Fairphone Reviews 

Fairphone is perfect - I have had mine for a couple of years, and have repaired it myself after dropping it in water (USB port replaced.)
The right to repair is a reality that makes sustainability meaningful.

"There is no (good) alternative (to the fairphones)" Attributed to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher by me.
(For legal purposes : the previous sentences are a joke)

Completely depressed, despatched, returned to sender, no response to support requests until I told their AI support agent this was unacceptable

I had such high hopes for this company, but their customer support is appalling (apologies Noah, you were fine when we finally connected, but nothing you promised happened), please understand people you cannot believe their delivery commitments. I remain phone-less...

Fairphone 6. Works great, but too many unexplainable glitches to be worth it. I never experienced the shit this phone does sometimes in all my life. Not one phone since 15 years ago, 6 different ones had these strange things going on. Software seems off. Don't buy thus crap. Buy a refurbished samsung or something like that if you want to go "green".

Internet connectivity issues, screen going on standby while using phone, ui is not smart of logical. Too many basicoptions hidden behind to many menus. Physical buttons are placed in dumb locations and feel and work cheap. Vibration sucks. Dual sim handling is shit. No blue light filter. I want to trash this phone so bad.

Great idea in principle but there just isn't sufficient support for a product that is supposed to be repairable. There is only a 2 hour window to speak with a human via chat and this is when most people are at work themselves. Tickets raised are not responded to....that's if you can get through the loopbacks in the diagnostics. I am awaiting a response about a fault that occured 6 months after purchase of a new Fairphone 6. The only option I have been given is to send the phone off for repair with an undisclosed timeframe. I am trying to find out if there are any other options as it is my only means of communication and would leave me with no emergency contact method, but nobody will respond. Software updates can cause weird issues such as faulty biometric checks, display brightness going up and down randomly or very slow connection to any apps via WiFi. It all feels very experimental which I don't mind at all if there is human support to back it up. I'm writing this in the hope that someone might respond.

I've had the most awful experience. My Fairphone 6 would not work after the first month and the issue still hasn't been resolved 5 MONTHS on. I've tried all their suggestions and frustratingly the phone still hasn't been fixed after going to the repair centre! They tried to blame my SIM which works perfectly on another Fairphone that I've tried it on. Thinking of taking legal action.

Great company with a great goal. The design already allowed me to cost-efficiently extend the lifetime of my phone several times, replacing a shutdown button or a loose cable connector for just some Euros.
I am a fully satisfied customer since the very first Fairphone and now own my third Fairphone.

The phone keeps killing background applications. Their forums are full of people having the same problem. This doesn't seem to be anywhere near the top of the priority list for company.

Good Phone efficiently delivered.

I’d give this phone a 5-start, but with /e/OS, a 4-star. This is based on the quality of the order handling service and the integration out of the box for open source android (/e/OS), instead of googled stock Android.

The battery efficiency in difficult circumstances is good given the heavy usage and just about all apps work save App Lounge which is prone to regular connection drops. Otherwise, good though. I suspect the app may have memory leaks creating extra bandwidth in connecting with the server.

The feel and texture of the phone is good even with the Fairphone cover and card cover (v good by the way) as extras. I also like the size, which makes it readable with the accessibility features that allow me to use it without my reading glasses.

All in all, its a quality purchase, which some development of native apps by OS Murena. Fairphone hardware side is good, which tells in the battery efficiency given its relative size to the phone display.

Product got shipped with UPS at an announced 2-5 workday delivery time, from day 2 at UPS its stuck delayed. After workday 7 I contacted Fairphone, they only responded an automated response that they're busy and response could take longer.

If they announce 2-5 workdays for delivery and at workday 11 the shipping has been in "delayed" for 10 workdays there's something wrong. Thus about 1 workweek after contacting, there was no response yet from Fairphone.

Now I can understand you normally take this up with the shipping company, but here's the kicker: I used Fairphone's option to order a phone without making an account, and ordered the more expensive phone version that would allow me to use the phone without a google account. Now tell me why I would in any way want to be forced into making a UPS account to deal with UPS if they offer ways to circumvent accounts?!

Worse of all, I can't cancel the order online anymore because 14 calendar days have passed. Even though I have yet to even receive my order....

I ordered a phone because my current one really needs replacement, so I guess I'll now have to buy a cheap alternative as more than €600 of my funds are now held by Fairphone with me not having the phone I ordered yet...

Their ethos sounds great but, that where it ends.
Raised an issue with units in the warranty and it took them over 3 months and several unnecessary emails back and forth to even issue the ticket for sending the broken fairbud to them for repair.
Sending bot answers and emails which were untrue about the status of the repair ect.

Then sent general email which pretended to be regarding to my individual case with wrong information.

Even worse is that they have sent me email stating that "our technician didn't find any faults with the fairbud please test it and let us know" which is clearly a lie because to my suprise they have sent back pair of completely new fairbuds! And only 1 was broken! Their ethos is minimise the e-waste
And we repair the items instead of sending them to the landfill... One of them wasn't even broken and they sent back both bright new ones. And lied about the fact that there was nothing wrong with the one which was broken.

So completely going against their own ethical policies and also lying about it.

If they carry on like that it would surprise me if they still in the business in the future.

Definitely not going back to them next time, there are other ethical phones out there.

I had to return my fairphone in the few days after bought it because I couldn’t pass the information from iphone. The process was quick, with personalized kind and clear answers by mail, and I have my refund.

I have paid twice for a display and battery. I have not received anything.

So far, I'm very satisfied with the quality of his devices. I currently (since 2025-09) use a Fairphone 6 running Murena /e/ OS and a Fairphone 6 running Android with Google; I won’t go into detail about the operating system, but it works very well on both devices.

I also have in-ear and over-ear XL headphones from the same manufacturer.

The biggest advantages of the phones and headphones include:
- high build quality,
- a very long warranty,
- the ability to repair them yourself,
- the availability of spare parts and how easy they are to obtain,
- friendly and helpful technical support,
- in the case of phones, excellent photo and video quality,
- essentially monthly, and sometimes even more frequent, security updates, patches and system fixes,
- a recent update to the latest version of Android (16 as of today),
- very long-term support, both promised and reportedly delivered,
- ethical working conditions (employment contracts and health insurance), company registration and tax residence in the EU, with part of production taking place in Europe (growing),
- use of recycled materials (battery made entirely from old batteries) and the ability to repair and recycle components,

I have already had the opportunity to use their technical support and everything went very smoothly, although I had to wait a few days for a reply to my first email, but after that it was quick.

I previously owned the Fairphone 5 (since 2024-06 till 2025-10) and it still works reliably and is now being used by another family member; besides that, there are three other phones in the family and they all work perfectly. The same goes for the headphones – I also had the previous model, gave it to a family member, and it still works reliably.

Keep up the good work; I hope that the length of support and the provision of security patches will indeed remain unbeatable.

I can recommend these devices with a clear conscience. Although they aren’t the cheapest, they will last so long and work so reliably that, in the end, it will work out more cost-effectively anyway. Company exist since January 2013 and I wish them luck, at least in Europe!

You have to fix your communication (emails, this customer review etc) so that it is in ENGLISH for non-Dutch speakers! It cannot be that difficult...

As it is now, there's not even a little button you can press to have the language changed! Everything in Dutch and no possibility to change it!

The worst customer support I've ever experienced. AI bots send you round and round in circles, live person replies sporadically and with no full explanation.

I waited patiently for 5 weeks for a phone display to come back in stock, then ordered it straight away when it was back. It came to my UPS drop off point after one week, with my phone number and order number on it, but the guy couldn't give it to me because the name didn't match. The name was the same initials but totally different name.

This is when my experience trying to solve a simple issue with Fairphone spiralled into madness. Days to wait for a response, no live customer support or phone line, after going round in circles they had to open an investigation with UPS - UPS say they take 14 days to reply, by that time the parcel needs to get sent back because it's been in hold for too long. I am chasing every single day for almost 4 weeks to see if they can speed this up, but nobody uses telephone calls or human assistance. Then I get a reply from someone else saying 'it seems like the parcel is being returned, to speed things up we'll issue you a refund and email you a credit note. You can order the product again through our shop'. I am furious by this point as it's taken almost 4 weeks to tell me this, when I knew it that of course it would be sent back, and then when I go to look at ordering the product again, it's out of stock!!! I haven't been emailed a credit note, and I don't know if I've been refunded postage which is pretty expensive.

Having my phone screen totally mashed has been a proper inconvenience when so many things run on scanning barcodes nowadays - travel, gym etc and I can't do this - I was rejected off a bus once on the way to work and have to keep explaining to people everytime I want to scan something. This whole experience has been so frustrating and stressful, when it's supposed to be exciting the day you can actually take your phone apart to fix it and feel smug about you having an ethical, fixable phone. But no, I can't even get the spare to fix it! Fairphone is a total lie.

The Fairphone is glitchy and Apps that work on standard Android phones do not open on the Fairphone 6.
Using Fair phones customer service portal, you go around in a loop, no ticket is ever raised. V poor
No update. Still having to restart phone to use Apps that works fine on other Android phones. So sad.
Update: Workaround = Reboot V poor.
Perhaps I should have waited and bought this phone once Apps that use WIFI (most) work. Phone is not ready.

New update 31st March - display colours have been changed resulting in white lettering on a pale green background. Lettering can be tweaked but the icons for signal, WiFi strength remain invisible.

All we t perfect i love this brand