Fairphone is one of a few smartphone manufacturers that manage to build sustainable and repairable handsets. You don't need to head to a repair shop or peel through adhesive to replace individual components, let alone hunt down individual parts — everything is available on the company's website. But repairable hardware is only one part of the equation when it comes to long-lasting devices. As such, the manufacturer has announced that it has just released an Android 9 Pie Beta for the Fairphone 2.

Usually, we'd make fun of a device getting an update to a one-and-a-half-year-old version of Android, but you have to keep in mind that the Fairphone 2 was released back in 2015 with Android 5 Lollipop. That makes it one of only a few phones from that era (if not the only one) to still receive official Android updates at all. The update to Pie can also be considered as a big jump in itself, since the Fairphone is currently still running Android 7.1 Nougat.

While I would've loved to see Android 10 on the phone, you can still color me impressed, especially considering that Qualcomm has long stopped supporting the Snapdragon 801 processor you can find in the device. If only more Android manufacturers would take a leaf or two out of Fairphone's book.

For now, the company will test Android 9 Pie with an existing pool of beta users, but it plans on opening up the program later on. It'll likely be announced on the Fairphone forum.

Source: @Fairphone