Android

The Gigaset GS6 Pro is available starting at around €380, including from Amazon Germany or directly from the manufacturer.

This is a midrange phone despite saying "flagship" and the review criticizes its slow speed and not-so-good camera. It's nice that it has an SD slot and removable battery and wireless charging. 3.5mm audio jack is not mentioned. Review says you can use AphyOS (aphy.app) as an alternative to Google. No mention of Lineage or Graphene.

Overall this hardware is at roughly comparable to my 2023 Moto G Stylus 5G which cost half as much. At least it's not $1000 or anything like that though, and it does have some good points. The review is informative and worth reading if you think you might want a phone like this.

More phones with replaceable batteries, the microSD slot, and degoogled Android support is always good! Not sure if other parts are equally replaceable though, the article doesn't mention that

I am moving to Piefed at scallisto@retrofed.com (https://retrofed.com/u/scallisto)

Why do all phone model names suck? They're all just useless word salad.

The eyeFone Titanium Ultra Mega Super-duper Max Pro XL 27 Hotdog and Hamburger Fold Mini Edition (with someone's name etched at 8pt font, and in their favorite color for only $6,000 more). Battery and charger not in included.

Just use [company] Phone [release/year]. That's it. And have a decent company name, too; sitting on the keyboard and going with whatever comes out isn't good enough.

I'm not sure how this is a Fairphone alternative when "Fair" is the most important part of Fairphone (ethical manufacturing, and not having child/slave labor in the supply chains). This one sounds like it went in the opposite direction, by making it cheap at the cost of questionable supply chains.

edit: they acknowledge it in their report as something they may work on in the future https://www.eqs-news.com/media/document/6de6e559-8027-4035-a697-d84378170ae3/assets/DE0005156004-JA-2022-EQ-E-01.pdf

No one knows what the future will bring. But what we do know is that if we protect our environment, conserve resources and take our fellow human beings into consideration, the years and decades ahead will be better. [...] In order to manufacture our products, however, we still have to purchase components such as microchips and storage media from the Far East or from other regions of the world. It is not always possible to fully monitor their manufacturing processes and supply chains. Gigaset therefore strives to make the preliminary stages transparent and to optimize them further.

Honestly I'm not super impressed, even though I was hoping to be, because I would love to see more variety in the space. €380 is not all that much less than the just over €500 which can get you a Fairphone 5. The Fairphone 5 should have support until 2031, the GX6 Pro until 2032. Fairphone has a solid legacy of providing updates, which Gigaset doesn't necessarily have - add to that, the GX6 Pro has a MediaTek chipset, and those are notoriously difficult to support, the Fairphone 5 has a Qualcomm which is much better in that regard. The review mentions regular lags - problems I don't have with my FP 5 (unless I'm just not that sensitive). Honestly, the only upside I see to the GX6 (other than the price - but again the difference isn't that big IMO, especially considering Gigaset doesn't have the focus on sustainability and ethics) is the wireless charging, which I wish Fairphone would stop being so stubborn about.

It is important to note that Gigaset is a German company, but since 2024 it is owned by V-Tech based in Hong Kong.