GoKawiilis a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
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The Fairphone 6 Plus is a minor hardware refresh, but a major launch for the company: It’s the first phone that Fairphone is selling directly in the US. It’s on sale now for $649.99, available through Fairphone’s website and Amazon, and is sold unlocked with support for both T-Mobile and AT&T. In Europe, it costs €649, a €50 increase on last year’s phone.
Fairphones from the 4 onwards have been available to buy in the US, but never from Fairphone itself. They were exclusively sold through a partnership with Murena, the developer of /e/OS, a “de-Googled” version of Android. That meant buyers were forced to use Murena’s software — which is capable, but certainly an acquired taste — and paid a significant premium for the phone. Last year’s Fairphone 6 sold for $899.
The 6 Plus is ultimately a very similar device to the Fairphone 6, which is no bad thing — I liked the 6 a lot, giving it 7/10 in my review last year, and would have scored it higher were it not for the unfriendly US price tag. The 6 Plus builds on it with a faster chipset — Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, which is firmly midrange but a solid performer — and an industry-bucking jump up to 12GB of RAM.
Other specs are identical. You get the same 6.31-inch OLED display (the “Plus” in the name doesn’t indicate any actual increase in size), basic double rear camera, and 4,415mAh battery. Storage remains at 256GB, with a microSD card slot for expansion by another 2TB. It launches running Android 16, and will receive software support until 2033.
The design is the same too, meaning this phone is likely to match the 10/10 repairability score that iFixit gave to the 6. Replacement parts will be sold in the US, ranging from $7.99 for a SIM tray to $89.99 for a new display, and almost the entire phone can be disassembled with a single Torx T5 screwdriver, something I put to the test with last year’s Fairphone 6.
The 6 Plus comes in a striking new blue color, plus the 6’s black and green options. Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge The cameras are unchanged from last year’s 6. Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge Like the 6, it supports a range of swappable backplate accessories, all attached by screws. Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge Many of the phone’s components are replaceable, and accessible with a single screwdriver. Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge
There’s also a range of modular accessories, including a card holder and lanyard, which screw onto the phone’s rear. These are also identical to last year’s Fairphone 6 range, apart from a new blue color, also available for the phone itself. It’s named Cobalt Blue, in a nod to the company’s ongoing efforts to support more ethical cobalt mining.
Fairphone has been building up to the US launch of the 6 Plus, bringing audio products to Amazon US starting with the Fairbuds XL over-ear headphones last November. Alongside the announcement of the 6 Plus, the company has confirmed that a new pair of earbuds, the Fairbuds 2, will launch in Q4 this year, and “will set a new bar for repairability and performance.” The company says it will reveal more in October.
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