Amsterdam’s ethical smartphone maker Fairphone has launched its V.2 at the London Design Festival.
This is its first device designed entirely in-house, offering customers a modular handset that they can open up and repair.
Fairphone launched in 2013 with a commitment to building devices using ethically-sourced materials, reducing the number of smartphones that end up in landfill and improving the working conditions in hardware factories.
The social enterprise initially opened a crowdfund for 5,000 buyers before V.1 went into production, removing the potential for over-production and meaning they didn’t have to take on external investment.
Fairphone ended up selling 60,000 pre-sale handsets and so the company is adopting the same approach for its latest phone.
Know your supply chain
Taking some lessons from their first effort, which saw the team literally going to the Democratic Republic of Congo to pick up their conflict-free tantalum and tin, Tessa Wernink, director of comms for Fairphone, told Tech City News: “From a high-level perspective, one thing we’ve learned or really reinforced, is the reason we’re making our own phone. It’s really important to know your own supply chain.
“Because we didn’t have the money to design our own phone the first time, we had to license it from a factory in China.
“This time, we had the funds from selling the first model and got a small bank loan, which enabled us to design it from the ground up.”
The team enlisted the help of London design firm Seymourpowell to create their very own smartphone with a modular design enabling owners to repair or swap out old parts.
“The modular concept changes the relationship that people have with their phone – you can open it, understand it and take action as a consumer.
You’re empowered to extend the life of your phone and we know that the less phones that are produced, the less environmental impact we all have. Longevity is a really important impact of the modular approach.”
The device has a five-inch Gorilla Glass screen, 32GB of storage and runs the latest Lollipop version of Google’s Android OS.
Wernink says Fairphone is looking into giving users more choice around the operating system and will shortly announce a new OS partner.
The back of the phone comes in a range of colours and has a wrap around effect to prevent the screen from smashing if it’s (inevitably) dropped.
Changing the debate
Back in 2013, the Guardian’s George Monbiot launched an investigation into the ethics of smartphone makers and found that Nokia was the most ethical, although the company has since sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft.
The world has now seen plenty of protests in Apple manufacturer Foxconn’s factories in China, while Samsung admitted in April 2013 after a separate Guardian investigation that its phones contain tin mined from Indonesia’s Bangka Island, an area that uses child labour and where 150 miners die each year.
“Slowly the public debate is changing,” Wernink said. “As the leaps in technology become smaller with each new handsets, people have more time and attention to look at the other costs.
“What we’re doing is looking at both supply and demand. We offer a product that is more ethical, show there is a market for ethical goods and if that market grows then that shows the providers of devices that there is pressure to change.”
Fairphone has partnered with the customer-owned Phone Co-op in the UK to offer pre-sale contract deals or so people can own their Fairphone 2 outright.
Customers can also pre-order directly from Fairphone and delivery is expected to start from November.