Fairphone put out a document that takes a holistic look at the environmental impact of electronics. Everything detailed by component, material, process, etc. Really interesting for those looking to dig deeper

https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-impact-of-consumer-electronics-on-nature-and-biodiversity.pdf

@Techaltar I appreciate what fairphone is doing, but without powerful hardware the logic behind keeping your phone for 7 years breaks. The pricing of iphone 17e is on par with frairphone 6 and i would bet that you would have better 7 years of experience with iphone rather than with fairphone.

@rominator I've been using fairphone devices for nearly 10 years. First the Fairphone 2, and more recently (but multiple years) the Fairphone 4. I haven't felt that the 4 is underpowered, and therefore the 5 and 6 will likely not be as well.

@Techaltar

@DiogoConstantino @rominator @Techaltar I'm on a Fairphone 4 and don't feel much need to upgrade. Depending on what you are doing, a more powerful phone could work better, but for the average person it's probably enough. My wife is on my Fairphone 3 hand me down and it's still doing fine.

@smsm1 yes, it will always depend on what you do.

@rominator @Techaltar

@DiogoConstantino @smsm1 @rominator @Techaltar

Well, Fairphones have fairly good compatibility with #linux, so they can easily be repurposed as power-sipping home servers when you're done with them.
https://hackaday.com/2025/04/09/self-hosting-a-cluster-on-old-phones/
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/16/from-smartphone-to-a-home-server/
https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/
https://github.com/Bry50/Old-Smartphone-as-a-server

Or, you know, just install #postmarketOS with a nice GUI on there and keep using it as a smartphone without worrying about whatever years of support the manufacturer promised. Upstream, baby.

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

Self-Hosting A Cluster On Old Phones

The phones most of us carry around in our pockets every day hold a surprising amount of computing power. It’s somewhat taken for granted now that we can get broadband in our hands in most pla…

Hackaday

@papiris I'm an Ubuntu Touch user and contributer, but PostmarketOS is nice too.

@smsm1 @rominator @Techaltar