The Fairphone 5 was officially launched today and can already be pre-ordered in the company’s online shop. There’s just one version, priced at €700/£620 (vs. €580/£500 for the previous model). The color options are matt black, sky blue or the new transparent edition. Shipping is scheduled to start on September 14th. However, the Sky Blue version will not be available until the end of September.
The Fairphone 5 is made from 70% fair and recycled materials and built by people who earn a living wage. You can even send your old phone in the box the Fairphone came in to the company for recycling. In addition to a 5-year guarantee, you also get software support until at least 2031. If everything goes well, the smartphone will get support for 10 years. Android 13 is installed at the start, which should come with at least five operating system updates.
All you need for repairs is a screwdriver. There are ten modules that you can swap out yourself. These include the new OLED display, the main and front cameras, the USB port and the battery. The new display measures 6.46 inches, which is slightly larger than the Fairphone 4’s 6.3-inch panel. The resolution is 1,224 x 2,700 pixels (20:9), the refresh rate is 90 Hz and the peak brightness is 880 nits. Gorilla Glass 5 takes care of the protection.
The front camera sits in a punch hole and has a resolution of 50 megapixels on a Samsung JN1 sensor. The chip is 1/2.76 inch in size with 0.64 µm pixels and supports 4-in-1 binning. The f/2.45 lens has a 90 degree field of view and shoots 4K video at up to 30 frames per second.
Three 50 megapixel cameras
The main camera on the back has a 50 megapixel Sony IMX800 sensor with 1/1.56 inch, 1.0 µm native pixels and also 4-in-1 binning. There is also an f/1.88 lens with an field of view of 84 degrees and optical image stabilization. Finally, there is an ultra-wide camera with a 1/2.51-inch IMX858 sensor and 117-degree FoV and 0.7 µm pixels. The Ultrawide features autofocus and can capture macro images from 2.5cm/1inch. The third module on the back is a time-of-flight sensor.
The Fairphone 5 is powered by a Qualcomm QCM 6490 chipset – an industrial chip with long-term software support. This is how the long support window until 2031 comes about. The performance is comparable to the Snapdragon 778G processor. In addition, there is exactly one memory configuration – 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. However, there is a microSD slot that accepts cards up to 2 TB. The cell phone establishes connections via Wi-Fi 6E (6 GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and 5G.
The battery has grown to 4,200 mAh (previously 3,905 mAh) and also charges faster via the USB-C 3.0 port with 30 watts (previously 20 watts). 50% takes 20 minutes and a full battery should last a day and a half. However, you can of course easily replace the battery. There’s no wireless charging, and the 3.5mm headphone jack is gone and won’t come back. Stereo speakers are on board for this.
The retail package contains only the smartphone and a quick start guide, not even a cable. Instead of IP54, protection according to IP55 is now an board. The new model was also drop tested from a height of 1.8 m.
