I’ve been looking for quite a while after good third-party cases for the Fairphone 3+, sadly I cant find any good ones, I’ve been about three different cases now, two of which were universal cases which did not at all fit the fairphone 3’s wider shape. I then discovered a Thread here on the forum which also talked about this and mentioned that none of the cases they’ve found ever fits the fairphone properly, even those times it Says it’s made for the fairphone!
I’ve now come to the realisation that there most likely aren’t that many cases to be had which fits the fairphone, I’ve instead been thinking about maybe custom order a bunch of cases from a factory that makes cases.
Just to check what that Might cost i took contact with the makers of a case i used to my previous phone (Jolly). And his is what they told me;
"Thanks for your inquiry on our website. This is Ken from JOLLY.
As for the phone case for Fairphone 3, we usually have 2 solutions: 1, Produce PU leather phone case with a slider. The advantage is to fit many brands of phone models. So that we call it universal phone case as well. Please refer to the pic attached.
2, Produce PU leather phone case with a custom plastic cover inside. But now no plastic cover for Fairphone in the market. If choose this way, we need to customize a mold to produce cover firstly. The tooling cost is around USD2500 per model.
The above 2 ways we could offer. Please just think about it, thanks."
Doe’s anyone think this might be a good idea? I’ve been thinking of maybe taking the risk of getting a case made that is actually designed for the fairphone 3+ and try to sell it.
Or would the community be interested in making their own case? Don’t know how that would be organised but it would be cool if it was possible!
Hi Mumrik 93 & everyone else … The only thing that is stopping me buying a Fairphone is the lack of a sturdy wallet/carrying case, with 3 slits for credit cards, and a place to fold a couple of bank-notes. I currently use a Snakehive case which costs about 35€, but I would be willing to pay a premium to get a comparable model which perfectly fits a Fairphone, let’s say 50€, meaning we would need a couple of hundred FP users/customers to commit up front about 50€ each to cover the unique tooling & the standard case. IMHO this would not happen. I think the only realistic solution is that FP negotiate with a respectable company to produce a totally FP-compatible wallet case. If this is impossible, then I am sorry, I can never become a FP user.
How about looking for a leather processor (saddler, shoemaker …). With your existing cover and the dimensions of the Fairphone of your choice, ask them how much it would cost to make it out of leather. It doesn’t have to be leather, it could also be felt.
Depending on where you live, I can supply addresses. Germany or Great Britain. There are also websites on the internet.
Just to throw an idea in here; if you could find a leather wallet case for a phone with similar dimensions you could probably make this work with a bit of messing about.
You’ll usually find that the TPU part that houses the phone is glued onto the leather “wallet”.
You could remove that, and glue a FP3+ case in its place. (you may need to enlarge or create a hole in the back for the camera and fingerprint scanner)
Might be a bit much effort for a phone case, I wouldn’t bother but it is an option.
Failing that one could be 3d printed in flexible Nylon or TPU. I have Nylon available so I might give this a try at some point.