With the rollout of Android 11 just around the corner, it’s not very exciting to see a phone receiving Android 9 update. This notion tips on its head when you learn that the said phone is five years old – launched in 2015. According to a tweet by Dutch firm Fairphone, it is rolling out Android 9 Pie for it Fairphone 2. For Fairphone 2 that launched with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box, this OS update is a significant upgrade.
Android-based phones from most OEMs don’t see a new OS update after a couple of years. Fairphone with the idea of keeping its old devices updated to at least the software from about two years back is pretty considerable effort to say the least.
The industry is flooded with companies that want you to buy new phones, therefore, build devices complicated to repair and with limited years of software support. Fairphone on the other hand builds phones with removable batteries and provides continued software and security update for years together. This is evident with Android 9 Pie update for the 2015 Fairphone 2.
For those who don’t know, Fairphone 2 with 5-inch full HD display, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor under the hood, was the first phone of its kind to receive the Android 7 Nougat update in 2018. This is the only the third major OS update that the phone is receiving since launch.
It would have been really exciting if this was an Android 10 update we were talking about but Android 9 is not a bad deal either. For Fairphone 2 users, this update will mean a lot of new additions such as dark mode, new gesture features, improved security features, adaptive battery, and new screenshot shortcut to mention a few.
