Based on the numbers, the CO2 emissions seem fairly proportionate (but not directly) to the amounts of materials that require high energy inputs - metals, silicon and glass, for the most part. The choice of plus-size over standard size essentially guarantees a higher level of emissions.
Extending that reasoning... these are small objects. Many things we use require far greater amounts of energy input/CO2 output, such as the manufacture of the cars themselves, not just the amount of fuel burned on a 200-mile drive.
While I can't say with any certainty that the use of smart phones reduces a person's overall environmental impact, there's likely some mitigation from reducing other forms of consumption - from consolidating many different devices (pagers, flip phones, pocket calculators, cameras, etc) into a single device; from the reduction in production of black vinyl disks, CDs and DVDs, paper for newspapers, magazines, snail mail, etc...
I'm not trying to justify smartphones; just pointing out that the input/output calculations that go into total environmental impact are very complex; far more complex than a discussion of this sort can encompass.
Similarly, the whole, "Make it repairable" argument is somewhat simplistic as well. Yes, a highly durable product that remains in service for many years is likely to have a lower impact than one that has a shorter lifespan. However, the 55-year-old gas cooktop in my father's home has a pilot light that is always burning. You have to wonder at what point that constant consumption balances with replacement with a unit with electronic ignition? (If there are retrofit conversion kits for that cooktop, I've yet to find one.)
As someone who used to run electronics repair shops, I also know the impracticality of component-level repairs. Returning to the days of higher modularity (socketed ICs, rather than directly-soldered) carries other costs (higher level of failures, the materials that go into those sockets, the manufacture of specialized tools for repair of modern circuit boards...) that repairability is not necessarily a simple solution, either.
Extending that reasoning... these are small objects. Many things we use require far greater amounts of energy input/CO2 output, such as the manufacture of the cars themselves, not just the amount of fuel burned on a 200-mile drive.
While I can't say with any certainty that the use of smart phones reduces a person's overall environmental impact, there's likely some mitigation from reducing other forms of consumption - from consolidating many different devices (pagers, flip phones, pocket calculators, cameras, etc) into a single device; from the reduction in production of black vinyl disks, CDs and DVDs, paper for newspapers, magazines, snail mail, etc...
I'm not trying to justify smartphones; just pointing out that the input/output calculations that go into total environmental impact are very complex; far more complex than a discussion of this sort can encompass.
Similarly, the whole, "Make it repairable" argument is somewhat simplistic as well. Yes, a highly durable product that remains in service for many years is likely to have a lower impact than one that has a shorter lifespan. However, the 55-year-old gas cooktop in my father's home has a pilot light that is always burning. You have to wonder at what point that constant consumption balances with replacement with a unit with electronic ignition? (If there are retrofit conversion kits for that cooktop, I've yet to find one.)
As someone who used to run electronics repair shops, I also know the impracticality of component-level repairs. Returning to the days of higher modularity (socketed ICs, rather than directly-soldered) carries other costs (higher level of failures, the materials that go into those sockets, the manufacture of specialized tools for repair of modern circuit boards...) that repairability is not necessarily a simple solution, either.
