GoKawiilI’ve been using this $650 Android handset for several weeks, and it’s pretty good.
Fairer Phone
There isn’t much of a difference between the Fairphone (Gen. 6) I reviewed last year and the (Gen. 6+). The phone comes in a new cobalt blue color to commemorate people who work in the cobalt mines (a crucial component in smartphones) and the Fair Cobalt Alliance, a nonprofit cofounded by Fairphone.
Chiefly, the Fairphone has a slightly more souped-up processor—the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4—alongside 12 GB of RAM. That last part is important, as many of the new software features in our smartphones, specifically those powered by artificial intelligence, demand a lot of memory; the 12 gigs here should give the Fairphone a longer shelf life in being able to take advantage of those capabilities.
Performance has been plenty satisfactory, whether I was using Google Maps to navigate, doomscrolling through Instagram Reels, or playing Pokémon Go while waiting for a doctor’s appointment. My benchmarks show the tiniest of performance bumps over the processor in the Gen 6. You may see a slight stutter here and there, but it barely affects day-to-day use. The software is also more polished this time around; I haven’t run into notable bugs, which I can’t say for last year’s model.
I don’t mind the look of the new Fairphone—the blue and the yellow-accented button is a fun combo—but it does have a very plasticky feel. You might like Fairphone’s accessory system, which lets you replace part of the backplate with accessories like a wallet or phone grip by removing two screws (you can use the included screwdriver). I haven’t bothered, as it feels a little clunky; I don’t want these items permanently on the back, and unscrewing them is a hassle. Hopefully, Fairphone can move to a MagSafe-like system in the future.