You may have heard of "blood diamonds," but conflict minerals are a
problem for smartphones too. That's what Fairphone set to address in
2013 with a crowdfunding campaign, and now the Amsterdam-based company
is back with the sequel.
It's a highly modular design you can take apart with a screw driver
and easily replace components. Screen replacements are possible on most
phones, but you can replace the CPU, camera, microphone and other parts
of the Fairphone 2 by ordering new ones and swapping them. This isn’t
Project Ara, you get a traditional-loooking phone, but everything is
designed to swap out a lot like a desktop computer.
The phone will launch with Android 5.1 Lollipop, but the company plans to make a lot of its software open source to enable easy development of custom ROMs.
The body of the phone is rubberized while the 5" 1080p screen on the front is guarded by 0.7mm thick Gorilla Glass 3. The innards are a bit behind modern flagships with a Snapdragon 801 chipset with 2GB RAM and an 8MP camera, but you get 4G LTE, two SIM slots and a microSD slot.
An expansion port is left on the back for sensors enhancements to come in the future. Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel says swapping components of the phone is a bonding experience since you take responsibility to maintain it, leading to a deeper relationship.
This modularity should also allow the Fairphone 2 to be upgraded with newer hardware, something like Samsung's Evolution Kits for their Smart TVs.
The phone will launch with Android 5.1 Lollipop, but the company plans to make a lot of its software open source to enable easy development of custom ROMs.
The body of the phone is rubberized while the 5" 1080p screen on the front is guarded by 0.7mm thick Gorilla Glass 3. The innards are a bit behind modern flagships with a Snapdragon 801 chipset with 2GB RAM and an 8MP camera, but you get 4G LTE, two SIM slots and a microSD slot.
An expansion port is left on the back for sensors enhancements to come in the future. Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel says swapping components of the phone is a bonding experience since you take responsibility to maintain it, leading to a deeper relationship.
This modularity should also allow the Fairphone 2 to be upgraded with newer hardware, something like Samsung's Evolution Kits for their Smart TVs.
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