Fairphone updates its good-looking, repairable headphones

Colors like black and white for appliances are classic, but when a company offers a different color without it looking garish, it tends to stand out. This is what it felt like to unbox the Fairphone New $229 Fairbuds XL over-ear headphones In the shade of the green forest.

The new headphones, which also come in black, compete with others on the market, such as Nothing Headphones (1), the previous generation Sony WH-1000XM5, and Sonos Ace. While some of these headphones offer better sound and noise cancellation capabilities, the Fairbuds XL will be a good bet if longevity and repairability are more important to you.

The new devices are an update to the noise-cancelling Fairbuds XL, first launched in 2023 and designed with repairability in mind.

In these headphones, owners can replace the battery, pads, speaker covers, headband and drivers in both new and old models. To make repairs, you can easily open the headphones using a guitar pick or credit card and a basic screwdriver. The company has tutorials on its YouTube channel to guide you through the process.

The new iteration carries the same spirit but includes some subtle design changes as well as a driver upgrade to improve performance. Specifically, the company said the driver size is still 40mm, but has been upgraded with better magnets for improved bass.

Despite installing new drivers with improved bass, the overall sound signature is largely neutral. Both the middle and the vocals come through while listening to the songs. For example, some tracks on the “K-Pop Demon Hunter” album had some bass-heavy sections, but that didn’t affect the vocals or mixing.

Design changes include making the speaker-to-speaker cable and joystick green instead of orange. The company has new earpads made of mesh material for added comfort. The smoother ear pad is said to give you improved sound isolation, but the mesh also makes them more comfortable for long-term wear.

Although I didn’t have a chance to test the first version of the headphones, I wore the current pair for hours on end and didn’t experience any sweat or discomfort.

The Fairphone includes a haptic button and joystick for controlling media and switching between different noise cancellation modes. You can use the joystick to play, pause, control volume, and go to the next or previous track. The button also acts as a pairing mode switch and lets you cycle through noise cancellation modes.

Fairphone is not alone in prioritizing the functional button. Other device makers, Like nothingare now focusing on adding user-friendly buttons to their headphones, which is a welcome move.

The Fairbuds XL offer very powerful active noise cancellation. While I work from home, there is a lot of noise in the neighborhood, and I prefer to wear noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones. You won’t get the level of noise cancellation that the AirPods offer with these devices, but the experience was still good.

Chandler Hatton, Fairphone’s CTO, said the headset’s release cycle and backward compatibility is a conscious choice.

“We can launch products faster. This is a conscious decision to do it a little slower. We want to show the industry that it’s not necessary to take products off the market by introducing a new product, because that creates a cycle of what is sometimes referred to as planned obsolescence,” she told TechCrunch over a phone call.

The company indicated that it uses recycled and fairly extracted materials to build these pairs of headphones. To reduce packaging waste, its box contains a simple protective bag and the headphones themselves, as well as a quick start guide.

This company claims that the device has a battery life of up to 30 hours, but this reduces if you have the active noise cancellation feature.

The lack of a headphone jack in favor of USB-C bothered me a little. Even if you don’t want to add additional accessories to your package, adding support for a standard audio jack is something that can make your headphones compatible with more audio devices. (You can get a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle from Fairphone for about $15.)

Fairphone has passed A few executive Changes in the last two years. The company said that the new management wants to prove its ability to produce and distribute devices on a large scale, and expansion in the United States is part of that plan. The headphones are one of the company’s first products to get a full release in the US and will include parts support and a three-year warranty.

While consumers can purchase the Fairbuds XL on the Fairphone website, the device will launch on Amazon later this month for US customers, alongside the company’s $99 wireless earbuds.