Sustainable smartphone maker Fairphone has announced a new subscription service offering its latest phone, the Fairphone 4, for as little as €21 per month. The Fairphone Easy is for now only available to customers in the company’s home market of the Netherlands, who will be able to rent the phone for anywhere between 3 and 60 months, but Fairphone spokesperson Ioanna Luncheon says the service will be expanded to more countries. can be expanded. Europe in 2023 based on the results of this initial pilot.
The subscription service is the sustainable manufacturer’s latest effort to reduce the environmental impact of smartphone production, and is designed to encourage users to keep their existing phones for as long as possible. The monthly cost includes free repairs (Fairphone says you’ll get a replacement phone within 48 hours if needed), and there are also discounts that kick in for each year you manage. without It needs to be repaired. Customers get a €2 monthly discount after the first year, €4 after two years, and €8 after three.
Although the structure of the subscription bears a superficial resemblance to paying for a phone on finance or when bundled with a phone contract, there are some key differences. First, even at the end of your subscription period, you don’t actually have the phone. Instead, you must send it back to the company to be reused or recycled. And there’s no network contract involved—customers need to supply their own SIM cards. A €90 deposit is also payable when you subscribe for the first time.
Based on the minimum €21 per month pricing, and using some rough back-of-the-napkin math, it looks like it would take less than three years to pay the same amount in subscription fees as you would on the Fairphone 4. wanted to buy earlier. (The 8GB RAM / 256GB storage model provided with the subscription retails for €649). This is assuming you never need to repair it, and therefore take advantage of the discounted rates in years two and three. but if you Doing If it needs to be improved, then the subscription service can make sense even over a long period of use.
The Fairphone Easy is a bit more restrictive than traditional phone financing options, but the company’s laser focus on sustainability often leads to these kinds of trade-offs. For more on the Fairphone 4, check out my review from last year.