It can be done: Android smartphone makers can provide updates for as long, as long or longer than an iPhone. Fairphone 2 has in fact announced the end of support for March 2023seven and a half years after its launch in October 2015. The Dutch company has been able to beat (indeed, almost double) all the other Android manufacturers, despite the much smaller resources.
Fairphone 2, support ends after more than 7 years
Not everyone needs a state-of-the-art smartphone. Those who limit themselves to using messaging apps and taking a look at social networks, with even a few games from time to time, can do make your devices last much longer. But to stay safe you need updates from manufacturers.
Fairphone has promised to do so, guaranteeing its sustainable smartphones like the Fairphone 4 for five years of updating and six of security updates. And with the second version of the smartphone, he was able to get there even at 7 and a half.
Not even to mention that the smartphones of the Dutch lbrand are built to be simple to repairwith the company selling the parts to be replaced even independently.
Fairphone 4 5G under repair
The long life of Fairphone 2 is particularly surprising because Qualcomm stopped supporting the chip Snapdragon 801 long before Fairphone. In fact, he didn’t update it after Android 6.0, shortly after the launch of the Fairphone 2.
The company then worked with the team of LineageOSwhich develops ROMs for Android, to bring Android 10 on a seven year old smartphone. Which it will stop supporting now, also because Google’s security support for Android 10 is coming soon.
An average lifespan of seven years is unprecedented in the Android world, with other manufacturers getting up to four years of updates. The hope is that others will follow Fairphone’s lead. That also offers 50 euros if you ship your Fairphone 2 by March, to purchase a newer version.