Our smartphones have become the most indispensable pieces of tech in our lives, but we rarely stop to think about how they were made, or where they end up when we upgrade to a new handset. One company is attempting to challenge that by building Android smartphones that are sustainably manufactured and as repairable as possible, encouraging you to upgrade less often and fix your phone before you absolutely need a new one.

That company is Fairphone, and it has just launched its latest Android phone, the Fairphone 6. It comes in black, white or green and has a modular design that allows you to take it apart to replace 12 separate components such as the screen, battery and speakers if and when they break or fail. Fairphone aims to keep these parts in stock for several years.

The modularity does mean this phone is not fully waterproof, but with specs including a 6.31-inch OLED, Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, 50MP main camera, and Android 15 with software updates till 2033, you may not mind. Fairphone also sells accessories that attach directly to the phone, including a lanyard and a card wallet.

All of this costs from £499, a decently competitive price given the package on offer. It even comes with 256GB and a lesser-spotted micro-SD card slot for expansion up to 2TB.

New to this latest model is a physical switch that lets you toggle between the full Android smartphone operating system and a more minimal setup that lists apps in plain text and shuts off things such as notifications. The firm calls this mode “Fairphone Moments”. It could be the answer for smartphone addicts who like the idea of using a so-called dumbphone but know they can’t realistically make the switch – the Fairphone 6 is offering two phone experiences in one device, not something that can be said for any iPhone or Samsung Galaxy device.

“Since our founding, we’ve been revolutionising the industry from the inside out, doing what most said couldn’t be done,” said Raymond van Eck, CEO of Fairphone. “For the past decade, we’ve been proving that doing good and doing good business aren’t in conflict — they strengthen each other. With The Fairphone (Gen. 6), we’ve created a product that pushes the limits of what can be done when performance meets modularity and sustainability.”

Fairphone says it sources all the materials used in the Fairphone 6 ethically and actively pays bonuses to workers across its supply chain. The phone is made from more than 50 percent “fair or recycled materials”, according to Fairphone, which also says it is “the only 100 percent e-waste neutral smartphone” on the market, alongside the previous Fairphone 4 and 5 handsets.

The firm is also selling a ‘de-Googled’ version of the Fairphone that runs on /e/OS, an open-sourced version of Android that does not require Google apps or underlying services.