The Fairphone 2 is an Android-based handset that launched way back in 2015. Well, the Fairphone 2 has just received its last update, over 7 years after its launch. The phone will be 8 years old in June this year.
A 7-year-old Fairphone 2 has started receiving its last software update
That is not something we see often, at least when it comes to official updates. Fairphone is a dutch company, and it’s all about sustainability and protecting the environment. Its Fairphone devices are well-known for being immensely easy to repair. In fact, the last time I reviewed one of their devices, a small screwdriver was included in the box. This phone is so easy to tinker with, that a regular user can do it.
In any case, I digress. The Fairphone 2 launched with Android 5 Lollipop originally. The phone is now running Android 10. So it did not get a major Android update for a while, but Fairphone has been pushing updates to it, including minor updates and security patches.
To give you an idea of how rare this is. This phone is running the Snapdragon 801 SoC, and Qualcomm ended support for it back in 2016. Fairphone, despite that, kept the phone alive, even though Qualcomm didn’t provide drivers for the SoC since 2016.
Fairphone will continue supporting the device from the hardware standpoint, for a while
To top it all off, Fairphone assured its users that it will continue to support the phone from the hardware standpoint while spare parts stock lasts.
This phone has a 5-inch fullHD display, which is protected by the Gorilla Glass 3. It comes with 2GB of RAM, and an 8-megapixel camera. It does support 4G LTE, and has two SIM card slots, on top of offering a microSD card slot.
It is made out of plastic, and it has a rather thick top and bottom bezels. It did not look as weird back in the day, that’s for sure. It’s also rather squarish.