Removable batteries and microSD cards aren't dead—they're just hiding in niche phones

It’s my job to think and write about phones, and that gives me an excuse to try out several different phones that really appeal to me. One of them actually has what so many of us miss about phones from the past—a removable battery and expandable storage.

Yes, you can still buy this type of phone in 2026

I purchased a Fairphone (Gen 6)

The Fairphone is hard to find here in the United States. The phone comes from a Dutch company and primarily targets Europe. To get one on my side of the pond, I needed to purchase online from a company called Murena, which sells devices not with vanilla Android, but a de-Googled version known as /e/OS. I’m a fan of de-Googling, but I’m not here to talk about the software (at least, not this time). I’m here to talk about other aspects of the Fairphone.

The fair in Fairphone refers primarily to the sourcing of fairly sourced materials, but it also describes an orientation toward you and me. This is a phone where nearly a dozen of its components are designed to be user-replaceable. With just the included screwdriver, I can easily swap out camera modules, replace the screen, and fix a USB port. I don’t need to deal with glue or pull out a soldering iron.

Those aforementioned parts have never been accessible in smartphones, but one of the components used to be quite common– the ability to replace the battery. In addition, instead of needing to upgrade the storage, the phone retains the ability to pop in expandable storage in the form of a microSD card.

With a micro SD card slot, it doesn’t matter that the Fairphone only comes in one size

The phone can hold memory cards with multiple terabytes of storage

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t bought a microSD card in years. It feels quite empowering to think that I don’t need to fork over money for a larger version of this phone. I could pick up an SD card when the time comes, and I could make this phone have more storage than any phone I’ve ever owned. Today’s microSD cards go up to two terabytes. The last time I put a microSD card into a phone, that amount of storage in so small a chip may have been imaginable, but it wasn’t something I could buy.

This makes me wonder how much I’ve missed out on in my transition to buying flagship phones. MicroSD cards never went away from many mid-range and budget phones. I didn’t take advantage of it, but when I reviewed last year’s Minimal Phone, I could have used expandable storage. The same is true of my time with this year’s Unihertz Titan 2 Elite.

Expandable storage has become a benefit of purchasing niche devices. These companies can't coast on brand recognition. It’s in their interest to appeal to us in as many ways as they can, and adding a microSD card slot is low-hanging fruit.

There are so many perks to having a MicroSD card slot. I’ve recently started to digitize my collection of DVDs, and with this much storage available to me, I don’t need to deal with the complexity of setting up Jellyfin and learning how to access it remotely. I can store vast amounts of my library on a microSD card and stick it in my phone.

The life of a battery is the life of a phone

A replaceable one means a phone can keep going and going

The fact that the battery in the Fairphone (Gen 6) can be swapped out using an included screwdriver is a huge step forward compared to most smartphones, but it is actually a step backward for the Fairphone series. Prior versions of the phone had plastic backs that you could pop off with just your fingernail and batteries that you could easily hot swap with no tools required. This meant you could carry a spare battery with you and quickly pop it in if you needed a full charge at a moment’s notice.

The Fairphone (Gen 6) is less accessible in that way, but I’ve never felt inclined to carry a spare battery. External power banks have gotten small enough that it’s much easier to plug a tiny battery into the USB-C port instead.

For me, the primary comfort is the knowledge that I can easily swap out this battery in a few years and have the peace of mind that comes from knowing that this is one device where a swelling battery doesn’t mean the end, even if there's no longer a repair shop I can mail the phone to. Considering that the Fairphone actually comes with custom ROM support in the form of /e/OS and can also run the likes of LineageOS and postmarketOS, this is a phone whose software support can outlast even the eight years advertised on the website. Thankfully, that perk won’t be nerfed by the phone becoming a spicy pillow.

I’m not sure that I’m going to keep the Fairphone, but that’s no fault of the phone. I’ve already written about how Google's RCS lock-in doomed my time with /e/OS, a platform I otherwise quite love. But as I consider my options, these are two aspects of the Fairphone that appeal to me the most—aspects that were once mundane.