Fairphone XL review: Climate-friendly cans

In one look

Expert rating

Benefits

• great sound
• Decent ANC
• Ultra-repairability
• Solid battery life

The inconvenients

• The ANC is not top of the class
• Some sewing issues
• Basic app

Our opinion

The modular nature of the Fairphone XL is a welcome change in these days of apparent planned redundancy in products. It’s not just about that though, as they offer solid audio performance with the added benefit of decent noise cancellation.

Fairphone is a brand generally associated with ethical and eco-friendly smartphones. These devices, like the recent Fairphone 4, buck the current trend of irreparable handsets dominating the tech landscape – or should that be a dump? – by making them modular, allowing almost everything to be replaced.

He’ll even sell you the replacement parts directly so you don’t have to scour eBay or AliExpress for cheap knockoffs that may or may not fit.

Now the brand is tapping into the on-ear headphone market with its Fairphone XL – the name is a play on the word excel rather than indicating an extra large size. So, do they sound as good as their intentions? Let’s listen.

Design and build

• Clever modular construction
• “Joystick” button
• Sewing a little messy

Fairphone offers the XL in two distinct liveries. There’s the standard black that adorns most headphones, but if you’re feeling a bit more colorful then there’s the green pair like the ones I have here.

Along with the overall two-tone effect, there are also black, red and white cheekbones on the outside of the ear cups, adding a bit of Jackson Pollock to the proceedings and a hint of green construction. It’s all neat and pretty cool if you want something more interesting than matte black.

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The headband and padding are covered in vegan leather, as are the cups. It’s soft and comfortable, although the outer seams are a little messy where the headband meets the metal bands that house the stretchy arms. This could be because these are pre-production samples, so be sure to check this area out if you’re planning on buying these headphones.

The arms themselves are plastic, as is the outer chassis of the earbuds, but they feel sturdy and don’t flex alarmingly. The right cup houses the controls, consisting of a button to switch between the different ANC and pairing modes.

Below is a gold mini-joystick control that will be very familiar to anyone who has seen or used certain Marshall headphones, such as the Marshall Monitor II ANC. This can be pushed up or down to control volume or left and right to skip tracks, while pressing and holding to turn it on or off. It’s a great way to pack a lot of options into a small space.

You’ll also find a USB-C charging port under the cup, along with a few indicator lights to let you know if the battery is low or when the XLs are in pairing mode. Unfortunately, there’s no 3.5mm jack, so if you were hoping to use a wired connection, you’ll need a different set of boxes.

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The arms are however articulated, so you can fold the headphones to store them in the supplied waterproof bag.

Of course, the main selling point of the Fairphone XLs is the modular construction. With these headphones, just about any part can be replaced, which means you won’t have an expensive set of cans rendered unusable just because a cheap plastic part fails. I can tell you this is a great approach, as my own Marshall Major III headset suffered this exact fate.

Even after contacting customer service multiple times, all looking for a small piece that would have cost next to nothing, I was told that the company didn’t sell replacement parts and that I would basically have to buy a replacement helmet. Terrible service from the Marshall headphones team, but that shouldn’t be a problem with Fairphone.

The headphones can be taken apart with a small Phillips screwdriver, and the cable that attaches to the cups has a USB-C connector on each end, making it easy to plug and unplug.

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Looking at the Fairphone site it looks like the prices are indeed fair, with things like the arms that attach to the cups costing around $20 (all prices are quoted in that currency), the batteries are the same, while the most expensive part is the $80 right speaker module as it also houses the controls.

Fairphone also places great importance on its commitment to the environment, with the company using 100% recycled aluminum and plastic for construction. Not to mention, it pays its workers a living wage, which most outsourced processes at tech companies don’t.

So these are good quality earbuds, which shouldn’t make you feel guilty about their craftsmanship which is refreshing these days. Oh, and I should have mentioned that they’re also IP54 rated, so they’ll survive the rain without checking.

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Sound quality and features

• great sound
• Decent ANC
• Ambient mode can struggle in windy conditions

Of course, none of the ethical practices will be worth as much if the product is no good. Thankfully, that’s not the case with the Fairphone XL.

The earphones they hold quite firmly which can be a bit uncomfortable for those who wear glasses and intend for long listening sessions. But, the advantage is that you get an enclosed space in which to listen to your audio content, with little noise from the surrounding environment.

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Sound quality is very good, with a nice balance of frequencies across the board, all emanating from the 40mm drivers inside each driver. If I’m very picky, the upper mids seem slightly less prominent than the others, but that could be more due to the heavy guitar music I listen to, which requires those frequencies to really pop.

It’s marginal, so don’t let that put you off, I still enjoyed the music and benefited from the Fairphone XL’s rich tones. Also, my ears have spent many years only a few feet away from enthusiastic drummers, so it could be me rather than the headphones.

There’s a companion app, called Fairsound, that gives you access to four EQ settings, but I didn’t notice a huge difference between them all. Unfortunately, you can’t adjust the settings manually, so you’re stuck with whatever Fairphone has decided on the presets.

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The volume goes up loud enough to do some damage, so go easy on it if you don’t want to mistakenly mishear frequencies later in life, like some people do. But, you don’t have to mute yourself to drown out nearby noise, as the Fairphone XL has active noise cancellation (ANC).

Just press the button on the right cup to activate the technology, with a notification letting you know what mode you’re in. ANC is decent, although you shouldn’t expect absolute silence if you’re somewhere particularly noisy. That said, it will dampen the din and give you blessed relief, which is to be expected for the course at this price.

Ambient Mode uses the headset’s microphones to introduce a low level of sound from your surroundings, making it useful if you’re waiting for an announcement or just want to be aware of what’s going on around you. It works well but, due to the placement of the microphone, it struggles when it’s windy. Naturally, you can turn ANC off at this time and turn it back on once the weather improves.

The Fairphone XL supports dual device connectivity (being actively paired with two at the same time), but it can be a little clunky to get it to work. Basically, once you’re connected to a device, press and hold the ANC button to return to pairing mode.

Although it says it disconnected from the first, that’s not true, and once you’ve paired the second device, you’ll be able to easily switch between them just by pressing the play button on the one or the other device. Hopefully this will be made a bit tidier via a software update.

Battery life and charging

• Removable 800mAh battery
• Up to 30 hours of listening
• Reasonable charging times

Fairphone packs an 800mAh battery into the XL, with the added bonus that it’s replaceable if it develops a problem or reaches the end of its natural lifespan.

The capacity also offers long playtime, with the company promising up to 30 hours of playtime without ANC, with that figure dropping to around 5 hours if noise cancellation is enabled.

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Obviously I couldn’t test this in one sitting but in my two weeks with the headphones I only had to charge them once which seems about right as I used them about two or three hours a day.

Getting back to 100% took about an hour, so you won’t have to wait too long to get them back into action.

Price and availability

Fairphone launched the XL headphones on May 11, although they’re only available in mainland Europe and the UK, so US customers should import them from any participating retailer.

Prices are in line with other quality over-ear headphones with ANC, at £219/$249 (around $277).

That puts them in the range of the excellent Razer Opus which you can pick up for around $269/£200 or the Sennheiser HD 450BT headphones ($200/£150), both of which have ANC but not the ethical benefits offered by Fairphone.

Check out more options in our best headphones and best noise canceling headphones charts.

Verdict

In pure sonic terms, the Fairphone XL might not be able to compete with other high-end headsets, but it still delivers great sound that will appeal to most users.

ANC is good, if not best in class, and battery life is excellent. It’s a beautiful ensemble that lives up to its ambitions.

What you need to factor into the price here is the ability to fix just about anything that goes wrong. If you’re the type of person who wants to use the same technology for years to come, then Fairphone might be the best headphones for you, especially if you’re looking for an ethical option, as they’re thin on the ground.

Specifications

• Modular construction with folding arms
• 40mm speakers
• ANC
• Removable 800mAh battery
• Bluetooth 5.1
• Supported codecs: AAC, SBC, APTX HD
• IP54 rating
• USB-C (for charging, digital and analog music)
• 330g