I’d use a phone like this. In fact, it makes me excited for the day my Blackberry dies and I can just go back to having a regular old phone.
This phone concept is getting us closer to what Saul Griffith calls “heirloom design.” When you think about the entire energy cost of phones, it’s the manufacturing process that’s the most harmful aspect by far. So reducing the number of phones we make is way more important than, for example, marginally increasing the percentage of post-consumer recycled content in each phone.
For that reason, James Barber set out to make a phone that would last for five years. He also included modular components so that the camera, for example, can be swapped out as camera technology progresses. It’s easy to disassemble—there’s one jumbo-sized screw holding it together—and the whole thing is 85-percent recyclable.
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