14 DAY TRIAL // We reported to you back in June on one of the few modular smartphones that might make it to the market, the Fairphone 2. At that time, the company developing the project promised to launch the modular handset sometime this fall.
Those anxious to get their hands on the world's first modular smartphone available on the market will be pleased to know that Fairphone 2 is now available for pre-order.
The bad news is that it is only available in select European countries, though the company making the device has promises to expand its availability next year.
Anyway, customers who want to pre-order the Fairphone 2 will be able to do so for €525 ($585). From what we can tell, there's no limit to the number of pre-orders, and Fairphone has already gathered 20,000 reservations for its modular smartphone, which is a good start for the company.
Aside from the fact that it comes with components that can be replaced, Fairphone 2 has a standard specs sheet with which it will ship.
A mid-range smartphone sporting an old CPU
But first of all, let's mention that Fairphone states that all materials used at manufacturing were ordered from “ethical” sources, so customers should not have second thoughts when it comes to build quality.
Fairphone 2 is powered by a rather obsolete quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, coupled with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot.
Also, the modular smartphone sports a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution and features Corning Gorilla Glass 3 coating.
On the back, the handset packs an 8-megapixel photo snapper with autofocus, LED flash and video recording, while on the inside, there's a 2,420mAh battery.
It's also worth mentioning Fairphone 2 ships with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop operating system right out of the box and supports dual SIM. There's no word on Marshmallow for the moment though.