Fairphone 3 Pre-Orders Begin For Ethical Smartphone With Better Specs Than The Librem 5

The Fairphone 3 made its formal announcement this week with pre-orders beginning and plans to begin shipping in mid-October. The Fairphone 3 is the latest iteration for this phone design that is focused on social values / ethical manufacturing, the longevity of the phone, and modular replacement parts.

The Fairphone 3 runs on Android 9, which may not be too interesting, but hopefully won't be long before seeing Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile, and other Linux mobile software offerings for this phone, just as we have with earlier Fairphone models.

The Fairphone 3 is priced at €450.00 ($500 USD), which actually is quite a fair price for the hardware: Qualcomm Snapdragon 632, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, 3000 mAH battery, 5.6-inch full HD+ display, dual nano SIM, USB Type-C, and all modern connectivity features like Bluetooth 5.

In comparison the Librem 5 at $699 USD has the i.MX8M, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, 3500 mAH battery, 5.7-inch 720x1440 display, and 802.11n / Bluetooth 4. With the Librem 5 seemingly not going to make its Q3 ship target, it's possible the Fairphone 3 may end up shipping prior to the Librem 5.

Or at the lower-end of the spectrum for Linux smartphones attracting attention is the PinePhone. The PinePhone has the Allwinner A64 with Mali 400 graphics, 2GB RAM, 5.9-inch 1440x720 display, 16GB eMMC, and other basic features.

Those wanting to learn more about the Fairphone 3 can do so at Fairphone.com. The Fairphone 3 is interesting from the hardware perspective while it will be interesting to see how quickly its non-Android support evolves.