Shiftphone is a

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...

, easy to repair

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

created by the company SHIFT in Germany. The company emphasizes fair trade and ecology similar to

Fairphone Fairphone is a Dutch electronics manufacturer that designs and produces smartphones with the goal of having a lower environmental footprint and better social impact than is common in the industry. In particular, the company aims to minimize the u ...

. Instead of

tantalum capacitor A tantalum electrolytic capacitor is an electrolytic capacitor, a passive component of electronic circuits. It consists of a pellet of porous tantalum metal as an anode, covered by an insulating oxide layer that forms the dielectric, surrounde ...

s made from

coltan Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites and known industrially as tantalite) is a dull black metallic ore from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral in coltan is columbite (after niobium's original ...

, 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 2023. Following the same principles as the phones, a modular 13.3" tablet is also in the works, scheduled for release in 2022. It uses a

Tiger Lake Tiger Lake is Intel's codename for the 11th generation Intel Core mobile processors based on the new Willow Cove Core microarchitecture, manufactured using Intel's third-generation 10 nm process node known as 10SF ("10 nm SuperFin"). Tig ...

i5-processor, features a swappable battery and two

M.2 M.2, pronounced ''m dot two'' and formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards and associated connectors. M.2 replaces the mSATA standard, which uses the PCI Ex ...

slots, and will support

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

Names

The official company name is SHIFT GmbH.

Model names

The names of models start with the string "SHIFT" in upper case letter. Except for the SHIFTphone 8 this is followed by the length of the display diagonal rounded to full inches. After that * the name ends - for the oldest models * a dot follows, in turn followed by a number - some newer models until around 2017 * an m follows - this is for the new modular line

OS name

The OS is named either SHIFT-OS or ShiftOS.

Devices

History

SHIFT has been developing

s since 2014. In the beginning Carsten and his brother Samuel Waldeck realized the project SHIFT7 through German crowdfunding platform . The brothers founded Shift GmbH, a company with limited liability by German law. Further Shiftphones were launched with model series SHIFT4 and SHIFT5 in 2015. The project grew into a small company with 15 employees in Germany, which collaborated with the Chinese production coordinator company " Vstar and Weihuaxin" in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

. Since 2018 the company has employed 10 workers in their own manufacturing facility in

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whic ...

Characteristics

Sustainability

Shiftphones are built in a modular manner to allow the customer to change parts and repair the device without voiding warranty. Videos support the user in repairing their device, explainin
how to open it and how to change certain modules

Cycle economy

Customers have the upgrade option, to upgrade their device to a different model.

Workers' care

Shift employees in China
do not work more than 50 hours a week, while it is common for people to work up to 90. Compared to the average Chinese worker in production business, staff is provided with insurances.

Critics and controversies about conflict minerals

In 2016

c't ''c't'' – ' (''Magazine for Computer Technology'') is a German computer magazine, published by the Heinz Heise publishing house. The 5.71 meter high tower from the 587 published c't editions up to the 30th anniversary has been in the foyer ...

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. 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. 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 Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...

and workplace injury." Some 50,000 children, some just seven years old, work in Congo's coltan mines.

Workers The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...

often have little or no protection and often work underground in self-made shafts. Recent reports paint a clear picture: articles by many magazines were able to capture the statements of Carsten Waldeck and prove their credibility accordingly. For example, '' golem.de'' reported in detail on the company and its efforts in terms of sustainability and fairness in June 2018. 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. ''

N-tv n-tv is a German free-to-air television news channel owned by the Bertelsmann Media's RTL Group. n-tv broadcasts news and weather every hour and half-hour in the morning. It also broadcasts magazine shows and documentaries. History n-tv beg ...

'' described the initial efforts for fairness and sustainability as well as the history of the Shiftphone, in September 2018. In August 2018 the ecology portal ' no longer reported any lack of transparency regarding Shift's Chinese hardware manufacturing process. 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.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official site
Smartphones Mobile phone manufacturers Mobile phone companies of Germany Modular smartphones Fair trade brands Right to Repair German companies established in 2014 Android (operating system) devices Companies based in Hesse German brands