The Fairphone 6 Plus is a refreshed version of the 6, with more RAM and a faster chipset:
The Fairphone 6 Plus is a minor hardware refresh, but a major launch for the company: It's the first phone that Fairphone is selling directly in the US. It's on sale now for $649.99, available through Fairphone's website and Amazon, and is sold unlocked with support for both T-Mobile and AT&T. In Europe, it costs €649, a €50 increase on last year's phone.
Fairphones from the 4 onwards have been available to buy in the US, but never from Fairphone itself. They were exclusively sold through a partnership with Murena, the developer of /e/OS, a "de-Googled" version of Android. That meant buyers were forced to use Murena's software — which is capable, but certainly an acquired taste — and paid a significant premium for the phone. Last year's Fairphone 6 sold for $899.
[...] Fairphone has been building up to the US launch of the 6 Plus, bringing audio products to Amazon US starting with the Fairbuds XL over-ear headphones last November. Alongside the announcement of the 6 Plus, the company has confirmed that a new pair of earbuds, the Fairbuds 2, will launch in Q4 this year, and "will set a new bar for repairability and performance." The company says it will reveal more in October.
Any Soylentils familiar with these phones, or Murena Android, or installing something else like LineageOS or GrapheneOS for the discerning person wanting a bit more control in their phones? Asking for a friend. --hubie
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23, @02:24PM
Neither the summary nor the article seems to give a link to the phone/manufacturer, try this one
- https://www.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6 [fairphone.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by bloodnok on Sunday August 23, @05:51PM (3 children)
I bought a Pixel so that I could run Graphene.
My personal profile has access to my personal emails but no play services.
My volunteering profile has access to my volunteer emails and mapping services.
My browsing profile knows pretty much nothing about me but runs the sandboxed play services.
I don't know how effective it really is at shielding me from Gugle but it gives me contentment. I used to assume that G knew pretty much everything about where I was at all times. Now I can convince myself that most of the time G does not know what I'm doing. That makes me much happier.
There is probably stuff that Graphene doesn't do or doesn't do well but I don't care. If an app needs those disabled/hobbled services, then, for the most part, I don't need that app.
__
The major
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 23, @07:44PM (2 children)
I can't say "ditto", but close. I am running a Pixel 7 with sandboxed Google Play services. I plan on upgrading to a Pixel 10, and doing the same. That's how impressed I am with Graphene.
Of course, Graphene isn't supported on the FairPhone - but I don't know why it couldn't be. All that is really required is, the manufacturer cooperate by providing driver information for the Snapdragon, camera, etc. But, it appears that LineageOS is compatible with the FairPhone. Lineage doesn't compare well with Graphene, but if Graphene wasn't in the picture, I could be happy with Lineage. You have to work a little harder to actually make it private, but, you can begin to approach Graphene's privacy and security.
For those who may be unaware, simply debloating any standard Android device helps a lot with privacy. I bought my wife an S26, and spennt a couple hours with it before giving it to her. No, I couldn't strip it to my own standards, but I did shut off a half-ton of tracking, in-your-face advertising, etc without damaging her "must have" apps. ADB is invaluable for stripping out multiple layers of bloat, from the manufacturer, to the vendor, to the carrier, to any ass-clown who may have handled your phone before you got it.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 3, Informative) by cereal_burpist on Monday August 24, @04:13AM (1 child)
Here's a tip from my experience, might help someone else getting started:
Initially on my main machine running PCLOS/KDE, ADB didn't work (bash: "adb command not found"). The instructions on Using ADB and fastboot [lineageos.org] say "add the following to ~/.profile ... ". That file didn't exist, so I created it and appended. Tried adb again, same error.
On another machine running Debian/GNOME, ~/.profile exists and it says "This file is not read by bash if ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login exists. So, on my main machine I found .bash_profile and appended the lines. Now ADB can run.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 25, @04:34AM
Oh, I had to come back, and point something else out. Those apps that are impossible to uninstall, are often capable of being disabled FOR A USER. And, if that user happens to be Owner, or "User 0" then the net effect is that the app is "Gone". It still occupies space in storage, but Owner can't access it, nor can the app run under Owner's credentials. I was playing with a TracPhone when I "discovere" that trick. Lemme try to find an actual example . . . These are actual commands I entered for a TracPhone, copied straight from the logs I kept. Attempting to uninstall any of those listed, will result in failure. But you CAN disable them for a designated user.
Failed commands:
Sucessful commands:
My commands use "-s YHSGMBJFCERW5LNR" to distinguish between the target phone, and an emulated Android device running on the same machine. You normally won't include that switch.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24, @12:09PM
I have had a Fairphone 3 (sold), Fairphone 4 (handed down to kid), and Fairphone 6 (current).
I buy them because they are probably the last phones left with an unlockable bootloader and SD card slot. So I put my $$$ where my mouth is and support repairable phones. I'm not waiting on a theoretical perfect flagship phone, I'm buying what's available that lets me do what I want. I also need a phone that has high frequency pwm dimming (screen flicker causes eyestrain for me) and the Fairphone doesn't bother me like cheap OLEDs on more "profitable" phones.
Fairphone has a pretty strong community for community ROMs and also has a good Ubuntu Touch and PostmarketOS community as well. But the best situation for a non-technical person to de-google is eOS from Murena, which looks a lot like iPhone.
They aren't the best phones specs wise at their price point if you are just looking at the SOC, or pixel count, but also I refuse to spend $1000+ on a phone. I have 2TB of storage via SDCard in my phone which is important because not all countries have robust wireless networks.
It's important for smaller companies like Fairphone to exist and to be supported. Before Fairphone, everybody was abandoning support for their phones after 2 years because it was technically infeasible to backport. Well a company of less than 100 people showed that you can maintain the Fairphone 2 for 7 years which was a major accomplishment, and now that number is the standard for flagships. Fairphone forced companies to support longer just like Framework has forced Lenovo to start making repairable ThinkPads (after they went to topcase keyboard replacements and soldered RAM) again.
All that said, with the Fairphone 6, it has gone from a hobbyist/nerd phone to something that anyone can use daily without compromise. My spouse uses theirs daily without issue. The biggest complaint that most people had on older Fairphones, taking photos, is no longer an issue. It takes adequate photos now, no more blurry shit like older Fairphones. It is solidly mid-range at photos and much better than our old iPhone 11.
There are also good aftermarket cases and screen protectors available on Amazon, no more 3D printed mess from etsy.
I do not have a FP6+ but I'm glad that it's an iterative upgrade and available to US customers now.
So I have nothing but positive experiences with the company and hope to see them last.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, @03:30PM
If you want real repairability, buy a very popular phone. Then you are more likely to get parts for it years later and be more able to find people who might repair it for you.
For example, say you bought the Fairphone 3 - released in 2019 and are trying to get parts for it, say a battery and rear camera. You go to: https://www.fairphone.com/spare-parts [fairphone.com]
And where do you click on? This? https://www.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-3-battery-36 [fairphone.com]
"This product is no longer available."
If you search Aliexpress for Fairphone 3 battery you get stuff like this:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012139828925.html [aliexpress.com]
But I don't see many hits for the camera.
In contrast say you bought a Redmi Note 4 (released in 2016/2017) and you are looking for a replacement camera and battery:
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-redmi-note-4-original-battery-replacement.html [aliexpress.com]
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009390013912.html? [aliexpress.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNP-1F7DPbA [youtube.com]
Or say you bought an iPhone 6 (released in 2014): https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-iphone-6-battery.html? [aliexpress.com]
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004858542172.html? [aliexpress.com]
So ironically, in 2026, the iphone 6 released in 2014 may be more repairable than the Fairphone 3 released in 2019.