What you need to know
- The Fairphone 2 is receiving a public Android 10 beta, with a stable release in early 2022.
- The update comes after Android 9 was released for the phone in March.
- Fairphone used its experience upgrading to Android 9 to speed up the process.
When it comes to software support, Android hasn't been exactly fantastic. However, Fairphone is apparently on a mission to prove that continued support is possible many years after launch with the announcement that the Fairphone 2 is set to receive Android 10.
Yes, the update is a tad behind, especially now that phones are receiving Android 12. However, to put things into perspective, this is a six-year-old Android phone that launched with Android 5.
No matter how you look at it, that's an impressive feat for an Android device launched in 2015 running a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset.
The announcement comes a mere eight months after the company pushed Android 9 to the Fairphone 2. In fact, the company used its experience from that and collaboration with the Fairphone community to improve and speed up the process to upgrade to Android 10, as highlighted by Agnes Crepet, head of software longevity and IT at Fairphone.
Our unique approach to software has allowed us to help our users keep their devices for as long as possible. We're pleased to be able to provide our Fairphone 2 community with yet another software upgrade, reaching our goal to provide at least five years of support from launch for our phones and with the Android 10 upgrade, we're going beyond that to seven years of support.We are constantly raising the bar for ourselves and the industry, showing that doing things more sustainably in software is possible."
The Fairphone 2 is rolling out the public beta and is expected to receive stable Android 10 in early 2022. The company hasn't announced plans for later versions of Android, although beta tests for Android 11 will begin this week for the Fairphone 3 devices.
Meanwhile, the company recently launched the Fairphone 4, which will receive six years of software updates. That's beyond the three or four years that OEMs of many of the best Android phones are promising.
Fairphone 4
The Fairphone 4 continues a tradition of sustainability and repairability with upgraded specs and a promise of extended software support beyond what you'll find for most Android phones. It even has an easily swappable battery, so it'll last you for quite some time.
