US Launch of Repairable Fairphone 4: An Exciting Update with Surprising Elements

Fairphone is known for its environmentally-friendly phones, and the most recent Fairphone 4 is no different. Now, the repairable phone is coming to the United States, albeit it won’t be the exact same phone that launched in other international markets.

The Fairphone 4 is landing in the US in collaboration with Murena, a company that specializes in selling de-Googled Android smartphones — this means phones that don’t come with the Google Play Store and, really, no apps belonging to Google’s ecosystem of apps and services. This means that the Fairphone 4 doesn’t come with Google services or apps in the US — instead, it’s powered by a privacy-first fork of Android called /e/OS.

The /e/OS operating system is famous for trying to do its best to provide a usable experience for Android users without Google apps. It comes with microG, an over-simplified version of the Google Play Services app that provides just enough of the core experience for apps to not be broken while still avoiding Google as much as possible. With /e/OS, you don’t have access to the Play Store, but you should still be able to sideload the apps you actually need since microG support means that they shouldn’t be broken. It has a built-in store that fetches apps from the Play Store, including Google apps, if you really want to do so, albeit this is technically against Google’s terms and conditions, so you should use a new account for this instead of your standard Google account. Unless, of course, you want your account to be potentially banned.

Murena Fairphone 4

The Fairphone 4 is finally available in the United States through Murena. This variant runs a de-Googled version of Android and is only recommended for T-Mobile’s networks.

See at Murena

Still, this could be considered a regression from the Fairphone 4 that’s being sold in other countries, since that phone properly supports Google apps. But it’s great news for those privacy enthusiasts who are not too fond of Google’s apps and services and would rather have a phone that works without them.

Besides the difference with Google support, this should be the same Fairphone 4 sold outside of the US. It has up to 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, a removable 3,905 mAh battery, and of course, repairable and replaceable components, with the phone being able to be disassembled with a standard Philips #00 screwdriver and nothing else.

The device starts at $599 for the 6GB/128GB configuration, and if you would like to step up storage and RAM, the 8GB/256GB version will cost $679.

Via: The Verge