The Fairphone 3, which originally launched in September 2019, is approaching the end of its official support window. Fairphone says support for the device will end this August, closing out a long run for a phone that shipped with a 5.65-inch 2160 x 1080 LCD, a Snapdragon 632 chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a starting price of 450 euros.
That might sound like the end of the road, but the story doesn’t stop there. Fairphone also announced a partnership with Murena that gives Fairphone 3 owners another path forward: they can install e/OS and keep receiving security patches through 2028.
According to the report, the Murena build is based on Android 15 and is designed with privacy and security in mind. It removes Google’s services and gives users an alternative software route that can keep the phone relevant long after the vendor’s own support period ends.
If that update path holds, the Fairphone 3 would reach a theoretical lifespan of nine years. That’s an unusually long life for a modern smartphone, especially in a market where many devices are replaced well before they ever come close to that number.
The timing also matters because Fairphone faced skepticism when it expanded into the US market last year and said the Fairphone 6 would get eight years of support. Some users questioned whether that kind of promise could really be delivered in practice.
This new plan gives the company a concrete example to point to. By teaming up with Murena and letting users move to e/OS, Fairphone is effectively showing that extended longevity is possible when hardware support, software flexibility, and user repairability all line up in the same product strategy.
