Fairphone is a smartphone manufacturer that focuses on producing long-lasting, environmentally friendly devices. This is why updates for the 5-year-old Fairphone 2 are still being sent out. Their phones that launched with Android 5 are now updating to Android 9. They may not win any awards for timely updates, but their phones that launched with Android 5 are now updating to Android 9.
The company has detailed the process of upgrading its phones in order to provide long-term support. Furthermore, Fairphone says that Qualcomm, the business that supplies chips to the entire Android smartphone industry, is the greatest impediment to Android updates.
Fairphone claims that rolling out Android updates has been extremely difficult as Qualcomm discontinues support for older chips. However, the company was able to work around Qualcomm’s lack of support by using Lineage OS, the largest custom ROM project for Android. Fairphone was able to provide updates for up to 5 years and more to it, despite the fact that they were not as polished as stock Android updates.
With this achievement, the company wishes to set an example, and has stated:
“We’re proud to demonstrate to the industry that even with a small team, we can provide longer support for your phones.”
