This Android smartphone receives a final update 7 years after its release, a record

If Android smartphones still do not reach the exceptional longevity of Apple’s iPhone, one manufacturer nevertheless stands out from the crowd, by offering updates on its devices for a period of 7 years.

Some Android smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung and Oppo have recently made a lot of noise by offering fairly long software monitoring on their high-end smartphones, since they promise 4 years of major Android updates and 5 years of security patches. That’s way more than Google on its own Pixel devices, by the way.

However, despite the efforts of Samsung and others, these are still far from equaling another Android smartphone manufacturer, which puts a point of honor to make its smartphones as ecological as possible, and therefore to ensure that users can keep them for a long time. You might have guessed it, it’s Fairphone.

Fairphone still doesn’t match Apple’s software tracking

Fairphone has just rolled out a final update for one of its smartphones, the Fairphone 2, 7 years after its launch in 2015. As a reminder, the device had been launched with Android 5 Lollipop, and had received new versions up to Android 10. However, the company has so far continued to deploy security patches on the smartphone.

The smartphone has probably just received the latest update. It is therefore a record on Android, sinceno other device had so far been updated 7 years after its release. This new patch obviously does not add any functionality, and only contains the January and February 2023 security patches.

Agnes Crepet, the company’s software longevity manager, commented on the news. ” The end of life of the Fairphone 2 is bittersweet, as in an ideal world we would support our devices indefinitely, but due to industry and financial constraints this is simply not feasible. But we’re happy to say we’ve updated the Fairphone 2 for an unprecedented seven years. “, can we read in a press release.

Despite its efforts, Fairphone is still far from dethroning Apple in the field, which offers even longer tracking on its devices. Indeed, the iPhone 5s, which was released 10 years ago in 2013, received a patch earlier this year that protected it from a major security flaw. It remains to be seen whether the Fairphone 4, released in 2021, will succeed in breaking this new record.