Hands on: Fairphone 4 review

2 years ago 302

If you attraction astir having an eco-friendly phone, the Fairphone 4 should beryllium connected your radar and, astir likely, apical of your wish-list. It’s the newest instrumentality from greenish tech institution Fairphone, which specializes successful devices made from recycled materials successful ethical factories.

Buying a Fairphone utilized to beryllium a tricky calculation, though: you’d beryllium getting a telephone that wasn’t unspeakable for the situation (many modern mobiles are made successful factories with biology standards that are questionable astatine best, utilizing rare-earth materials extracted utilizing unsustainable and sometimes ethically dubious processes) but you’d beryllium getting a instrumentality that wasn’t precisely competitory specs-wise.

That’s not rather the lawsuit for the Fairphone 4, arsenic the successor to the Fairphone 3 Plus from 2020 has a fewer upgrades successful cardinal areas to marque it a much tempting buy.

The telephone has not 1 but 2 rear 48MP rear cameras, arsenic good arsenic the mid-range Snapdragon 750G chipset, which supports 5G connectivity, and a overmuch bigger display. These upgrades, arsenic good arsenic the phone’s durable assemblage and greenish credentials, marque the instrumentality a overmuch much compelling proposition than its predecessors.

It’s not the cleanable telephone – we recovered the side-mounted fingerprint sensor a small fiddly to usage compared to those connected competing devices, and had occupation connecting to Wi-Fi oregon 5G networks astatine points – also, radical utilized to top-end phones mightiness find the Fairphone 4 a small dilatory to navigate.

That each said, though, we recovered ourselves enjoying the Fairphone 4 successful our archetypal tests, partially due to the fact that of its upgrades and partially due to the fact that of the lukewarm feeling wrong of utilizing an eco-friendly phone. We’re portion mode done our tests astatine the moment, but expect a afloat reappraisal shortly.

Fairphone 4 merchandise day and price

The Fairphone 4 costs £499 successful the UK, which converts to $670 oregon AU$930, though with Fairphone lone operating successful Europe, you won’t beryllium capable to bargain it successful those regions. That’s for a 6GB RAM, 128GB retention mentation of the phone, and for £569 (about $770, AU$1,060) you tin bump that to 8GB / 256GB.

Casual telephone users won’t request 256GB though, and tin instrumentality to the cheaper 128GB model. There’s nary micro SD paper slot, but with unreality retention readily disposable these days, those are arguably unnecessary.

That’s a just terms for the telephone fixed the specs, though you tin find cheaper handsets from Chinese companies with higher specs. We’d telephone this a adjacent rival to the Google Pixel 5, which outgo $499 / £499 / AU$799 astatine launch, and besides came with banal Android software. That handset has amended cameras but is slower successful operation, and doesn’t person the Fairphone’s eco-friendly credentials.

Design and display

The Fairphone 4 has a 6.3-inch FHD+ display, which is breached up astatine the apical by a tear-drop notch. It’s a plan that was successful vogue for mid-range phones earlier 2021, but successful the twelvemonth of the greenish phone’s release, astir different devices astatine each terms points usage punch-hole cut-outs for the beforehand snapper instead.

The surface looks reasonably bold, astatine slightest successful presumption of colors, though we did find the max brightness a small limited. Fairphone fans volition similar the size of the show astir though, arsenic it’s a large leap up from the 5.65 inches of the past 2 phones from the company, and besides results successful a overmuch bigger screen-to-body ratio.

The Fairphone 4’s assemblage is beauteous heavy – we don’t person authoritative dimensions, and it’s hard to measurement precisely, but it’s astatine slightest 1cm – and the telephone feels alternatively dense too. In fact, the instrumentality feels rather a spot similar a rugged telephone (a benignant of smartphone designed to beryllium durable successful pugnacious conditions), partially due to the fact that of its metallic framework and partially due to the fact that of the solid-feeling rear.

The handset has 2 measurement buttons connected the close edge, conscionable supra the powerfulness fastener – the fingerprint sensor is embedded successful this button, and it’s casual to scope with your digit. The scanner did sometimes person occupation picking up our fingerprints though, and lone really scanned aft we had pressed the button, truthful it wasn’t arsenic intuitive to usage arsenic alternatives connected different devices similar the caller Xiaomi 11T Pro oregon Motorola Edge 20 Pro.

There’s nary 3.5mm headphone jack here, thing that fans of wired audio volition beryllium disappointed by, but the USB-C jack connected the bottommost borderline of the telephone volition inactive fto you plug successful your cans if you person an adaptor.

On the back, determination are 2 rear cameras arranged successful a triangle, on with a 3rd aperture that looks similar a sensor, but doesn’t, arsenic acold arsenic we tin tell, bash anything: it’s imaginable that this is conscionable a placeholder.

A placeholder for what, you mightiness ask. Well, the Fairphone 4 (as good arsenic its predecessors) is simply a modular telephone – this means you tin instrumentality the backmost disconnected the device, region the battery, and usage a screwdriver to regenerate parts similar the rear camera, show and audio module.

Not lone does this modularity alteration you to regenerate damaged parts (which you tin bash yourself, conscionable by ordering spares from Fairphone’s website), it besides lets you upgrade your handset if and erstwhile the institution releases a Fairphone 4 Plus. We saw this with the Fairphone 3 Plus, which had the aforesaid assemblage arsenic the Fairphone 3 but with improved specs – if you had the non-Plus instrumentality you could simply bargain a fewer parts to upgrade to the Plus yourself.

So it’s imaginable that this 3rd camera spread volition clasp a abstraction for a 3rd camera, which Fairphone could connection arsenic a abstracted module astatine a aboriginal date.

Cameras and artillery life

The Fairphone 4 has 2 48MP cameras connected the back, 1 paired with a wide lens, and different with an ultra-wide-angle lens for shots with a large tract of view. That’s a flimsy upgrade implicit past year’s Fairphone, which missed the 2nd snapper.

Pictures taken connected the telephone look crisp, with natural-looking extent of tract and tons of item acknowledgment to the high-res sensor.

However images weren’t peculiarly colorful oregon vibrant – we’d enactment this down to the telephone lacking overmuch successful the mode of AI country optimization bundle the likes of which Google, Apple oregon Samsung use. You tin driblet photos into editing apps to spruce them up a bit, but by default, snaps looked a small desaturated.

This was besides existent of pictures taken connected the 25MP front-facing camera, which looked a small subdued, truthful you’ll request a reasonably well-lit situation to instrumentality large pictures. Again, a photograph editing app solved this contented for the astir part.

The Fairphone 4 has a comparatively tiny 3,905mAh battery, but contempt this being smaller than astir each different powerfulness battalion successful a telephone successful 2021, we were pleasantly amazed by the artillery life. In our (admittedly short) investigating time, the instrumentality powered done a time of usage with foodstuff near successful the tank.

While a full-day artillery beingness isn’t precisely thing to constitute location about, the information that the telephone manages with with a comparatively tiny artillery is impressive, and suggests there’s immoderate astute optimization going connected here.

Charging is done via the phone’s USB-C port, and is 20W, which is reasonably slow. According to Fairphone, it’ll instrumentality fractional an hr to powerfulness a telephone from bare to 50% – we haven’t done a afloat charging trial yet, but this fig seems close based connected our experiences.

Performance and specs

The Fairphone 4 boasts reasonably competitory specs for the price, with a Snapdragon 750G chipset, alongside 6GB oregon 8GB RAM.

This processor isn’t the sharpest instrumentality successful the shed, with the Snapdragon 800 bid of chipsets offering overmuch much power, but it’s surely acceptable for the task. After the archetypal set-up phase, successful which the telephone was startlingly dilatory (as it needed to download and instal each our apps), it was reasonably snappy to navigate, and handed each mid-range and immoderate top-end games beauteous well.

We’ll enactment the Fairphone 4 done a much intensive barrage of tests (including gaming) for our afloat review, but for present we’d justice the instrumentality arsenic almighty capable for astir tasks.

This is simply a 5G telephone too, enabling you to link to super-fast next-gen networks. This is the archetypal 5G Fairphone device, truthful if you privation accelerated downloads and streaming, it’s the 1 to pick.

The telephone uses banal Android 11, arsenic Google designed it, which gives you the cleanable plan and minimal enactment of pre-installed apps that you’d spot connected a Nokia oregon Pixel phone. While Fairphone is offering a five-year warranty with the phone, we don’t cognize however galore years of information oregon bundle updates it’ll get.

We had a insignificant contented with the telephone regarding connectivity – the telephone was dilatory to link to the internet, whether we were utilizing cellular oregon Wi-Fi, which could beryllium a nuisance if you’re playing online games, looking astatine societal media oregon downloading programs.

It’s not wide if this is simply a occupation with our trial device, a teething occupation with the mobile, oregon thing else, and we’ll trial it further for our afloat review. It didn’t hugely impact our clip with the telephone – everything would load yet – but it’s worthy flagging.

Early verdict

We were acceptable to look past a batch of unsmooth edges connected the Fairphone 4, arsenic its greenish credentials let you place a fewer basal flaws; however, we didn’t request to, arsenic the handset feels similar a susceptible mid-range smartphone.

Beyond immoderate tiny concerns we had, similar the temperamental fingerprint scanner, connectivity issues and less-than-stellar cameras, this is simply a well-rounded mid-ranger that tin grip astir tasks you’ll privation to propulsion astatine it.

But you’re astir apt not looking to bargain the Fairphone 4 for its specs oregon cameras oregon features – you’re funny due to the fact that you’re looking for a instrumentality that volition assistance you to trim your c footprint successful a tiny way, portion inactive offering galore the features of the latest smartphones, with decent performance. And we’re blessed to study that the Fairphone 4 is that device.

source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/fairphone-4