Amid the usual noise around Apple, Samsung and Google in recent months, it would be forgiven to sleep about the importance of Fairphone 6.
The Dutch electronics manufacturer focused on sustainability has made a concerted effort to change the name of a serious smartphone player in 2025 (“we are not exclusively for the person who wants to buy sustainably, we simply have very good products,” Fairphone told us in April), and Fairphone 6 is the first beneficiary of this new approach to quality.
The company’s last telephone has a better screen, a faster chipset and a more attractive design than last year’s Fairphone 5, and miraculously, it is also much cheaper. That is an unlikely combination in today’s smartphone telephones, but Fairphone’s CEO, Raymond Van Eck, is optimistic that Fairphone 6 is a good faith rival of the best cheap phones available.
“It is important for us to understand the market in which we are,” Van Eck told me at the Exertis Technology Conference in London. “We are in a smartphone market, and that means that its product must be a desirable product, it offers a good quality -price and also comes with specifications that people expect [at this level]. With Fairphone 6, we are very well equipped to [meet those expectations]. “
“A phone is something that uses several times a day, so it is something that people do not want to commit. With the longevity and specifications that Fairphone 6 has, it is a very good phone for an Android device of medium range.”
Fairphone has made a conscious effort for Fairphone 6 to also look like paper. The rounded sides of Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 5 have been replaced by flat sides to the 16E iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S25, and although the three lenses camera matrix is still present, these lenses are now independently of a physical module (not very different from the lenses on.
“It’s good to be more attractive to a conventional client,” Van Eck continued. “Fairphone 6 looks much more like a phone than any other person would have […] The sustainability story then comes after that, so that they feel good with a phone that they have already decided to buy. “
With the longevity and specifications that Fairphone 6 has, it is a very good phone for an Android medium range device.
Raymond Van Eck, Fairphone CEO
“It is important to take the next step and be, say, a more mature company, one with a group of clients that is interested in Fairphone not only for the things that Fairphone means, but also because they find it great to have one.”
This change towards the development of more ‘conventional’ products may sound alarming for Fairphone Fairphone fans, but Van Eck does not see it as a commitment: “The mission has not changed. We are looking for growth, but that does not mean that we are discarding our values. We are still in a mission to show the electronic industry that can be thinking of impact, but also a pleasant business of a viable business out of [that approach]. “
The sustainability cost ‘myth’
It is often supposed to be sustainable products should cost the consumer more, but Van Eck is convinced that a) that it does not have to be true at the point of purchase yb) Sustainable products are, in the end, cheaper for the consumer anyway.
Fairphone itself has been criticized for setting the price of its products too high (Fairphone 5 was sold for a Google Pixel 8-Aing £ 649), but, at £ 499 (approximately $ 680, Au $ 990), Fairphone 6 is a remarkably cheaper device. Why (and how) Van Eck made that decision?
The mission has not changed. We are looking for growth, but that does not mean that we are discarding our values.
Raymond Van Eck, Fairphone CEO
“It is important to realize that it is not, per se, a sustainability premium that people are paying,” he explained. “For a phone to be more sustainable and to be completely ethical in the way we are doing, it is talking about several 10 of dollars, between $ 20 and $ 25 by phone. These are economies of scale. It obtains a different price [from a supplier] If you make an order, say, 10 times more screens than [you previously ordered]. So, that helps: get better prices from your suppliers, without committing to paying just living wages, etc.
“Because you are right,” Van Eck continued. “Is the perception that Fairphone has a price too high? That is something we need to take off. I also want to convey that the total cost of ownership for a consumer is lower if it clings to a phone for longer, and that comes with quality. If the quality of its product is good, then, in the end, everything else, all the features, all aspects of sustainability, etc., etc., they will also do it more, what you have more. product is sustainable and that comes with a quality concession.
Fairphone 6 is now available in the United Kingdom for £ 499while an open source version (that is, not android) is Available in the USA for $ 899 / £ 549. For our full verdict in the quality of the phone, see our Fairphone 6 review.
Keep PakGazette on Google News and Add us as a preferred source To get our news, reviews and opinion of experts in their feeds. Be sure to click on the Force button!
And of course you can also Keep PakGazette in Tiktok For news, reviews, video deciphes and get regular updates from us in WhatsApp also.
You may also like
