alt Hacker NewsThis is a good point. Ifixit has guides for all the phones, but it reports that none of the replacement parts are actually sold in the United States.
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone
Reminds me of the cold steel throwing axe that I bought that specifically has replaceable handles in case you break one. No one actually sells the handles though!
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I bought a fair phone 2 when I lived in Germany in 2016. Got a software update when I moved back to Australia. Bricked it. The kernel debug interface has no standard header, and required a fine pitch soldering iron header. I rented a German post box to send it to, as you need a European address for support. I tried to send it twice, and it was refused by German customs. I gave up and now I just buy cheap second hand Motorolas and unlock the bootloader, put lineageos on them. I think giving new life to discarded devices is more ethical anyway.
Didn't they launch only their first device (considering this is the sixth generation) in the USA a few months ago? Hopefully the replacement parts are yet to come. I'm not sure why it's so difficult, perhaps it's that they're stretched too thin and barely managed to get the base device to market there at all
I bought one a few years ago. Good device, too big for my hands (back then, there were still smaller options so I bought one of those smaller ones in second-hand). Not having spare parts available would make me hesitate since that's like 50% of the point (fair sourcing being the other half), but besides that it's a (big) phone like any other