Thinking of ordering a Fairphone to Canada from Clove, but with the additional cost of shipping and customs, I wonder if it’s worth it. In order to repair a Fairphone, how do you get the spare parts? More shipping fees, isn’t there?
Should I just wait for a trip to Europe to buy a Fairphone and buy spare parts while I’m there?
It’s almost definitely worth it to wait until you can skip custom fees (and especially brokerage fees, if you can’t self-clear) and shipping fees. Some replacement parts you can only get from the Fairphone store too, so you have to pay for shipping twice – once with the web store and once with the package forwarding service.
Honestly the economic justification for buying a Fairphone isn’t a very strong one outside of supported countries. There are some newer repairable phones that might be easier to get your hands on for cheaper (HMD devices, mostly). If you care about more than just saving a few bucks though, Fairphone beats all of those in other aspects.
I have a fairphone 3 bought through ebay. Although it is a good product, marketing and support are terrible outside of Europe. The same goes for the Shiftphone, my 1st choice, European only. The only alternative may be the Terracube if they can stay in business, at least they ship parts and product world wide when available.