Technology

For real, though, what is it?

Compared to the Fairphone 5 it has some improvements but also a few downsides:

Pro:

• It's a bit smaller (~4mm) and lighter (~20g)
• Slightly better camera (future tests will tell how much better)
• 120 Hz display
• More RAM and storage (although I feel that the previous 6GB/128GB option was also sufficient for most users)
• WiFi 6E Tri-Band (however you will likely never need this speed)
• Bluetooth 5.4
• Slightly larger battery

Con:

• Backpanel now requires a screwdriver
• Display has less resolution/PPI
• Performance of processor will likely be nearly identical to predecessor (however it's more efficient and modern)
• Downgrade to USB 2
• 600€

My conclusion: Overall the improvements are ok, however just releasing the Fairphone 5 with a newer SoC might have been the better/more cost effective choice. Sacrificing display resolution for 120 Hz feels also quite wrong. 600€ is very pricy for a phone like this. Cutting some premium features away like the 120 Hz display or a bit of RAM and storage (that you can extend anyway with an SD card) might have saved enough to get the launch price down to somewhere near 500€ which would make it accessible for a wider audience.

Honestly, this might be the first fairphone which I would classify as good enough for daily use.

Worth noting buying a second hand phone is still better in every aspect and sadly 2nd hand Samsung from 3 years ago is still better and cheaper. Though Fairphone is getting closer with each release!

headphone jackn't :(

How well do these connect to Canadian cell phone towers?

Fairphone has been a really disappointing experiment in so-called sustainable tech over the years. They keep making new phones instead of continuing to support the old ones, which might be greenwashing. (Whereas if you got a legacy Framework 13, it's still user-repairable and upgradable.) If they wanted to make a non-upgradable device, maybe it would have been wise to make it high-end to futureproof to work until 4G gets phased out. Fairphone still is not making their products available in the U.S., and Murena is a borderline scam company and I am genuinely shocked Fairphone works with them.

And I've heard their logic with the headphone jack, but I do think AUX is the lesser of two evils as removing it will just lead to more e-waste with broken bluetooth headphones that rarely last as long as good wired ones. Fairphone's own bluetooth accessories have gotten negative reviews for their lower build quality, so Fairbuds are likely not the solution to the headphone jack problem.

For the simple fact that non-Europeans can buy them directly off the website, I would sooner recommend feature phones from Sunbeam as it also has user-replaceable batteries and you can send it in for repairs. Or just any phone used.