A page is turning for the Fairphone 2. The ethical smartphone will receive its last update this spring 2023, with Android 10. It will have been supported for 7 years.
It’s the end of a cycle for the Dutch company Fairphone, whose core business is to offer smartphones based on the principles of fair trade and with as light an environmental footprint as possible. After March 2023, the Fairphone 2 will be retired: the smartphone will no longer be entitled to any update.
The company, which started selling the Fairphone 4 in October 2021 (the latest addition to the range), announced the end of support for this phone in a message published on January 9 on its website. The last update is precisely scheduled for March 2023. After that, the phone will remain functional, but it will not receive any new software or security patches.
The plan for March will be to bring Android 10 to mobile owners. This version of Google’s mobile operating system, released in 2019, includes gesture navigation, smart responses in some apps, and revised privacy and security policies. It is an OS that dates: today, Android 13 is available.
Fairphone’s announcement sounds like a regret. The group says it would have liked to continue to care for the Fairphone 2 “indefinitely”, although it says it is delighted to have been able to support it beyond the three to four years initially estimated. The Fairphone 2 enjoyed seven years of support, a rare longevity in mobile, especially on the Android phone side.
At Apple, support is also renowned for being durable: for example, the latest versions of its software platforms — iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 — are available for products that date back to 2015. It’s a nice follow-up, although some features Advances on newer OSes are not always compatible with older devices.
Software constraints imposed on Fairphone
But why is Fairphone ending support for the Fairphone 2 when it says it dreams of a world in which support is perpetual? There may be cost reasons first: in 2018, updating the Fairphone 2 to Android 7 was a project estimated at 500,000 euros. A significant weight, especially for a phone that only sells tens of thousands of copies.
There is also a more material dimension, on which Fairphone depends: the elements that make up the innards of the Fairphone 2, such as the processor, depend on third parties like Qualcomm. However, they too have their own plans when it comes to software updates. In Qualcomm’s case, the Snapdragon 801 chip update was only sustained for three years.
This problem had already been raised during the switch to Android 9 for the Fairphone 2. As Ars Technica points out, Qualcomm also has an interest in not maintaining support for these chips for too long: a shorter life cycle can lead to sales. more chips, but that does not suit Fairphone, which did what it could without the help of the American manufacturer.
For a company as small as Fairphone, especially compared to industry giants like Samsung, maintaining the Fairphone 2 for such a long stretch of time is no small feat. This, even if it is “only” Android 10 which will be delivered in March. That’s all the more remarkable given Qualcomm’s disinterest in extending support for its chips.
In addition to its ethical and social dimension, Fairphone wanted to make its phones as repairable as possible. According to iFixit, an authoritative site on the subject, the first model was rated 7/10. The next three got the maximum score each time. The long-term support, in terms of hardware and software, of the Fairphone 2 illustrates this effort of sustainability.
And now ? On a software level, the Fairphone 2 cycle is coming to an end. On a material level, the company reports that it still has a limited stock of certain spare parts available in its shop. These will be able to extend the life of smartphones a little. We should hardly count on the revival of production chains, on the other hand.
Owners are free to continue using the Fairphone 2, but with the lack of an update, the phone risks being less reliable and, above all, being exposed to security problems. It will probably only get worse. It might be time to update your smartphone, with the Fairphone 4 or another model. After all, the spec sheet for this phone is antediluvian today.