Fairphone launches world’s first modular smartphone

Mumbai: After launching the first ever ethically sourced smartphone, Fairphone has now launched the new Fairphone 2, which is the world’s first-ever modular handset.

Fairphone 2 is priced at approximately Rs 38,000 and the company will start shipping it in December. The most unique factor of this phone is its unique modular design, which helps users to easily assemble and disband the phone.

According to Fairphone’s Chief Technology Officer Oliver Hebert, the modular design of the device is aimed to make it long lasting, robust and recyclable.

The company has also announced that it is collaborating with Jolla to release a customised version of the Sailfish OS for the Fairphone 2. For the time being, the device will ship with the Android 5.1 Lollipop.

The Fairphone 2 comes with a 5-inch full HD LCD TFT display and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. The handset is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.26GHz coupled with 2GB RAM. The smartphone comes along with internal storage capacity of 32GB and is backed by a 2420mAh battery. For a modular design, the device is extremely light at just 148 grams. It has a front camera sensor of 8MP and a 2MP front shooter.

Interestingly, several companies had earlier come up with a plan to build a modular smartphone before Fairphone. Google started working on Project ARA since 2013 and was scheduled to release this year. However, Google has now re-scheduled the launch to 2016.