glued in place). Naturally, the only glass on the Fairphone 6+ is covering the 6.31-inch 1116 x 2484 OLED display, which is fully replaceable. This is probably the most challenging component to swap, but even this isn’t too bad. The screen is held in place by a handful of screws and has a generously long ribbon cable attachment, making a swap much less frustrating than your typical smartphone. The OLED is about what you would expect for this price range—the resolution is more than sufficient, and the colors are great. The brightness is good enough to be legible outdoors, but at a mere 1,300 nits peak brightness, it’s harder to see than the displays you get on phones like the Pixel or Galaxy S26 that are a few hundred more expensive. Good luck replacing those displays on your own if you get a crack, though. What specs make the cut? Smartphones have become more powerful over the years, but their designs have also been streamlined. Headphone jacks and microSD card slots are now rare, and even the SIM card slot is quickly fading away. OEMs often cite the space constraints when dropping these features. “There’s a reason that most phone manufacturers prefer slightly larger footprints—because you can fit more stuff in there,” Hatton said. “So yes, it is legitimate if phone manufacturers are saying, ‘Hey, we dropped this feature to save space inside the device.’” The Fairphone retains some of these elements, but not because there’s a surplus of space, Hatton said. The Fairphone 6+ still has a microSD slot and physical SIM card because people want them. These features don’t come free, though. In addition to the space constraints, adding more components adds to the price and complicates supply chains. That’s another reason some OEMs have removed features. Being modular means the Fairphone is a little thicker than most smartphones. Credit: Ryan Whitwam Being modular means the Fairphone is a little thicker than most smartphones. Credit: Ryan Whitwam The Fairphone Gen 6+ plays to picky smartphone and DIY enthusiasts, but there’s still no headphone jack. Hatton notes that the team hears from a small but vocal cadre about headphone jacks every time it starts planning a new device, but it hasn’t made sense to include one in recent phones. “In terms of how to actually get [a headphone jack] into the device, it is quite difficult,” Hatton said. “It’s a relatively large hardware component, but it’s not just the component itself. It’s also where it needs to be. You know, you’re not going to put the headphone jack in the middle of the back of the phone. You also need to make sure it attaches to the right things on the inside, and because we’re Fairphone, you need to make sure it’s repairable. So when we look at that total picture, we assess the needs of our customers to fulfill some other wishes at the expense of the headphone jack.” Looking at spec sheets side-by-side, the Fairphone also lacks something that many of today’s phones have: IP6X water resistance. An upshot of making non-repairable phones that are chock-full of glue is that they’re relatively easy to seal against water intrusion. With an IP6X rating, a phone can be fully submerged in water for up to 30 minutes, at least in theory.