- Fairphone has poked fun at the Nothing Phone (4b)'s visible screws
- The company highlighted in an Instagram story that they're just 'for show' rather than being accessible
- The Fairphone 6, on the other hand, has visible screws that users can access
The Nothing Phone (4b) was unveiled earlier today, and it sounds like a reasonable budget handset, with a 6.77-inch 120Hz screen, a 5,200mAh battery with 33W charging, a 50MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM. But despite having visible screws on the back, it might not be very easy to repair or to replace its components.
We won’t know for sure until someone has done a teardown of the (4b), but Fairphone has shared an Instagram story pointing out that while quite a few screws are visible on the rear of the device, you can’t actually get to them without breaking into the glued-on cover.
The Instagram story — an image of which can be seen below — shows the Fairphone 6, complete with its own visible screws, overlaid with text reading “every screw is functional on Fairphones. Nothing is for show.” Then, at the bottom, directed at the Nothing Phone (4b), it says, “next time, maybe the screws can be… outside?”
A fair criticism
And it’s a fair point. The Fairphone 6 is a reasonably stylish handset itself, with the visible screws helping it stand out, much like on the Nothing Phone (4b).
But the difference is that the Fairphone’s screws are accessible, making for a modular design where you can easily swap out components, rather than having to replace the whole phone.
So, if you want a handset that’s designed to last, you might want to consider a Fairphone instead of the Nothing Phone (4b) — though Fairphone’s CEO recently teased that two new products are on the way, so you might want to wait for those first, since one of them is likely to be the Fairphone 7.
And, of course, we'll be testing the Nothing Phone (4b) for ourselves in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for our real, experience-backed verdict on that device.
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