TL;DR
- 2019’s FairPhone 3 and 2020’s FairPhone 3 Plus are now receiving the Android 13 beta.
- A stable version of the software will reach all users by the end of June.
- The phones could receive software support until 2026.
FairPhone is no stranger to extremely long-term software update pledges, as 2015’s FairPhone 2 recently received its final update in Android 10. Fortunately, the company is continuing this trend with 2019’s FairPhone 3 and 2020’s FairPhone 3 Plus handsets.
FairPhone announced via email that the Android 13 beta is landing on the two phones from April 13 (yesterday). Furthermore, the company says all users should receive the stable Android 13 release by the end of June. This update, therefore, means that FairPhone 3 and 3 Plus users will jump from Android 11 to Android 13.
The company also said that the Snapdragon 632 chipset inside these phones is no longer supported by Qualcomm. This means that the phone software is now “maintained directly” by FairPhone.
This was a similar predicament to the one faced by the FairPhone 2, as its Snapdragon 801 processor didn’t officially support Android 9. Of course, the phone still received Android 9 and 10.
FairPhone added that the FairPhone 3 and 3 Plus are guaranteed to receive software support until August 2024, but that it’s aiming to extend support to 2026. That wouldn’t be bad at all for smartphones that launched with Android 9 and 10. By comparison, phones released in 2019 like the Samsung Galaxy S10 series and Google Pixel 4 range have both recently reached end-of-life status and have therefore stopped receiving updates.
