Over the years, North American availability has been teased but I’m not aware of anything notable since November 2020. I understand logistics and certification are concerns. Additionally, green shipping may not be as viable as it is over in Europe but speaking frankly, that’s making good the enemy of perfection since we don’t have many viable options over here when it comes to longevity in our consumer electronics and right to repair. If I don’t buy a Fairphone I’m going to be buying something like a Pixel or Galaxy S22. The Nokia device everyone’s been touting as a competitor in my view isn’t very competitive and neither is the Teracube 2E in regards to repairability and adequate software support. Who cares if a device is repairable and features a removable battery if it only gets two years of software support and the hardware was mediocre to begin with? I know many privacy/eco-conscious individuals that are highly awaiting the Fairphone 4/5(?). We’re a massive market that’s not really being addressed in any meaningful capacity.
When — or even whether — there will be a Fairphone 4 is a question he isn’t keen to engage with. Clearly the hope is Fairphone 3 packs enough smartphone punch to go the distance. Though he hints it might look to offer additional smartphones in order to enter the US, a major market it’s so far not addressed at all.
As an Amsterdam-based organization, we wanted to launch the Fairphone products in Europe and planned to expand at a later point. The time has come and the question now is: “How fast can we make this happen?”. We have already established some partnerships and we hope to expand even further. You can read more about this in the section below.
This article links to Murena which doesn’t even offer FP4 anymore.
1.) Is any of the recent $53M growth capital being allocated towards North American availability?
2.) Has a partnership with iFixIt or Teracube been considered? iFixIt made a similar deal with Valve for the Steam Deck and Nokia for their new device and it seems to be going great for everyone.
3.) When will we realistically hear something about NA availability as it’s been over five years since it was teased?
I can’t stay on this LG V20 (2016) forever as I’m pretty sure it will catch fire one day given how hot it runs so some transparency regarding NA availability would be greatly appreciated.