I have a friend who bought a fair phone with a view to being able to replace its modular parts. Four years later and the model had been discontinued, so he had to buy a new Fairphone.
Would it more economical and sustainable to buy a second hand / reconditioned feature phone from Samsung?
In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015. First-party parts 10 years later, what a concept! https://shop.fairphone.com/spare-parts
I don't know your friend's scenario, but this was mine.
It's not an either-or, like "either buy first-party parts for a Fairphone OR buy a second-hand Samsung". You can buy a second-hand Fairphone too. It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
This is what makes sense. You want to be able to replace the charging port, screen, and camera. And of-course update the software, where software stability is IMHO the weakest point of Fairphone.
If the logic board breaks, you want to upgrade to the newest chip model you can get. Because third-party software becomes slower every year. If you want a phone to last as long as possible, thus getting the latest chip. For Fairphone it is more interesting, since they use a particular Snapdragon model range with longer driver support.
The elephant in the room is of-course software getting too slow and developer not optimizing their apps.
> It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
You can? They're happy to repair even 7+ year old phones, I'm sure there's a cutoff but I haven't heard of anyone running into it. Might depend on the country though. Unless you mean buying those parts separately but they don't even let you do that for new phones, so "years after they're released" doesn't matter then.
I bought a second hand Fairphone, and I'm very happy with it, except that my wife, a colleague of mine, and some friends of ours now also gave Fairphones, so when one buzzes we all instinctively check our pockets because they all sound the same...
I also bought headphones from the same company, and while they're probably not the best for audio quality, it was great being able to repair them when the headband broke. Generally, I'm a very happy Fairphone customer.
> Four years later and the model had been discontinued
Which model? Was it the FP1? It sounds like your friend was extremely unlucky - FP2 is 11 years old & there's still (a limited subset of) parts for sale for it (display & camera). FP3 (7yo model) still has all the parts for sale.
That said - I'm critical of another aspect of device longevity: software support. I upgraded from my (still working) FP3 to the FP5 because apps I needed stopped working on the highest version of Android supported by FP3. That Android version is still officially supported by Fairphone & receiving security updates but without major version upgrades the app support can be problematic. Obviously that's ultiamtely the fault of bad app devs, but ultimately it's hard to overcome.
They are currently on the Fairphone 6, and at least in Germany the official online store still sells a wide selection of parts for the Fairphones 3-6, and the display and camera for the Fairphone 2.
Sure, you don't get meaningful hardware upgrades (apparently there were some small ones), and Fairphone are far from the only ones selling spare parts for their phones. But in terms of keeping old phones alive with authentic parts and easy to execute disassembly steps, they are pretty good
I guess maybe if the comparison you're looking at is the one you mentioned? Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.
That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things):
- USB charger broke after getting mortar in it
- Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen
- Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!)
- Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.
If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.
So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.
Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.
Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.
A friend of mine had a broken finger print reader (a few cents online), he couldn't find any repair shop who wanted to repair it (probably because the display would have to removed.
I often wonder why there still hasn't been a YC-backed attempt to disrupt the "replace your phone every couple of years because your battery became slower" cartel in 2026. Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Is the average Framework truly more environmentally than an average MacBook.
MacBooks tend to last a long time. They’re extremely reliable (except butterfly era).
Personally, I don’t think Framework laptops are. I think they are only more environmentally if you upgrade your MacBook every year or every other year. I think this is extremely niche.
> Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Is there very visible success of Framework? How many people in your everyday live have you encountered with a Framework laptop?
I love there mission, but Framework from all the feedback from users online seems to still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience.
> a YC-backed attempt
If any successful attempt would be launched, there would be no reason for it to go through YC. In the mass consumer hardware market their little funding and the network they provide doesn't do much. I would strongly assume that a challenger would appear in a similar form as it did with framework with nrp.
Am I missing something? I've kept the iPhones I bought for 6 years or so. I replaced the battery on each phone, and all it cost me was 50€ and half an hour waiting for the local non-Apple phone shop to do the work. That surely counts as batteries being replaceable in all but name?
I'm happy that worked out for you, but the whole cryptography signature of Apple batteries that throttle your phone if you get the wrong one is VERY different from "just pop out the back and get your new battery in".
I feel like the price Apple charges for batteries is very reasonable. I kept my phone going for 4.5 years thanks to a battery replacement 2 years in. They’re basically doing it at cost, considering parts and labour.
Because phones are incredibly cheap and its hard to compete with that.
You can get something like a "Motorola Moto G86 5G" for less than 200$ and that comes with a 120 hz full hd screen, 8 gigs of ram, 5200 mAh battery and so on. Basically everything you could ever need unless you're deep into photography or gaming.
Instead of ordering a battery at 40$ and replacing it, I might as well buy an entire new phone and get a minor upgrade on everything every few years.
The easily replacable parts feature sounds like it'd work great in a university context. The uni's service desk could stock up on replacement parts and fix the phones right there instead of having to send it in for repairs.
Seeing news like this, I wonder whether there is a market for an OSS Android and/or Linux distribution that provides the management comfort of Chromebooks without being tied to Google, Apple or Microsoft. A little like Keycloak but one layer higher.
With all the US/EU issues currently, you might even be able to spin up a company to support European services that need management based on OSS management software.
Good move from a service perspective, repairs while you wait instead of backing up, transfer to new phone, sending the old one in for service, yada yada yada. Also great for Fairphone's growth to have a stable business partner.
Tangential to the article but I’m on year 6 of waiting for the alternative smartphone market to offer what I’m actually looking for and here seems as good a place as any to complain about it:
I just want a screen with a headphone jack and a web browser on a device that isn’t serviced by Apple or Google.
I don’t even care about having the battery being removable. It doesn’t even have to be able to make phone calls.
I’m getting ready to go back to a dumbphone and digital camera because no one is making what I’m looking for, and it sort of seems like they never will.
it has OIS at the very least, which is something. But you'll always would better be served by a dedicated camera if you really care about pushing photos.
The default OS is not de-googled Android though, but regular Android. You have to buy the /e/OS variant, which is slightly more expensive (or flash it yourself).
But with the long-term support and access to spare parts (the university can stock them), this seems like a good move. Also happy for FairPhone that they are getting more traction.
As far as I know only Gigaset and HMD manufacture in Europe. And even those two only do final assembly in Europe, the components are still made in China.
Technically Fairphone could ship you a box of parts and have you assemble the phone yourself. Then it would be "Made in Europe" (or where-ever you live).
They’re hardly pioneers; my wife’s employer switched from Apple to Fairphone as the pre-selected option a few years ago. They have about 10k employees.
The thing I would like to see is a second purpose for smart phones, an afterlife, calculator heaven?
It doesn't have to be cheap. It might for example resign into a security camera or a doorbell. A metal bracket with a connector, a button or a connection for one, a seperate psu with a bell or a relay for one, screws to attach the wires, perhaps a stripped down end of life OS (altho it could just be a mode) and it becomes a very good doorbell with motion detection, a good amount of storage, two way video if you want it. Share with someone [temporarly]. Backup footage on laptops, pc's, phones, storage devices etc etc
For $100 in parts it would be highly competitive in the space but it could be more expensive as it can basically do everything a $1000 security camera offers and more. Battery backup, sim card, etc. A big phone brand might even be able to get a contract with local law enforcement so that they can have/request [emergency] access.
It's just one example, a small/portable computer could resign into many things. The device only needs to know it is now a TV remote control.
Interesting that they settled on a standard model at all. The announcement implies that the university is responsible for phone maintenance and repair, which makes sense as a motivation, but is not something I would expect in itself from a cost/expertise standpoint. I would be curious to know if a Fairphone makes servicing cheap enough to warrant doing it in-house for an IT department.
It’s also tacit, but I assume it helps them to interface with a Dutch company. Did they get any financial incentive for it?
If they already have an IT department, they already have the staff to take care of this additional workload (after a bit of training). How much difference is there really in repairing a "repairable" phone and a computer? Not much really as "repairing" a computer is often just fiddling with the software and / or just about changing an easily available and "standardised" parts. (When was the last time any of us saw any IT department doing actual board level servicing to repair a computer?) It will be the same with the Fairphone too (Fairphone makes it easy to change the battery, the board and the display screen).
The university should push the maintainance to the holder of the phone? That seems unreasonable.
As mentioned in another comment. Universities already have in house it services. Being able to fix the phone right there with spare parts is likely very cost efficient.
If it is like my usual experience with European academia, it may be intended to more heavily push use of Microsoft 365 services, which tend to somewhat assume phone availability. I think that usually universities cannot force the use of personal devices for work, so providing mobile phones on request is one way of moving to more a more purely Microsoft service infrastructure. It looks like Radboud is a Microsoft shop, so I would not be surprised.
My university, for example, is gradually removing all office phones (already voip) and replacing them with Teams voip as the only phone system for the university, encouraging personal phone use of Teams, but having computer-based use as the option for people who refuse. As they don't provide mobile phones, however, they can't require Microsoft Authenticator, and so at least officially will still give hardware keys on request (and fortunately still allow TOTP, even if they don't advertise it).
There is a movement in Dutch academia to move away from Microsoft/Google services. E.g. SURF (the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions) are extending their NextCloud pilot to all Dutch edu/research instututions:
> The announcement implies that the university is responsible for phone maintenance and repair
It says "Do you require a (replacement) smartphone for your work at Radboud University?", so it's probably for a handful of board members and the like, not the actual faculty staff.
If the university didn't make phone repairs themselves they would have to send the phones off for repair, or contract with a local phone repair shop. Or the secret third option: telling your employees to get it fixed and send you the invoice. None of them are cheap, and some of them will make you very annoyed with your billing/procurement/finance people. After a certain scale doing it inhouse makes sense, and with the right phone it's not much more difficult than fixing a business laptop, which is also commonly done inhouse with available spare parts
I know several family members who have bought Fairphone's and been disappointed by them. It's really impressive how repairable they've managed to make such integrated devices, but it seems like they didn't do such a good job on making a reliable phone in the first place.
I think what we really need is legislation to force all phone manufacturers to at least make the batteries and screens relatively easily replaceable. Maybe a cap on the replacement costs and a minimum support time would be a reasonable way to do that.
I've read that the Fairphone 6 is more like a "regular" phone than the previous one, because it has a standard phone chip (Snapdragon) instead of an IoT one.
They did that to get longer software support from Qualcomm, but now they can get long support for Snapdragon chips.
I have a friend who bought a fair phone with a view to being able to replace its modular parts. Four years later and the model had been discontinued, so he had to buy a new Fairphone.
Would it more economical and sustainable to buy a second hand / reconditioned feature phone from Samsung?
I bought a Fairphone 3, released in 2019.
The charging port wore out. I bought another one in 2023. They still sell that part today. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-3-bottom-module-37
In fact, I see they still sell parts (the screen, at least) for the Fairphone 2, released in 2015. First-party parts 10 years later, what a concept! https://shop.fairphone.com/spare-parts
I don't know your friend's scenario, but this was mine.
It's not an either-or, like "either buy first-party parts for a Fairphone OR buy a second-hand Samsung". You can buy a second-hand Fairphone too. It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
This is what makes sense. You want to be able to replace the charging port, screen, and camera. And of-course update the software, where software stability is IMHO the weakest point of Fairphone.
If the logic board breaks, you want to upgrade to the newest chip model you can get. Because third-party software becomes slower every year. If you want a phone to last as long as possible, thus getting the latest chip. For Fairphone it is more interesting, since they use a particular Snapdragon model range with longer driver support.
The elephant in the room is of-course software getting too slow and developer not optimizing their apps.
[delayed]
> It would be nice if you got first-party parts for Samsungs, years after they're released.
You can? They're happy to repair even 7+ year old phones, I'm sure there's a cutoff but I haven't heard of anyone running into it. Might depend on the country though. Unless you mean buying those parts separately but they don't even let you do that for new phones, so "years after they're released" doesn't matter then.
I bought a second hand Fairphone, and I'm very happy with it, except that my wife, a colleague of mine, and some friends of ours now also gave Fairphones, so when one buzzes we all instinctively check our pockets because they all sound the same...
I also bought headphones from the same company, and while they're probably not the best for audio quality, it was great being able to repair them when the headband broke. Generally, I'm a very happy Fairphone customer.
> Four years later and the model had been discontinued
Which model? Was it the FP1? It sounds like your friend was extremely unlucky - FP2 is 11 years old & there's still (a limited subset of) parts for sale for it (display & camera). FP3 (7yo model) still has all the parts for sale.
That said - I'm critical of another aspect of device longevity: software support. I upgraded from my (still working) FP3 to the FP5 because apps I needed stopped working on the highest version of Android supported by FP3. That Android version is still officially supported by Fairphone & receiving security updates but without major version upgrades the app support can be problematic. Obviously that's ultiamtely the fault of bad app devs, but ultimately it's hard to overcome.
They are currently on the Fairphone 6, and at least in Germany the official online store still sells a wide selection of parts for the Fairphones 3-6, and the display and camera for the Fairphone 2.
Sure, you don't get meaningful hardware upgrades (apparently there were some small ones), and Fairphone are far from the only ones selling spare parts for their phones. But in terms of keeping old phones alive with authentic parts and easy to execute disassembly steps, they are pretty good
I guess maybe if the comparison you're looking at is the one you mentioned? Second hand normally beats everything else since it's avoiding what would other wise be waste, and there's nothing new that needs to be manufactured.
That said, I bought a fairphone about 4 years ago, in that time, I've had a bunch of issues that'd have meant replacing the phone for other non-fairphone models (this list doesn't make me look great at taking care of things): - USB charger broke after getting mortar in it - Screen broke after dropping the phone directly onto screen - Battery replacement (due to age, not my fault this time!) - Screen broken yesterday after dropping my phone onto concrete after falling over during a run.
If I'd had a Samsung, or non-repairable phone of another kind, I'd be buying my fourth phone today, instead I ordered a spare part and will repair things easily in a couple of days when it arrives.
So, hard to beat the sustainability of second hand tech, but definitely from an economical point of view, my fairphone has easily been a good call.
Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you are better at taking care of things than me.
Edit: worth saying, the fairphone 4 was discontinued a year or so ago, but that isn't the same as saying parts aren't made for it. Spare parts are still really easy to get hold of.
Many repair shops will replace your screen and battery for you. It’s pretty standard. You don’t need a Fair phone to do that.
A friend of mine had a broken finger print reader (a few cents online), he couldn't find any repair shop who wanted to repair it (probably because the display would have to removed.
I guess it was a Fairphone 2 from 2015? They are still selling screens, cases and camera modules but not the rest of the parts unfortunately:
https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?categ...
I often wonder why there still hasn't been a YC-backed attempt to disrupt the "replace your phone every couple of years because your battery became slower" cartel in 2026. Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Is the average Framework truly more environmentally than an average MacBook.
MacBooks tend to last a long time. They’re extremely reliable (except butterfly era).
Personally, I don’t think Framework laptops are. I think they are only more environmentally if you upgrade your MacBook every year or every other year. I think this is extremely niche.
> Seems like such a low-hanging fruit, especially given the very visible success of companies like Framework.
Is there very visible success of Framework? How many people in your everyday live have you encountered with a Framework laptop?
I love there mission, but Framework from all the feedback from users online seems to still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience.
> a YC-backed attempt
If any successful attempt would be launched, there would be no reason for it to go through YC. In the mass consumer hardware market their little funding and the network they provide doesn't do much. I would strongly assume that a challenger would appear in a similar form as it did with framework with nrp.
>still be a product that you'll only buy if you put sustainability over performance/convenience
That would product that I and countless others would be gladly willing to buy on the smartphone market.
Am I missing something? I've kept the iPhones I bought for 6 years or so. I replaced the battery on each phone, and all it cost me was 50€ and half an hour waiting for the local non-Apple phone shop to do the work. That surely counts as batteries being replaceable in all but name?
I'm happy that worked out for you, but the whole cryptography signature of Apple batteries that throttle your phone if you get the wrong one is VERY different from "just pop out the back and get your new battery in".
I feel like the price Apple charges for batteries is very reasonable. I kept my phone going for 4.5 years thanks to a battery replacement 2 years in. They’re basically doing it at cost, considering parts and labour.
Also, your information is slightly out of date. It’s possible to do the replacement yourself if you want. Here’s an ifixit guide based on apples official repair guide - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+17+Battery+Replacement/1...
Because phones are incredibly cheap and its hard to compete with that.
You can get something like a "Motorola Moto G86 5G" for less than 200$ and that comes with a 120 hz full hd screen, 8 gigs of ram, 5200 mAh battery and so on. Basically everything you could ever need unless you're deep into photography or gaming. Instead of ordering a battery at 40$ and replacing it, I might as well buy an entire new phone and get a minor upgrade on everything every few years.
Minor upgradability might as well be baked into a phone.
Because people who don't want to buy a shiny gadget every couple of years and would rather pay more upfront and use for longer are a small minority.
Environmentally speaking, (re)using existing hardware / buying second hand probably beats everything.
The easily replacable parts feature sounds like it'd work great in a university context. The uni's service desk could stock up on replacement parts and fix the phones right there instead of having to send it in for repairs.
Same as any other major employer, surely? At least, you’re describing how it works at my previous employer (large private enterprise).
Seeing news like this, I wonder whether there is a market for an OSS Android and/or Linux distribution that provides the management comfort of Chromebooks without being tied to Google, Apple or Microsoft. A little like Keycloak but one layer higher.
With all the US/EU issues currently, you might even be able to spin up a company to support European services that need management based on OSS management software.
> Android
> without being tied to Google
That's a contradiction.
No. I'm on GrapheneOS and not tied to Google.
You must be thinking of the Google Play Services but these aren't required by GrapheneOS.
It is tied to google inasmuch all target phones are google branded. https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices
Hopefully that can change, in the future
As long as it depends on Google paying upstream development that GrapheneOS updates from, it is tied to Google.
Now if GrapheneOS was its own thing without additional AOSP code updates.
This becomes sophistry, though. "tied to" in a way that doesn't matter, doesn't matter.
Ah but it does, as Google can decide to close down AOSP shop at any moment.
If that happens, the world can always try to fork. Until then it seems kind of pointless to do so?
Posting from an FP4 with slashyslash! (/e/)
Good move from a service perspective, repairs while you wait instead of backing up, transfer to new phone, sending the old one in for service, yada yada yada. Also great for Fairphone's growth to have a stable business partner.
Tangential to the article but I’m on year 6 of waiting for the alternative smartphone market to offer what I’m actually looking for and here seems as good a place as any to complain about it:
I just want a screen with a headphone jack and a web browser on a device that isn’t serviced by Apple or Google.
I don’t even care about having the battery being removable. It doesn’t even have to be able to make phone calls.
I’m getting ready to go back to a dumbphone and digital camera because no one is making what I’m looking for, and it sort of seems like they never will.
https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_10_v-12264.php + https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/
This looks promising. Is the camera any good?
it has OIS at the very least, which is something. But you'll always would better be served by a dedicated camera if you really care about pushing photos.
EDIT: jolla also sells this, has a jack https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
Goalpost move detected.
> web browser on a device that isn’t serviced by Apple or Google
Which browser though? But what you're describing sounds a lot like a Linux tablet, which do exist: https://itsfoss.com/linux-tablets/
Fairphones are awesome, and they even come with a de-googled version of android. Also: Made in Holland!
The default OS is not de-googled Android though, but regular Android. You have to buy the /e/OS variant, which is slightly more expensive (or flash it yourself).
But with the long-term support and access to spare parts (the university can stock them), this seems like a good move. Also happy for FairPhone that they are getting more traction.
*designed in holland
In the province* Holland, but the country The Netherlands :)
Made in Suzhou, China.
As far as I know only Gigaset and HMD manufacture in Europe. And even those two only do final assembly in Europe, the components are still made in China.
Technically Fairphone could ship you a box of parts and have you assemble the phone yourself. Then it would be "Made in Europe" (or where-ever you live).
So? Step by step. Once the FairPhone gets a large-enough market, they may be able to move parts of the production to Europe.
Perfect is the enemy of the good (it also took HMD a while to have a model that was manufactured in Europe).
You’re not wrong, but honest question: do Fairphone actually have EU manufacturing as a goal? First I’ve heard of it.
Partially, AOSP is still made by Google.
This no different from the fallacy of using Chrome and VSCode forks.
They’re hardly pioneers; my wife’s employer switched from Apple to Fairphone as the pre-selected option a few years ago. They have about 10k employees.
The thing I would like to see is a second purpose for smart phones, an afterlife, calculator heaven?
It doesn't have to be cheap. It might for example resign into a security camera or a doorbell. A metal bracket with a connector, a button or a connection for one, a seperate psu with a bell or a relay for one, screws to attach the wires, perhaps a stripped down end of life OS (altho it could just be a mode) and it becomes a very good doorbell with motion detection, a good amount of storage, two way video if you want it. Share with someone [temporarly]. Backup footage on laptops, pc's, phones, storage devices etc etc
For $100 in parts it would be highly competitive in the space but it could be more expensive as it can basically do everything a $1000 security camera offers and more. Battery backup, sim card, etc. A big phone brand might even be able to get a contract with local law enforcement so that they can have/request [emergency] access.
It's just one example, a small/portable computer could resign into many things. The device only needs to know it is now a TV remote control.
I'm on board as soon as they include a zoom camera.
But for now it seems like I'll remain with a Pixel and GrapheneOS.
Interesting that they settled on a standard model at all. The announcement implies that the university is responsible for phone maintenance and repair, which makes sense as a motivation, but is not something I would expect in itself from a cost/expertise standpoint. I would be curious to know if a Fairphone makes servicing cheap enough to warrant doing it in-house for an IT department.
It’s also tacit, but I assume it helps them to interface with a Dutch company. Did they get any financial incentive for it?
If they already have an IT department, they already have the staff to take care of this additional workload (after a bit of training). How much difference is there really in repairing a "repairable" phone and a computer? Not much really as "repairing" a computer is often just fiddling with the software and / or just about changing an easily available and "standardised" parts. (When was the last time any of us saw any IT department doing actual board level servicing to repair a computer?) It will be the same with the Fairphone too (Fairphone makes it easy to change the battery, the board and the display screen).
The university should push the maintainance to the holder of the phone? That seems unreasonable.
As mentioned in another comment. Universities already have in house it services. Being able to fix the phone right there with spare parts is likely very cost efficient.
I think the alternative was to contract it out to an IT company rather than push it to the holder. Same as company phones in corporate environments
If it is like my usual experience with European academia, it may be intended to more heavily push use of Microsoft 365 services, which tend to somewhat assume phone availability. I think that usually universities cannot force the use of personal devices for work, so providing mobile phones on request is one way of moving to more a more purely Microsoft service infrastructure. It looks like Radboud is a Microsoft shop, so I would not be surprised.
My university, for example, is gradually removing all office phones (already voip) and replacing them with Teams voip as the only phone system for the university, encouraging personal phone use of Teams, but having computer-based use as the option for people who refuse. As they don't provide mobile phones, however, they can't require Microsoft Authenticator, and so at least officially will still give hardware keys on request (and fortunately still allow TOTP, even if they don't advertise it).
There is a movement in Dutch academia to move away from Microsoft/Google services. E.g. SURF (the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions) are extending their NextCloud pilot to all Dutch edu/research instututions:
https://tweakers.net/nieuws/241846/surf-biedt-opensource-nex...
Many individual universities are also making decisions to reduce dependence on US tech, see e.g.:
https://rug.my-meeting.nl/Documenten/Keuzevrijheid-IT-oploss...
(Apologies for the Dutch links.)
> The announcement implies that the university is responsible for phone maintenance and repair
It says "Do you require a (replacement) smartphone for your work at Radboud University?", so it's probably for a handful of board members and the like, not the actual faculty staff.
If the university didn't make phone repairs themselves they would have to send the phones off for repair, or contract with a local phone repair shop. Or the secret third option: telling your employees to get it fixed and send you the invoice. None of them are cheap, and some of them will make you very annoyed with your billing/procurement/finance people. After a certain scale doing it inhouse makes sense, and with the right phone it's not much more difficult than fixing a business laptop, which is also commonly done inhouse with available spare parts
Looking to replace my iphone 12 mini. Alas the fairphone is also obnoxiosuly large. Seems the only phone available today under 65mm is the Jelly Star
I know several family members who have bought Fairphone's and been disappointed by them. It's really impressive how repairable they've managed to make such integrated devices, but it seems like they didn't do such a good job on making a reliable phone in the first place.
I think what we really need is legislation to force all phone manufacturers to at least make the batteries and screens relatively easily replaceable. Maybe a cap on the replacement costs and a minimum support time would be a reasonable way to do that.
I've read that the Fairphone 6 is more like a "regular" phone than the previous one, because it has a standard phone chip (Snapdragon) instead of an IoT one.
They did that to get longer software support from Qualcomm, but now they can get long support for Snapdragon chips.
And with an unlockable bootloader (that can be easily unlocked without needing to contact the manufacturer or require any special software).