Fairphone 5 review

Introduction and specs

Two years after the previous generation, Fairphone introduced the Fairphone 5 with numerous upgrades to the hardware and tweaks to the design to fit the company's mission to reduce e-waste and promote sustainability. The company says more than 70% of the materials used are either recycled or are "fair-focused", meaning the materials are sourced from transparent supply chains with responsibility for the material footprint.

Additionally, the company offers 5 years of full warranty coverage, 8 years of software updates, which includes 5 major Android upgrades, extremely easy repairability and a removable battery. Not necessarily new features, as these were the staple for the Fairphones in the past, but it's still a unique approach in 2023. Lastly, for each Fairphone 5 sold, people working at the factories get a $2.63 living wage bonus.

Fairphone 5 specs at a glance:

Body: 161.6x75.8x9.6mm, 212g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass 5), aluminum frame, plastic back; IP55, dust and water resistant, MIL-STD-810H compliant.
Display: 6.46" OLED, 90Hz, 880 nits (peak), 1224x2700px resolution, 19.85:9 aspect ratio, 459ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm QCM6490 (6 nm): Octa-core (1x2.7 GHz Cortex-A78 & 3x2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x1.9 GHz Cortex-A55); Adreno 643.
Memory: 256GB 8GB RAM; UFS 2.2; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
OS/Software: Android 13, planned upgrade to Android 14.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.9, 1/1.49", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.2, 1/2.51", 0.7µm, PDAF; Depth: TOF 3D.
Front camera: 50 MP, f/2.5, (wide), 1/2.76", 0.74µm.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, gyro-EIS; Front camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS.
Battery: 4200mAh removable battery; 30W wired, 50% in 20 min (advertised).
Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 6e; BT 5.2; NFC.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); stereo speakers.

When it comes to hardware, the Fairphone 5 brings a bigger and better display compared to its predecessor, a purpose-built Qualcomm QCM6490 chipset with extended support, a duo of 50MP cameras - a standard one and an ultrawide one, aided by 3D ToF sensor and a selfie cam with another 50MP unit. It's evident that the OEM wants to offer a solid camera experience for the market segment. Battery life should also see some gains with a bigger 4,200 mAh battery and faster 30W charging.

The Fairphone 5 is undoubtedly a unique device that caters to anyone tired of changing a phone every two years and wants to have a bit more control over its product. However, it's still important to see the whole picture and assess the handset's competitiveness in the upper mid-range segment. We dive deeper into this review to see whether there are some unforeseen trade-offs you must consider before buying.

Unboxing the Fairphone 5

The handset arrives in a modest, recycled carton box with some user manuals inside.

The company says that it doesn't want to create more e-waste, and since the phone can charge with standard USB-C cables and standard chargers up to 30W, you likely have some lying around.

Design and ergonomics

The Fairphone 5 adopts a nearly identical design to its predecessor with a flat front glass panel (Gorilla Glass 5 in this case), anodized aluminum frame and removable plastic back. The most notable difference is the front design, as the new Fairphone 5 has a centered punch-hole for the selfie cam instead of a waterdrop-like notch.

The handset comes in three color options - Matte Black, Sky Blue and Transparent Edition. We are in possession of the latter, and you can see some of the internals inside. It's pretty neat. All color options feature a recycled plastic panel on the back.

There's some improvement in dimensions and weight. The new Fairphone 5 drops the weight down to 212 grams, which is still rather hefty, and it's also a bit slimmer now, measuring 9.6mm, down from 10.5mm. Despite that, the Fairphone 5 features a slightly larger 6.46-inch display.

The new device is now compliant with a higher MIL-STD-810H military standard and higher IP55 certification against water and dust. Let's not forget that IP55 isn't too bad, considering the removable plastic back.

The side frame accommodates the power button, doubling as a fingerprint reader on the right along with separate volume buttons sitting above. While the power button is well-positioned, the volume buttons require a bit of a thumb stretch, which isn't very convenient. The bottom is home to the USB-C connector and the loudspeaker grille. The top and the left part of the frame are clean. There's just a small indentation on the left that helps you remove the back panel with your fingers.

Fairphone 5

One could argue that the device's aesthetics are a bit retro, especially when you see it in person. The thick bezels on the front, the chunky chassis and the removable back panel take us back almost 10 years back into the smartphone industry. However, it feels nice in hand. It's really pleasant to touch, and the back panel isn't very slippery.

Fairphone 5

Perhaps some design limitations are in order, given Fairphone's main focus on sustainability and repairability. It has a modular design inside, so you can change pretty much everything by yourself, even the screen. The back is detachable without the need for tools, so you can access the battery, the SIM card slot and the microSD card tray quite easily.

As we've pointed out earlier, Fairphone 5 is made of recycled and fair-sourced materials, so environmentally-conscious users will love it.

All in all, the chassis feels sturdy and quite comfortable in hand, but we would have liked having an in-display fingerprint reader and maybe thinner bezels on the front. Two things that put the Fairphone 5 at a disadvantage compared to similarly-priced competitors if you weigh feature against feature. Admittedly, these issues are easy to neglect by some users, and it's a small price to pay for a future-proof phone like the Fairphone 5.

90Hz OLED display

The Fairphone 5 is equipped with a bigger 6.46-inch display this time around and with a higher resolution to match - 1224 x 2700px. It now has an OLED instead of LCD, but the refresh rate is modest - just 90Hz when the industry has moved to 120Hz for a while now. There are no HDR certifications either.

Brightness control is pretty solid, though, as the display reacts fast to changes in the environment, and you can also let the software adjust the right color temperature depending on the ambient lighting too.

Speaking of brightness, the Fairphone 5 got up to 576 nits in manual mode, while in auto, the panel peaked at 772 nits, which is pretty close to the advertised 800 nits of typical brightness. Although not chart-topping, this is enough for comfortable outdoor use even on the sunniest of days.

The default color mode offers punchy colors, but the whites and grays are quite blue-ish, so opting for the natural color preset is preferable if you want accurate color reproduction. The average dE2000 in this mode is just 2.0 - an excellent result with some small deviation for whites and grays again.

Battery life

A 4,200 mAh battery powers up the Fairphone 5, and unlike the rest of the smartphones, the cell is user-replaceable on the fly. You just need to remove the back cover first. And we hope this will be enough to persuade potential buyers because battery life is downright disappointing. An overall score of 88 hours just isn't enough to compete with the rest of the handsets in the same price category, especially considering the fact that most of them run on more powerful chipsets too.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

While standby and call runtimes are dependable, the screen-on tests are where the Fairphone 5 fails to impress. We expected more, even for a 4,200 mAh battery.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging speed

Even though Fairphone doesn't explicitly state that the handset supports PowerDelivery protocol, we confirmed that it uses a standard 30W PowerDelivery charger. However, apart from a couple of phones, such as the Galaxy S series or the Pixel 7 series, the Fairphone 5 is dragging behind the competition in terms of charging.

Surely, it's not slow per se, but it's below the industry's standard for the price range.

Speakers

The Fairphone 5 comes with a hybrid stereo speaker setup - a dedicated loudspeaker at the bottom and one that doubles as an earpiece at the top. Of course, balance could be better as the bottom speaker is noticeably louder than the other. However, overall loudness is our main issue with the setup. An overall score of -31 LUFS is far from ideal for a phone in this price range.

Audio quality isn't impressive either. Music sounds rather flat, although there's minimal distortion at higher volume levels. Then again, the speakers are far from loud in the first place.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Squeaky clean Android 13

The Fairphone 5 may not be shining with any proprietary software features or a heavily customizable Android skin, but it beats everyone else in software support. The company promises 5 major Android updates and 8 years of security updates to keep the device relevant as long as possible. Notably, the device launches with Android 13 out of the box, so when Android 14 rolls around for the Fairphone 5, which should be pretty soon, you have four more major updates to go. No other Android manufacturer promises such extended software support.

That's partly possible due to the purpose-built Qualcomm QCM6490 chipset that also comes with extended support from Qualcomm itself. We are a bit concerned about how future-proof 8GB of RAM is with Android gradually becoming more demanding. But more on that later.

The phone is also advertised as bloat-free, which means only the usual set of Google apps is pre-installed. And since the software is vanilla, you can expect rather timely updates from Fairphone. There's not much work to adapt the latest Android version.

Home screen, notification shade, recent apps, app drawer, settings menu

Software is business as usual with the standard lock screen, home screen, app drawer, recent apps and notification shade. But for a more in-depth look at Android 13, we suggest reading the Google Pixel 7 software section as these devices have essentially the same software, aside from a couple of PIxel-exclusive features.

Performance

The Fairphone 5 comes with a rather unique chipset from Qualcomm. It's a purpose-built QCM6490 based on a 6nm node. The SoC has an octa-core CPU with 1 + 3 + 4 configuration and an Adreno 643 GPU clocked at 812 MHz. The CPU consists of 1x 2.7 GHz Cortex-A78 & 3x 2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x 1.9 GHz Cortex-A55 cores. No other Qualcomm chipset features the same core clusters and clock speeds, but it does get close to the rare Snapdragon 782G, for reference.

The SoC has to work with 256GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM, and there are no other memory options either. And while the internal storage can be expanded via microSD card, the operating memory may not be very future-proof. It's fine now and maybe even after the next two Android versions, but Android is getting more demanding with each iteration. But since Fairphone guarantees 5 major updates, maybe there's no room for concern.

As you can see, the Fairphone 5 doesn't fare well against competition in the same price range when it comes to raw performance. The QCM6490 is no match for the more powerful Snapdragon 8 series SoCs as well as the Google Tensor G2 chip. It does beat the Snapdragon 778G and the Dimensity 7050 and gets right behind the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2.

Three 50MP cameras

The new Fairphone 5 uses a total of three 50MP cameras - two on the back and one on the front. However, all three sensors are different. The main camera, for example, offers a 50MP. 1/1.56", 1.0µm sensor paired with f/1.9 aperture and OIS, while the ultrawide relies on a smaller 50MP 1/.2.51", 0.7µm sensor. This one is coupled with f/2.2 aperture. The third cutout on the back is a 3D ToF sensor used for depth sensing.

For a selfie camera, Fairphone went with another 50MP sensor, but this one is the smallest of the bunch, measuring 1/2.75" and having 0.74µm pixels. The lens offers f/2.5 opening.

Camera menus

The camera app is business as usual. You get your most common camera modes in the main rolodex and an additional sub-menu for the rest of the modes. The general settings menu is located in the upper-left corner of the viewfinder.

Cammera app

The camera app also offers a Pro mode, giving you access to ISO, shutter speed, exposure, white balance and autofocus. The Pro mode works only with the main camera, though.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main camera produces decent but unimpressive stills with a conservative approach to colors in general. A bit more contrast wouldn't have hurt either. But fine detail and sharpness are good. The samples below are not exactly a match for pictures from similarly priced competitors.

Daylight main camera samples

2x zoom

The 2x zoom samples are also quite decent for a simple crop, but we noticed a limited dynamic range judging by the clipped highlights.

Daylight 2x zoom samples

Ultrawide camera

We expected a lot more from the 50MP ultrawide camera, but in reality, it barely outperforms the commonly used 8MP ultrawide shooter in budget smartphones. There are random soft spots, the dynamic range is limited, and the overall detail is lacking. The photos, in general, look lifeless with dull colors.

Daylight ultrawide camera samples

Low-light photos

Main camera

The low-light photos are surprisingly good-looking. Even without resorting to the dedicated Night mode, the main camera captures sharp and clear low-light stills with plenty of detail, wide dynamic range and without much noise. Sometimes highlights get clipped, but not enough to ruin the photo. The Photo mode seems very natural, with accurate color reproduction and the right amount of contrast.

Low-light main camera samples

The Night mode balances out the highlights and lights up the shadows. It also adds a little bit of artificial sharpening so fine details pop out. So maybe in some cases, the dedicated Night mode is preferable, especially in darker scenes. Be prepared to wait a lot, though, as the image stacking process takes a while.

Night mode main camera samples

2x zoom

The 2x zoom samples are disappointing and are hard to recommend. There's no dedicated Night mode to help out either.

Low-light 2x zoom samples

Ultrawide camera

Without Night mode, the ultrawide camera is completely useless after dusk. It's like comparing photos from two different cameras. The standard photos have limited dynamic range, lots of noise and are extremely fuzzy. Luckily, the Night mode fixes all of the above, balances out the shadows and highlights and adds plenty of previously unresolved detail.

Low-light ultrawide: Normal • Night mode

Selfies

The selfies are great for the most part, as long as there's enough light. They have natural color, plenty of detail, sharpness and accurate exposure. However, the slightest drop in the ambient light makes them noticeably softer and dynamic range isn't always wide enough.

Selfies

Here's how the primary camera on the Fairphone 5 stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Fairphone 5 against the OnePlus 11 and the Google Pixel 7 in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

Naturally, the Fairphone 5 can record in 4K with its main camera, and since the ultrawide is also 50MP, it can also do 2160p videos. They are all stabilized via EIS, but you can still turn that off if you use a tripod and need that extra field of view.

In any case, the 4K footage from the main camera is pretty solid for the most part, as it has plenty of detail, natural color reproduction, albeit maybe a bit dull. Sharpness is great too, but the dynamic range is narrow. The shadows under the trees are looking okay, while white cars and the buildings in the distance are completely burnt, which leads us to believe the issue is with dynamic range and not exposure.

[embedded content]

The ultrawide camera produces similar videos but with even bleaker colors. Overall sharpness and detail are great for an ultrawide video, but dynamic range is once again lacking, and colors need some boost.

[embedded content]

You can also take a look at our video compare tool to see how Fairphone 5 stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

Fairphone 5 against the OnePlus 11 and the Google Pixel 7 in our Video compare tool

Competition

To some extent, comparing the Fairphone 5 to the other smartphones priced around the €700 mark would be unfair, mainly because the Fairphone 5 is aimed at a completely different audience. Users who put easy repairability, battery access, sustainability and long software support on top of their priority list will surely go for the Fairphone 5 instead of any other alternative on the market.

Still, it would also be unfair to pretend that there are no other options in the same price category. The OnePlus 11, Samsung Galaxy S23, Nothing Phone (2), and Motorola Edge 40 Pro are all viable flagship options. Even the much-cheaper Google Pixel 7 or the similarly priced Pixel 7 Pro are options worth considering if you are looking for that vanilla Android experience.

OnePlus 11 • Samsung Galaxy S23 • Motorola Edge 40 Pro

Nothing Phone (2) • Google Pixel 7 • Google Pixel 7 Pro

And unfortunately, the Fairphone 5 is no match for this contingent in pretty much any aspect. Other handsets in the same class offer superior performance, longer battery life, nicer displays, faster charging and far superior camera performance. After all, those are a smartphone's key selling points, and the Fairphone 5 seems to miss them all.

Verdict

The Fairphone 5 doesn't surprise or stand out with anything except its sustainable and easy-to-repair design. The 5-year support for major Android versions and 8-year security support are also nice bonuses, especially for enterprise purposes. Moreover, since it's easy to repair, ownership costs go down rapidly for a small business or a big company that needs to maintain tens or hundreds of office smartphones.

But for anyone in the market for a new smartphone in the given price range, the Fairphone 5 may not be the best choice. It's cool to have a removable back cover and swap out your battery on the fly, yet having a nice set of cameras, bright and HDR-compliant display, long battery life and fast charging is cooler.

Pros

Solid build and comfortable design.
Extremely easy to repair, battery is user-replaceable, sustainable materials used.
Long software support.
Nice selfies.
5 years of warranty coverage.