5 Android phones you should buy instead of the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus
If you’re a big advocate of sustainability and right-to-repair, you’ve probably heard of Fairphone. The Dutch smartphone maker is famously known for offering sustainable materials, long software supp…
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If you’re a big advocate of sustainability and right-to-repair, you’ve probably heard of Fairphone. The Dutch smartphone maker is famously known for offering sustainable materials, long software support, and user-replaceable components in its products.
The only problem is that its phones were limited mostly to Europe, but that changes with the latest Fairphone Gen 6 Plus . You can buy this in the US for $650, which gets you a decent mid-range phone with software support through 2033 and 12 user-replaceable parts.
The Fairphone Gen 6 Plus is truly unique as there are hardly any other products in the market that offer comparable repairability features. But, if you’re going to be spending $650 on a new phone and don’t mind compromising a bit on the repairability factor, there are plenty more powerful and feature-rich options to choose from.
These are the top five Android phones I’d recommend over the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus.
The HMD Skyline is the closest you can get to the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus’ repairability features, while also offering slightly better specs and costing less. Retailing for roughly $400, the Skyline lets you easily replace the battery and display with minimal effort. You also get a higher-resolution 108MP main camera, a third telephoto camera, a larger battery with wireless charging, and a slimmer design.
The HMD Skyline uses a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip, which is only slightly behind the Gen 4 chip used in the Fairphone Gen 6 Plus. There’s 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is expandable. The POLED display gets an impressive 144Hz refresh rate, compared to 120Hz on the Fairphone.
My only hesitation with the Skyline is the two-year OS upgrade and three-year security update commitment. It launched with Android 14 in 2024, so it won’t get any updates beyond Android 16. That’s especially disappointing compared to the Fairphone’s promise of at least six major Android OS upgrades.
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