Dear all,
We’ve been struggling to get the Fairphone 1 screen back in stock. The reason for this is that we have been facing quite some challenges in getting new displays produced. Setting up a new production line with a new production partner is always challenging, especially since we require relatively small production quantities (compared to industry standards and our own initial production volumes). Imagine that most factories make thousands, or millions of parts and we are talking some hundreds displays.
But we’ve managed to find a reliable partner in our current Fairphone 2 manufacturer: Hi-P. We have successfully produced a test batch of displays. These displays have arrived in the Netherlands and with the results from this test-run we are now confident that we can safely start mass production to the required quality level. However, Chinese New Year has now started and production in China grinds to a halt, so it will take some more time before displays can be mass produced and arrive here in the Netherlands. We now expect to be able to sell screens in March. Once this happens we will immediately notify you by sending you an email.
We are very committed to supporting the FP1 with both hardware and software and are sorry that this part has been taken so long to be available again.
It is hard to put an exact date as we do not want to make promises we can’t keep, but as a very conservative guestimate I’d say that displays should be available again the end of March.
Best,
Douwe
Community Manager