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World's First Modular Smart Phone Hits the Market

An anonymous reader writes: Out before the much anticipated Google Modular Phone Project ARA, is a new phone from Fairphone: The Fairphone 2. This phone is claimed to be the the worlds first real modular phone. Fairphone is more than just a phone manufaturer but a social justice movement . Fairphone is a project of Waag Society, Action Aid and Schrijf-Schrijf to raise awareness about conflict minerals in consumer electronics and the wars that the mining of these minerals is fueling in the DR Congo. The Fairphone 2 build consists of 5-inch Full HD LCD screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop,Dual SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Qualcomm quad core processor.

10 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Awaiting Awareness by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The entire thing is a joke. The phone is made in China in the same factories and suppliers as other phones. The difference is that their suppliers say "sure, we only use tungsten from Colorado, not from the Congo". And the hipsters fly home happy.

  2. Re:Awaiting Awareness by ClickOnThis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can do replace individual components with an iPhone too with parts off of ebay.

    Oh, really?

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  3. Re:Awaiting Awareness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You suck at reading bullshit. There is nothing concrete in that quote.

    Goals are something you'd like to reach. They aren't things you're currently doing. You never need to reach a goal.
    Willingness to work on something means nothing. I'm willing to give everyone in the world a million dollars, but I'll never do so.
    A commitment to transparency isn't a plan. It's a 'we'll make a committee and never let anything useful come out of the meetings'.
    "production partners we engage with directly" means no one. They can define "engage with directly" however they want.
    Identifying areas that needs improvement doesn't mean improving them.
    They're going to create worthless assessments as the first step in a process to create a policy of creating more worthless assessments before making changes that might have an impact on something.
    They're going to look at each step of the production line, ignoring how it fits in with all the other steps, and see how they can make that step more profitable by itself. Then they might actually make a change to make it more profitable. "Investigate" has no promise of action and they don't even say what they're investigating for. You will assume they're investigating what you want them to investigate and someone with different ideals will read the same paragraph and believe they're investigating what that person wants investigating.

    You shouldn't read anything released by a corporation. It's all meaningless and will damage your brain.

  4. Re:Awaiting Awareness by Maow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because manufacturing doesn't work that way. Their Chinese supplier makes their phone. The supplier supplies the electronics and the raw materials. It isn't like Fairphone sends them a shipment of tungsten saying "hey use this to make our phone".

    Citation needed, again.

    How the fuck do you know how their setup works? You haven't provided a single link to support your bullshit; you probably haven't even looked at their site.

    Put up a link or shut up. Fairphone has put up claims, feel free to debunk them if you have anything other than bullshit:

    Starting with the production of the Fairphone 1, we worked with Solutions for Hope to source conflict-free tantalum from the DRC. They established a closed-pipe supply chain (including mines, smelters and manufacturers) to provide greater transparency and supply conflict-free minerals from regions experiencing ongoing conflict. For the Fairphone 2, we will continue to support buying tantalum through Solutions for Hope. This initiative uses a mass balance model of traceability, which means that conflict-free tantalum from the DRC is mixed with conflict-free tantalum from other sources at the smelter. The resulting blend will be used in the capacitors in our latest phone.

    It is just a bunch of hipsters with a gimmick.

    No, it's a bunch of whiny, cynical assholes bitching because someone is making an effort to provide consumers choice - a choice that whiny, cynical assholes don't want to look into in the slightest, never mind a choice they'd make.

    Fine, if you don't want one no one cares. But just because someone shat in your cereal, don't have a whinefest about someone else making an effort.

  5. Re:Awaiting Awareness by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes you can. You can replace the same number of components on the iPhone as you can the Fairphone. How do you think the hundreds of iphone repair shops do it? I can't believe people fall for this kind of stuff.

    I saw what you did there. You're moving the goalposts.

    Obviously a legitimate, Apple-approved repair shop can fix your phone without bricking it.

    Per the article I linked to -- which you ignored -- repair shops that use unapproved Apple parts can permanently brick an iPhone.

    And you're saying a consumer can fix their iPhone with parts they just buy off eBay? Yeah, good luck with that.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  6. Re: Awaiting Awareness by ClickOnThis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple released a fix for this issue days after it made the media.

    Oh dear ... AC, it appears you're right:

    http://www.techtimes.com/artic...
    http://www.techtimes.com/artic...

    Sorry, 110010001000.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  7. Re: Awaiting Awareness by prefec2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The goal of fairphone is not to sell many phones. Instead their primary goals are to make the production process of phones transparent, show how things can be improved for humans and environment in all steps from resources to assembly, and they have encourage you to use your phone longer. Exactly what you want. The fp2 should even last longer than the first.

  8. Re:"A social justice movement" by dave420 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If your intention was to tell everyone just how confused you are, I think you were wildly successful. It's not "Marxist" (I honestly think you don't know the meaning of the word) to source materials from companies which treat their workers well. I can see how you'd get confused, knowing as little as you seemingly do. I would suggest you spend more time working on your education and less time showing everyone just how sorely you need it.

  9. Re: Awaiting Awareness by prefec2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This exactly what FP promotes. The best what you can do for laborer and the environment, use the phone as long as possible.

  10. Re:wrong direction by Maow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    in my opinion, taking away the ability to earn at least a little money is only going to hurt the mostly innocent bystanders.

    It looks like they're still putting money into poverty stricken areas:

    Promoting conflict-free tungsten exports from Rwanda

    Conflict-free tin from the Democratic Republic of Congo

    The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) possesses 80 percent of the world’s coltan supply. Many of the mines there have been controlled by rebels who extort money from the miners, leading tantalum to be classified as a conflict mineral.

    Starting with the production of the Fairphone 1, we worked with Solutions for Hope to source conflict-free tantalum from the DRC.

    It appears they've made an honest effort to source things intelligently.

    Reading these comments (not the one I'm replying to) bitching, moaning, and whining about "hipsters" getting a "feel good" from stupidly being duped through the entire process, I'm pretty fucking disgusted with Slashdot today.