Hello. I liked Fairphone, and in particular its “Ethiscore” rating from “Ethical Consumer”. I saw a Fairphone in a second hand store in my country, Russia. I want to buy a Fairphone, but what’s stopping me is that Fairphone modules aren’t sold in my country. This probably stopped other people from non-Western countries as well.
Fairphone doesn’t ship to my country, in fact, I can’t even view this forum without a VPN (“This community is not accessible in your location”). I couldn’t google any seller in my country that sells modules from Fairphone. I’m not entirely sure if I can buy modules from the users of this forum, but if it’s possible, I’m afraid that shipping will be very expensive. Because of this, I’m worried that the first time I need to replace (in particular, battery replacement) or repair a module, I’ll be forced to spend a huge amount or buy a new phone.
Is it worth purchasing a Fairphone given the concerns expressed above?
I think users of this forum mostly all agreed, that Fairphones are not exactly the best value for the money. You could get a “lot more phone” for what you’d spend on it. Unless the second hand deal you found is so cheap and lucrative.
You should want to buy it for the peace of mind that you’re doing a small part towards something more ethical and green. A phone you intend to run to the ground, and not replace it until it’s trully dead.
If money is an object, and you don’t seek to jump through hoops to eventually get replacement parts shipped to your country, I think I’d have to advise against it.
Especially if it’s a Fairphone 4.
If it’s a Fairphone 5, even at a best case scenario, where you never need anything replaced on it, and you never replace the battery, you might be regularly bound to a battery bank by the end of the phone’s official software support.
Obviously, weigh your options. Your usage patterns. If the risk is worth it.
Yes. For 629 euros you can buy many other phones that have objectively better qualities in different aspects. Which is how most people evaluate a device. Specific to their needs. For that money you can buy phones that have longer lasting battery life. Score higher in benchmarks, thus resulting in a smoother day to day experience. Have brighter screens. Have better cameras. There’s definetly no phone that does ALL those simoltaniously better than a fairphone, for the same price. But if you have a particular need for either of those traits, the fairphone is objectively the worse choice for focusing on either of those qualities. It’s a jack of all traits. As I said many times before on this forum, the fairphone is fine. It’s an okay phone. Genuinely. But every individual user has to decide, what they want from a phone.
As I elluded to in the message above, the value comes from the stance you make with the purchase of the phone. And since OP has concerns about sourcing replacement parts, which enable Fairphone’s redeeming quality of lasting long, yes I would say it would not be the best value for his money.
Edit: there are many different reasons I have read about why people bought a Fairphone. And yes you can get better tech for this price, however those are neither reparable and as “sustainable” as the Fairphones are, so the price of Fairphones has other components adding to it.
I understand that this your opinion however at the end its only this, your opinion and not necesssarily most peoples or mostly all forum users opinion.
Well, my takeaway from the last 1.5 years on this forum did lead me to form this opinion. It is in fact not based on-
-merely telling OP how one user feels, and what lead me to that conclusion. The only thing I apologise for, is that maybe this opinion came less from the forum, and more from other tech circles I’m in, that discuss the Fairphone.
If people looking to purchase a Fairphone had such straightforward confidence, OP wouldn’t have posted the question in the first place. Which is why I advised them to weigh their options, with certain information in mind.
As per my last email:
And lastly:
Indeed, I’m throwing in my two cents about what my experience has been, so that OP can weigh his options better. You are free to address OP with your own thougts regarding their purchase.
Obviously I would love if everyone was running around with fairphones. The world would be a better place. But in my opinion, it wouldn’t be the best choice for OP. However only they can make the call, wether good enough is good enough.
I probably wouldn’t. One of the biggest strengths of the Fairphone is the ability to easily repair it. If I had to go through ice and fire to find replacement parts that may or may not be original components, well, that means the arguments kind of flies doesn’t it? Also, it’s not clear if you’ll be able to send it in for repairs since, you know, Russia, so the extended warranty may or may not work.
Lastly, as others have commented, the Fairphone phones are absolutely terrible when it comes to bang for buck. After I bought my FP4 I saw that the Pixel 6a was for sale for half of the price of my FP4. After trying one in a store I quickly realized that it drives circles around my Fairphone 4 in every conceivable way. I could afford the 620 bucks for it, but if that’s a lot of money to you then I can’t really recommend it.
Only if you want to go on an ethical adventure and if you have the money to spare. Your worries about being out of the Fairphone support area are valid.
Just saying … the OP ist talking about a second hand phone. Not sure why everyone is focusing immediately on whether buying a new one is making sense. We don’t even know the price the OP is facing. Maybe it’s just 10 bucks for a FP3… which I would consider extremely fair and definitely worth the risk. So before everyone agrees one “don’t buy a new FP5 because it’s too expensive”, we should clarify some questions first.
What FP actually?
How much for it?
What is the chance of finding spare parts here or on other (western) second hand trading platforms?
Also China still does commerce with ru and they’re also the biggest spare parts vendor on earth (AliExpress etc.). So…
What does shipping to ru (from where) will cost approximately?
FYI: Shipping batteries might be another elevated issue.
tl;dr: My two cents: I’d say go for it assuming the price is fair.
I would not buy a FP if the spare parts are not reachable easily. If you have a group of several people who all buy the same FP then you might consider to do so. Either you order together when needed or you buy some spare parts as a group in advance. As soon as one phone breaks by accident there are spare parts left. If you like the FP and want to buy no matter of costs and problems then buy one and have a replacement phone that you can use e.g. for a month until a spare parts arrives.
I will provide additional data on my case. Of course, they cannot be extrapolated to all potential Fairphone users in non-Western countries.
What FP actually? How much for it?
Second hand Fairphone 3 for 17,000 rubles (about 153 euros). I would buy it right away if in my country it would be possible to buy modules for it without huge overpayments.
600 euros for a smartphone is too much for me.
You should want to buy it for the peace of mind that you’re doing a small part towards something more ethical and green.
A phone you intend to run to the ground, and not replace it until it’s trully dead.
I support repair culture, right to repair and repair revolution. But for non-Europeans, due to the high cost of shipping modules, it turns out that Fairphone, despite that it’s the most repairable smartphone in the world, is part of the throwaway culture.
so the extended warranty may or may not work
The seller told me that he doesn’t have any warranty papers for the smartphone. It appears that buyer will not be able to take advantage of the warranty options.
Thanks for the links! Unfortunately, I don’t see any messages in these threads where anyone would say that she/he could successfully buy a Fairphone module(.
Also China still does commerce with ru and they’re also the biggest spare parts vendor on earth (AliExpress etc.).
AliExpress has solely displays, glasses and cases for Fairphone 3. (And buying on services like AliExpress isn’t a great example of ethical consumption).
What does shipping to ru (from where) will cost approximately?
On AliExpress, delivery from China to Russia is free or inexpensive.
I have no any experience purchasing goods from Europe. For example, Clove, eBay or Amazon don’t deliver to Russia. The fact that my country is the most sanctioned country in the world limits delivery options.
FYI: Shipping batteries might be another elevated issue.
Yes, and I’m especially concerned about what to do if the battery needs to be replaced.
I’m taking steps to make the battery last longer. The battery charge of my Samsung GT-I8262, which is already 11 years old, still lasts for a day. But messages like “I’m retiring my Fairphone 3+ due to the battery running out of life” from user brianluu and “I had a swollen battery” from user Deanna_Howland doesn’t give me confidence that the Fairphone battery will also last many years.
Do any non-Europeans have experience with people who could get you the Fairphone module you need without having to pay a huge price for shipping?
How many years have you used Fairphone without having to replace modules?
Has anyone repaired Fairphone in regular repair shops?
If you lived in a non-Western country and cared about ethics, would you rather buy a used (I solely buy second hand) Fairphone or a used Chinese smartphone, for which it’s much easier to find spare parts?
Well, I gave my FP3 to my mom in Canada, and getting spares has been extremely annoying. While it does seem maybe possible to ship a battery, due to air carriage limitations it seems like it would have been massively expensive and ridiculous. I gave her the spare when she came to visit - which is obviously not a solution unless you’re regularly travelling to a place where you can get replacement parts easily.
I’d say it’s probably going to be more pain than it’s worth, unless aliexpress stocks batteries you could swap, and it sounds like they don’t currently.
Hmm, my Fairphone (FP3) is going to the 5th year of working in daily life. The only spare part I needed or I exchanged was the battery. In the meantime a front display shows loosing some of the glue at the bottom border (where Fairphone is printed) and the other borders the glue loss could be seen, but all this still do not have any impacts in my daily use. Further I do not know anyone in my frieds and neighbourhood who is equipped with a fairphone.
I’m aware of the risk that the phone can break, but this is nothing special to Fairphone. And other phones can’t often be repaired this easy way.
well my FP3+ has been running for some years, it’s now my fallback model (ou celular do ladrão no Brasil ) and my current FP5 is running great. I just returned a fully functional FP2 to Fairphone because its Android wasn’t being updated, its USB micro connector and its slow speed. My wife’s FP4’s screen broke in June and a spare was in within 4 days, but this is spares sent to Germany so this may not relate to non-EU countries.
I’m surprised no one in this thread discussed the particularly Russia aspect in your post. I am pondering whether there is an overreaching geopolitical argument on sending tech HW to Putin’s Russia, even if you yourself may be a nice guy personally. And whether sending spares would breach any boycott rules in place. I read reports that this country is importing washing machines through Kazachstan or Georgia to get at the chips to control their weapons, I assume even an older FP3 may be of even better use?
Well, I guess from your post that you do have sources where you can get Fairphone HW and you’re mainly interested to know whether the HW is sustainable with regards to spares.
I would however also be curious whether these are supposed to be available officially.
Sorry if this ruffles any feathers, but I think that in today’s world particularly Russia is one very special non-Western country and that’s what the OP is asking about in particular.
Have you contacted repair shops to have your battery replaced with a battery from a smartphone of a different manufacturer? Of course, it’s better to have a brand battery, but if getting one is very problematic, it’s a backup option.
Have you looked for stores and sellers in Canada that ship phone parts from Europe and could potentially purchase a Fairphone battery?
I’m wondering how experience from Canadian repair shops, stores and sellers will help you in Russia? Did you check options in Russia directly? At the end, only someone from Russia already using a FP could give a real helpful answer or you find out on your own, what options you have to buy spare parts and what rules apply for shipping batteries to Russia.
Just be aware as you consider a FP3: some spare parts are no longer sold at all.
There also another consideration: the ‘hackability’ of a Fairphone. If I am correct, it is no longer possible to buy an fully licensed Android phone in Russia. A Fairphone can be easily flashed so it can run on an alternative OS.
I have recently purchased a fairphone in a place currently filled with your fellow countrymen, Serbia. The closest (and most reasonable) option to purchase said phone and replacement parts is Germany.
Serbia has a very limited phone market compared to Russia. We also don’t have great online retailers like ozon or wildberries for replacement components. If my previous phone failed, I relied on aliexpress shipments and prayers that the import taxes are reasonable.
If the ethics of a fairphone are compatible with you, I suggest using one. If you fear replacement parts are not coming to russia (lol)or you don’t plan a trip to a western/western-adjacent country sometime soon, it’s probably best to find a phone with mass appeal in russia (read iphone) that’s relatively easy to fix.
Canadian Fairphoners! 
) and my current FP5 is running great. I just returned a fully functional FP2 to Fairphone because its Android wasn’t being updated, its USB micro connector and its slow speed. My wife’s FP4’s screen broke in June and a spare was in within 4 days, but this is spares sent to Germany so this may not relate to non-EU countries.