But Fairphone is selling the 6 Plus directly in the US, with full support for T-Mobile and AT&T. Knowing how easy it is to replace parts of this phone as it ages actually required me to think a bit differently while I was using it. Battery life is just okay.

I usually got through most days of light-to-moderate use with 60 percent left at bedtime. I did turn on every battery-draining feature I could think of, including the always-on display, higher screen refresh rate, and light mode. Those are all off by default, and probably for good reason.

But there’s an easy fix: Just swap the battery yourself. No trip to the repair shop, no time away from your phone. The 6 Plus comes with way fewer compromises than early versions of the Fairphone did.

The first iterations came with outdated designs, poor-quality cameras, and previous-gen displays. Things have steadily improved, but there are still some tradeoffs hanging around. The phone is rated IP55, which equates to mostly dust-resistant and mostly water-resistant, but not fully protected.

Sealing up the phone completely and still offering easy repairability would be difficult, maybe impossible. Item two: no wireless charging, and likewise no ring of magnets a la Qi2 or MagSafe. I’m growing partial to an easily removable PopSocket on my phone, so I missed having that option here.

Moving along: The screen is thoroughly decent, though it doesn’t get quite as bright in daylight as some of the nicest ones out there. The speakers are tinny. The wake button is a little hard to find by memory.

The Snapdragon 7S Gen 4 chipset handled the basic demands of modern life.

If you poke around the edges you can find where this chipset falls short of the very best SoCs — which you can come by in devices that don’t cost much more than the Fairphone 6 Plus.

Google Maps runs a little stuttery on my car’s infotainment screen when I run it with wired Android Auto, and there’s a bit of juddering as I scroll around my town in Pocket City 2.

But it handles a dense webpage like Icy Veins’ character build guides remarkably well, and I can get away with a few back-to-back Portrait mode shots before the shutter button grays out to clear the buffer. Meeting that bar for a “decent midrange Android phone” means the Fairphone 6 Plus needs to offer a good, basic camera system. It does.

It doesn’t offer one iota more than that, but it does the job. It was the camera I used to take pictures of my son’s fifth birthday, which in hindsight was a lot of trust to put into an unproven (by me at least) system. But it worked out!

I have an in-focus photo of him blowing out birthday candles. The main camera does a fine job with daylight scenes, and the app offers a 2x crop function that I used quite a bit. The ultrawide suffers some noise and smoothing in dimmer indoor light, which is pretty typical.

Portrait mode is passable, and I didn’t notice any red flags in the handful of video clips I shot of my kid opening birthday presents.

The camera system made some funky choices now and again, but overall I agree with Dom’s impressions of the same camera system on the preceding model: It’s fine.

1/13If that was all the Fairphone had to offer, I’d feel okay about recommending it.

But there’s more, starting with the modular back panel accessories.

The screwdriver included in the box is all you need to swap out the back plate and replace it with one that has a wallet or a flexible grip.

There’s also a crossbody strap you can attach to any of those panels, though the jury’s still out on whether I personally can pull off a crossbody strap.

The little neon-colored switch on the side of the phone is hard to miss, and it houses another one of the Fairphone’s bonus features.

By default, switching it on enables something Fairphone calls “Moments,” which are basically focus modes with minimalist homescreens that limit you to a handful of apps.

I didn’t use this feature as much as I anticipated, mostly because I’m avoiding social media on my phone at the moment and that’s what I would most need a focus mode to keep me away from.

But I think it’s a great concept and the execution appears to be sound. I’d appreciate a little more customizability, like maybe the ability to add a custom wallpaper rather than choosing from the basic options provided. But I guess the more options you add, the more room there is for distractions to wiggle in.

Fairphone has finally created a phone that feels ready for the mainstream in the 6 and 6 Plus. It’s not just a device that represents some admirable ethical qualities — it’s a very good total package. There’s the feel-good benefit of buying from a company that, by every indication, walks the ethical and sustainability walk.

But there are tangible benefits, too, like easily taking care of repairs yourself when you inevitably need them. And those upsides no longer come with such severe tradeoffs.

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