For the original German review, see here.

Every product is based on an idea. A campaign of the Waag Society, a research institution in Amsterdam, prompted this at Fairphone. It aimed to draw attention to conflict-minerals in consumer electronics as well as the wars that are financed by their mining. Tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold are among the popular materials that are used for soldering, capacitors, vibration engines, and motherboards.

After three years of campaigning, leaving it up to consumer awareness was not enough. Instead, it was time to enter the market, offering a smartphone that was produced in line with ethical aspects. Social and ecological values were to be the top priorities in every step of the supply chain - starting at sourcing raw materials over production up to retail and recycling.

Curtains up for the Fairphone startup: Financed via crowdfunding, the company founded in 2013 launched its first smartphone in the same year. According to the manufacturer, the Fairphone, sold at 325 Euros (~$346), has been purchased 100,000 times since and thus emphatically proven that the idea of a smartphone, which is produced without exploiting humans and nature, can find many buyers.

The ethical smartphone has now entered the second round: The new Fairphone 2 edition focuses even more strongly on repairability and longevity than its predecessor. For this, the 5-inch Fairphone 2 is the first smartphone in the world to use a modular build. Components, such as screen or camera, can be swapped like in a Lego system, which makes it easy for the user to repair the smartphone or replace the present components with new or better versions. The manufacturer has slightly reworked its second iteration introduced in late 2015. The Fairphone 2 presently offered, on the manufacturer's website that we closely examined, now has a thinner back cover, which is available in four colors.

Our approximately 250 Euros (~$266) Fairphone 2, with a new back cover look, relies on Qualcomm's 801 MSM8974AA SoC alongside 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. Furthermore, a Wi-Fi 802.11ac, LTE, two SIM slots, and an 8-megapixel camera belong to the configuration. In line with its fairness claim, the manufacturer breaks down the production costs of its smartphone. According to the manufacturer, it only earns about 9 Euros (~$9.59) preliminary to tax. Some other smartphone manufactures often have a three-figure profit margin per device.

We let Fairphone's 2 compete against two categories of rivals in the test. Firstly, against the similarly equipped Sony's Xperia XA and Samsung's Galaxy A5 (2016). Secondly, Fairphone's 2 also has to compete with Huawei's P9 and Samsung's Galaxy S7 that are in a similar price range as the review sample.