Fairphone 5 Review: A Noble Cause, an Imperfect Phone

The Fairphone 5 aims to help bring fair trade practices to the smartphone supply chain. Here's everything you need to know about how it compares with the competition.

0:00 Intro
1:01 Repairing the Fairphone
1:33 Fairphone Warranty, Updates, and Support
2:13 Fiarphone 5 Design
3:21 Fairphone 5 Display
3:33 Fairphone 5 Processor
4:07 Fairphone 5 Gaming
4:25 Fairphone 5 Battery Life
5:28 Fairphone 5 Operating System
5:48 Fairphone 5 Cameras
6:30 Fairphone 5 Price
7:00 Conclusions

#Fairphone #Review

[dannnnn]

5 Years of Android OS Updates + 8 Years of Security Patch Updates, this is very environmentally friendly. This phone is worth buying

[ListenToPumpkinMusic]

One thing I really dislike about smartphone reviews is the double standards when it comes to reviews of Fairphone vs every other manufacturer.

Fairphone is always criticised for its chipset and camera performance relative to similarly priced competitors, but the competitors are never criticised for their massive failures in sustainability, ethics and repairability relative to Fairphone. If we want change within the industry then we actually have to hold the bigger manufacturers to account on these issues. And that means tech journalists actually need to grow some balls and start making these points in every review of the latest Apple/Samsung/Google/etc, rather than pretending none of those issues exist.

[nrares]

Yeah, tech journalists, it has a worse camera and battery than other phones priced similarly, but how many of those phones have the modular design? How many of them companies offer replaceable parts? How many of them offer the same software support? The recycled materials? Ethically sourced minerals? Incentivizing fair wages? Does the pixel 7a have ANY of those?

If we are here to nitpick we can do so all day, but the real conversation is much broader... and you should be fair on all sides, if you praise your objectivism!

[emilaliyev]

The problem is that we have been spoiled with "premium materials and powerhouse chipsets". And we shouldn't have to pay a huge price for replacing a phone screen or any other part. Fairphone is the right example of how all future smartphones should be - eco-friendly, long-lasting and cheap to repair. And i am confident that over time they will keep getting better by refining their phones.

[UPPERKEES]

Quite a harsh review. The FP5 is a technical miracle. The whole package is really amazing. Why not change that title of the video? Seems a bit too much clickbait-like now. Will you also review other phones in the context of sustainability and repairability? A Pixel has the best camera in the industry, but it's glued shut.

[DamienWhite]

Very cool, if a small company like Fairphone can do this, there's no reason why other giants can't...

[MASViper]

Well, battery life won't be an issue if you can replace it in under 30 seconds.

[onlinechrist]

I have been a happy fairphone user for 3+ years now (I have a fairphone 3). Overall good performance. I have no complaints about the battery, have not changed it since I bought the phone. As my phone use does not require the absolute best camera and I am not a gamer, I am happy to vote with my money for a more ethical choice.

[alphasierra]

I think this phone ticks all the boxes for what it's meant to be and would love to see more manufacturers doing a similar thing.

[JoelShapiro]

I'm switching from a Pixel 7a to the Fairphone 5. Screen cracked on my 7a and the repair quote I got was 70% of the price of a new 7a. I'm getting a worse phone in every way with the F5 but I hope and suspect it's good enough for me and when it breaks I can repair it myself for a fraction of the cost of what the repair would be on any other phone.

[thegoodnamesaretaken]

Very strange review. Instead of focusing on who this phone is for the reviewer looks for people it is not for. Wouldn't an unbiased reviewer say it's for the 90% of people who are not heavy gamers and not spending every minute on their phone, instead of sending the message that it is not for the small percentage of heavy gamers that don't have chargers in their office/car/home. Same for the photos, 90% of users do not zoom in to look for the blurry edges. The only thing that saves this review a bit is the fact that the reviewer mentions the fact that you can spread the up front cost over a much longer time. I guess it's not a good idea to give a good review to a device from a small company when 99% of your reviews depend on devices from one large Korean, one American and a couple of Chinese companies.

[dontmindme]

Expandable storage with microSD cards isn't talked enough about generally. It's such a huge benefit! I have some old phones that broke or that I forgot the code for, but since my photos were stored on microSD cards it was easy to get them backed up. Easily replaceable battery is also so nice! Having a spare battery instead of a power bank has a lot of benefits.

Pixel 7A seems to have a lot of niceties, but they matter little if the phone can't hold for as long. I guess it's a matter of priorities for each person.

[orangensaft]

What most people are overlooking when it comes to the battery - you can easily carry around 2 additional batteries (that you charged with an external battery charger) in your pocket and change it on the go, it takes less space and is far more convienient than carrying a powerbank and having to use a phone with the power bank plugged in

[swarnendu]

I think Fairphone has a whole different target audience, where users like me perfectly fit in.

[bennylava]

I wish this had a 3.5mm jack. If it could be implemented as an optional module that would be incredible

[bolttracks]

The move for an IOT processor is honestly genius because chip makers have to adhere to much longer product lifespans with those

[nicolasdujarrier]

For the exact same specifications, any product that is more ethical and/or more environmentally friendly will necessarily involve a lot more extra work / effort (= paying someone to do that work) to take care of ethics / environment, and therefore necessarily be more expensive.

This unfortunately means that customers that do bother about ethics/environment are actually penalized (by paying more) for their effort, and customers that don’t care, are actually rewarded (by paying less).

Therefore, ethical/environmentally friendly products are necessarily less cost competitive, and from there, a less appealing option which likely confined it to a niche.

One of the option to change that may be to have governments (from richer countries) implement a strict « social tax » and « environment tax » on imported products that do not respect good social and environment policies to make those products much, much, much more expensive versus the products that do… : from there, the cheaper alternative will be the one that respect much better social and environment standards.

[mmpsp]

Fairphone shows it is possible. Now we need community action to pressure the legislators so all phones are as repairable and long lasting as the Fairphone.

[ehmzed]

The cool thing about it being modular is that Fairphone will sell upgraded spare components, such as the camera, during this model's lifetime (assuming they will continue like they've done so far).
So you can not only replace, but also upgrade some components without having to buy a whole new phone. Who knows, maybe they'll manage to make a better camera in the future.
The battery though will probably not be upgradable as it needs more volume. Good thing you can so easily swap one out whenever you need!
I'm so happy to see a holepunch display and upgrades all over. If I had the money I would seriously consider this as my next phone.

[ycrep]

I'll probably buy an extra battery, that definitely fixes the battery life problem, and its easier to put in your bag than a powerbank, ideal for music festivals