Fairphone 2 to receive Android 9 Pie after 5 years of its release

Fairphone 2, which was release almost 5 years ago is now getting a major software update. After getting the beta version, the phone will finally receive a complete update.

In a blog post, Fairphone said:

This year is a milestone for us, and you, as it marks 5 years of continuous support of the Fairphone 2. It is also one of the few Android smartphones sold in that year (2015), to still receive continued software support. It might not seem like a big deal, but trust us, it is. This is the only smartphone to receive an upgrade to Android 9 and we had to build the operating system without any support from chip-maker Qualcomm.

The company has been manufacturing Android phones since 2013. The company is devoted to supporting its devices for a long as possible, which is clear after knowing that the Fairphone 2, which was released five years ago, is receiving a major software update.

The phone was originally shipped with an Android 5 Lollipop. The company couldn’t update when Qualcomm refused to update its drivers for the Snapdragon 801 to work with Android 7.0 Nougat. However, the company managed to receive a Nougat update in 2018 with no help from Qualcomm. Later, a beta release for Android 9 Pie arrived in June 2020, and now the completed update is starting to roll out.

It was challenging for the company to send the update given that the update had to pass “approximately 477,000 Google tests” to be certified for use with the Play Store — something that custom ROMs don’t have to worry about.

The company currently offers two phones, the FP3 and FP3+, both powered with a Snapdragon 632 chipset, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, and a 3,060mAh battery.