A few months ago, my Xiaomi Mi 11, purchased in 2021, started to malfunction and the camera was no longer able to focus properly. Additionally, the battery's capacity decreased significantly over the years, so that I had to recharge between 2–3 times daily. Repair costs in 2025 would have been between 150CHF and 200CHF (just parts), which was slightly more than the market value of the phone. Hence, I decided that I need a new phone - and while I'm at it, why not buy "that new phone", that had been leaked over the last few months?
So I decided to purchase the Fairphone Gen. 6, which I will refer to as the FP6 in the rest of this post, for 529CHF - and I have some interesting thoughts on it.
Design & Modularity
One of the main reasons why I was intrigued by the FP5 & FP6, is the modularity. Not only the battery can be user-replaced, but there are 12 modules that can be replaced by the user. Fairphone also sells 6 accessories at the time of the release, although 1 week after the release, they cannot be purchased yet in Switzerland.
The insides can be accessed by removing only two screws on the back:
Both the micro SD card and the nano SIM card can easily be accessed at the bottom by sliding out the SIM holder. On the left side, there is the microphone and on the right side, there is the replaceable USB-C port, which can charge with up to 30W, although none of my third party chargers were able to reach this speed (only 22W), likely because my chargers use older PD and QC protocols.
Sadly, the USB-C port only supports USB 2.0 speeds, reaching up to ~50-60MB/s. This is disappointing, since this will be very useful, if you're looking to transfer files via cable. Personally, I have been transferring via WiFi 6 since I own my Xiaomi Mi11, which would be faster than this USB-C port anways, so it's not a huge issue.
The corner radius is very nice on the hands, but the edges are sharp and not rounded. This makes the display look better but hurts my hands more after using the phone continuously for an extended time.
Software
Until the FP6, I have been using heavily modified versions of Android, such as Samsung's UI or MIUI from Xiaomi. Neither I was really fully happy with, since both came with bloatware, ugly looking first-party apps that cannot be uninstalled and a design that doesn't really go well with me. Fairphone uses a more stock version of Android, like the Google Pixel devices. It shipped with Android 15 for me and there was a software update available, but I was never prompted to install it nor was it installed automatically.
The only additional app installed is the "My Fairphone" app, where I later registered my phone for the "extended warranty". However, the page that is supposed to show the hardware specifications, seems broken at the moment:
During my usage, Android generally never hang, but I did have some app crashes (more on this later). The experience was smooth and the high refresh rate display is a joy to use, even when switching between apps. Everything feels fluid and optimised, although the adaptive frequency sometimes did not properly switch and decided to go on low fps in the launcher, making the swiping feel sluggish. Fairphone publicly acknowledges this issue already, and I'd expect that this will be fixed by a software update soon.
Lastly, I want to talk about Fairphone Moments, or the Switch. It is this yellow thingy, that is sticking prominently out of the side:
It can be bound to various actions, and at first I didn't expect me using this very often - it seemed rather gimmicky. However, I loved that I can easily quickly switch to "Do not Disturb" mode using this switch and only have access to the most essential apps on my device. My only complaint is, that the "Fairphone Moments" app doesn't feel well integrated yet - you feel quickly, that it's just yet another Android app, that opens on top, and you can even get outside that app with some tricks. When closing (essential) apps, there also is an ugly animation and Fairphone Moments will re-launch, making the experience feel less refined and premium. At the moment, I've configured the Switch to enable or disable Do not Disturb mode instead, since the Moments app is not refined enough.
Camera
The Fairphone 6 features two sensors, a 50MP main sensor and a 13MP wide camera. I expected the Fairphone to take at least equally good pictures as my older Xiaomi Mi 11, but sadly the camera setup is slightly disappointing.
Main sensor
The main camera looks very good, has good and natural colours, the dynamic range is decent and pictures are taken in HDR with a high resolution. They don't have vignetting and the image processing looks good. Here are some test pictures I took:
I am a big fan of high refresh rates, and therefore the maximum refresh rate of 30fps in 4K is disappointing. 1080p@60fps is possible and looks good, but I wouldn't record any serious footage on that resolution. The videos are compressed to 2MP when recording in 1080p, and this really shows because pixels can be recognized easily. Colors are nice and natural.
Example video of some ducks near Bern, recording at 1080@60fps, resulting compressed file is about 31MB. The audio channel is stereo. Geotagging must be explicitly enabled in the settings of the camera app.
The camera app gives you up to 10x zoom, although anything beyond 2X is not very usable, and after 5X it becomes a blurry mess.
The wide lens camera
The Camera offers up to 0.6X zoom and will take pictures in HDR. The colours look good and natural, maybe slightly on the warmer side. The compressed image results in a 10MP image which a wide field of view. The lens distortion is minimal and not very noticeable. There also isn't any major vignetting in the pictures.
However, all images so far I took with this camera look too crisp & overprocessed. They are pixelated, oversharpened, details in the dark get lost and worst of all - grainy. You can immediately see, on what camera the picture has been taken:
If we take the same location, as we used for the main camera, the grain becomes very visible, even on smaller screens. Even on the original size picture (left), the picture looks too processed, that I'd use it to take pictures I really wanted to use. The camera crushes all detail in the shadows (image right), which results in this weird paint-like aesthetic. This looks weird, because in reality the shadows are much less extreme due to the sunlight.
The wide lens is crushing shadows, and they appear much more extreme than in reality. The federal palace of Switzerland is visible, but heavily processed and slightly pixelated.
Performance
When buying the FP6, I was afraid that the performance will be worse, since the Mi11's Snapdragon 888 had a big GPU and some serious performance. But surprisingly, the FP6's Snapdragon® 7s Gen 3 performed better in many scenarios, even though it should be less powerful on paper. I suspect this is due to thermal throttling and optimization, since the Xiaomi Mi11 regularly got very hot - once even until it damaged itself and I had to open a warranty case. Playing games or doing anything intensive on the Mi11 was not a joy.
But when playing on the FP6, the phone itself was way more comfortable to touch due to its lower temperature and weight and the performance was very usable for most games:
3D Mark "Wild Life"
4467 points, 26.75fps
AnTuTu
790574 points (-4% battery, +3°C)
CPU: 263019
GPU: 206115
MEM: 164394
Genshin Impact
Low, 30-60fps
Zenless Zone Zero
Low, 30-60fps
Playing these games on the FP6 is a joy and a lot of fun. They run fluently and the phone doesn't heat up as much as the Xiaomi Mi 11 (or other phones I've owned) do. Sadly, I've experienced regular crashes during my testing in Zenless Zone Zero, most often during loading screens or when new parts of the map are loaded. This could be the fault of either (FP or miHoYo), and I'd expect that it should be resolved soon.
Battery
Wow, is it nice to finally no longer need a power bank once or twice every day. The FP6 easily hold enough battery for a full day. On an average day with mixed usage, a few minutes of gaming, taking a few pictures and making a call, I reached 2 hours and 39 minutes screen time and 12 hours since the last (full) recharge. That's impressive and plenty for my usage.
Fairphone rates the battery to withstand 1000x cycles until it drops to 80% capacity, which is average for most phones, but at least I can replace the battery myself in minutes, without removing any glue and buying sketchy parts on AliExpress, like I would have needed for my Xiaomi Mi 11. And best of all, the battery only costs €39.95, but is not yet available. Galaxus will likely offer this too f0r approx. 40CHF, since they are already selling the other accessories: https://www.galaxus.ch/en/brand/fairphone-15803?filter=23659%3D7759295
Audio & Connectivity
The audio setup is worse than on my Xiaomi Mi 11. The stereo speakers do not have a lot of punch or base, but they are fine when watching Anime, videos or listening to voices. In contrast, when calling a number, the audio seems clearer than it was on my Xiaomi Mi 11.
My Sony WH-1000XM5 have been working great with the Fairphone and I've had no issues with the quality or connection stability. 5G is also working great and since the phone ships with Android 15, you can finally disable 2G in the settings - you really should.
WLAN performance seems to be marginally better than on my Xiaomi Mi 11, although this could be within the margin of error.
| Direction | Xiaomi Mi 11 | Fairphone 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Upload | 334 Mbps | 518 Mbps |
| Download | 383 Mbps | 418 Mbps |
Measured using Ubiquti AP 6 LR, 5GHz
NFC has also been working great, and I was able to add my cards to Google Pay. Baking apps, such as Postfinance and TWINT are working great too.
The fingerprint is working fast for me, no issues.
Verdict
So far, I'm very satisfied with the overall experience of the Fairphone Gen 6. It is fast, has a good battery life, doesn't kill the planet and commit to better standards, feels very light and does everything I need my phone to do. It comes at a competitive price for the Swiss market and offers a wide range of repair parts and accessories. Some software features have not been polished as much and need further work, but Fairphone is communicating much more openly than most other companies have been - I am certain that they can patch these small issues.
Bigger disappointments include the camera, the availability of spare parts and accessories on launch and the half-baked Fairphone Moments. I don't think this phone is for everyone, but it works well for me and I'm happy wit it. I also agree with the standards that Fairphone is setting and apprechiate the long software support & lower environmental impact.
Let me know in the comments 👇 whether you'd consider buying and using such a phone and if not, why? And if you're looking to purchase it yourself in Switzerland, you can check it out here (no affiliate link):
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