- Fairphone has made fun of the Nothing Phone (4b)’s visible screws
- The company highlighted in an Instagram story that they are just ‘for show’ rather than being available
- The Fairphone 6, on the other hand, has visible screws that users can access
Unveiled earlier today, the Nothing Phone (4b) sounds like a decent budget handset with a 6.77-inch 120Hz display, a 5,200mAh battery with 33W charging, a 50MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide and a Snapdragon par 6 Gen 4 chipset with 8GB of RAM. However, despite having visible screws on the back, it may not be very easy to repair or replace its components.
We won’t know for sure until someone does a teardown of the (4b), but Fairphone has shared an Instagram story that points out that while quite a few screws are visible on the back of the device, you can’t actually get to them without breaking into the glued-on cover.
The Instagram story – a photo of which can be seen below – shows the Fairphone 6, complete with its own visible screws, overlaid with text that reads “every screw is functional on Fairphones. Nothing to show.” Then at the bottom, directed at the Nothing Phone (4b), it says, “next time the screws might be… outside?”
A fair criticism
And that’s a fair point. The Fairphone 6 itself is a reasonably stylish handset, with the exposed screws helping it stand out, just like on the Nothing Phone (4b).
But the difference is that the Fairphone’s screws are accessible, allowing for a modular design where you can easily swap out components instead of having to replace the entire 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) – although Fairphone’s CEO recently teased that two new products are on the way, so you might want to wait for those first, as 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, experiential verdict on that device.
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