Shiftphone

Shiftphone is a modular, easy-to-repair smartphone brand created by the company SHIFT in Germany. The company emphasizes fair trade and ecology, similar to Fairphone.[1][2][3][4] Instead of tantalum capacitors made from coltan, ceramic capacitors are used for their manufacturing. So far, eleven model series have been released. The most recent release was the SHIFT6mq (successor of the Shift6m) in June 2020. The upcoming device will be the SHIFTphone 8, scheduled for release in 2024.[5]

Names

The official company name is SHIFT GmbH.[6]

Devices

Operating system

There are two different operating systems. The SafetyNet based SHIFT-OS-G/ShiftOS-G with Google services or the AOSP-based ShiftOS or ShiftOS-L without Google services. Furthermore, flashing the device with a custom ROM is allowed;[13] ShiftOS developers are also partly involved in the development of certain custom ROMs.[14]

Characteristics

Criticism and controversies about conflict minerals

In 2016 c't described the Shift5 as a typical cheap smartphone. Besides, the journal argued that there was no evidence that coltan is not used in Shiftphones and thus criticized the transparency of SHIFT. SHIFT and further secondary sources claim that coltan is not in use for their manufacturing.[21] However, according to c't, the SHIFT partner company "Vstar and Weihuaxin" did not provide information about conflict-free material used in Shiftphone. Unlike Shiftphone, Fairphone provides detailed audit reports about component suppliers through a Chinese agency, and also facilitates detailed information on problems and compromises in the supply chain.[22]

Coltan is used to make components for mobile phones and other electronic devices. A huge part of the ore is from mines in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). "Much mining has been done in small artisanal mining operations, sometimes known as Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM). These small-scale mines are unregulated, with high levels of child labor and workplace injury." Some 50,000 children, some just seven years old, work in Congo's coltan mines. Workers often have little or no protection and often work underground in self-made shafts.[23]

golem.de reported in detail on the company and its efforts in terms of sustainability and fairness in June 2018.[24]

The ProSieben magazine Galileo tested the newly released smartphone Shift6m and illuminated, in the form of video recordings, the production conditions of the in-house manufactory located in China in June 2018.[25]

N-tv described the initial efforts for fairness and sustainability as well as the history of the Shiftphone, in September 2018.[26]

In August 2018, the ecology portal no longer reported any lack of transparency regarding Shift's Chinese hardware manufacturing process.[27]

In the issue 15/2018, the computer magazine c't showed a more positive approach on the topic of German smartphone manufacturer Shift, although the report itself was rather short in comparison to other European hardware providers.[28]

See also

• Fairphone
• Ethical consumerism
• Fair trade
• Green IT
• Open-source hardware
• Phonebloks
• Framework Computer

External links

• Official site of SHIFT GmbH