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Broken screen? Blown battery? After years of being rigid about repairs when gadgets break down, more and more consumer electronics companies are offering the option for people to fix these problems themselves, right at home.
Samsung said this week that customers who want to try their hand at fixing gadgets can now buy genuine smartphone and tablet parts from repair resource website iFixit as well as Samsung Experience stores nationwide.
The push to make at least some of its gadgets easier to repair comes amid a broader national conversation about the right to fix the products we buy, spurred mostly by increased scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission early last year. Apple has since launched its own self-service repair program, while Google has partnered with iFixit to offer tools and original parts to would-be DIYers.
But like some of these other self-service programs, Samsung’s approach comes with a few quirks.
Despite Samsung’s popularity in the United States — it accounted for nearly a third of all smartphone shipments in the first half of 2022, according to research firm Strategy Analytics — the company’s new self-service repair program is limited to a handful of higher-end models for now.
Owners of the Galaxy S20 series and S21 series smartphones (launching in 2020 and 2021 respectively) will be able to purchase replacement screens, back glass and charging ports for repairs they’re trying to do at home. The same goes for people who own one of Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Plus tablets, though the same can’t be said for the rest of the company’s mobile products.
“We plan to expand to more models as the program matures,” a Samsung spokesperson said.
In offering the resources to make these repairs, however, Samsung has highlighted the use of designs that make repairing gadgets more confusing than some might expect.
You can’t, for example, just buy a screen to replace the broken one in your Galaxy phone. Instead, Samsung says you have to buy an entire screen “assembly,” which includes the display itself, the metal frame that surrounds it, and another battery. Essentially, this means replacing the entire front of the phone and then some.
This also means that for now, Samsung has no way to buy an original battery yourself to replace one that doesn’t hold up to a long charge or swells – a common problem with devices that have been used and charged regularly. A Samsung spokesperson told The Washington Post that “additional parts will be added as the program grows,” though co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens says iFixit will continue to sell replacement batteries to third parties.
These kinds of self-recovery programs are fairly new, so it’s not surprising that they don’t always seem to be fully fleshed out. And even when they offer a more comprehensive range of spare parts and manuals, some of the processes involved can seem a bit odd.
Let’s say you have an iPhone 12 with a broken screen, for example. You can find the spare parts quite easily on the company’s self-service website. But if you want to follow every detail in Apple’s repair manual, it requires the use of a specific set of professional tools—tools that can be rented but come in heavy-duty Pelican cases and require a $1,200 credit card hold.
(However, you can just buy the part from Apple and open the phone with tools and guides you’ll find elsewhere.)
So here’s our advice: unless you’ve done this sort of thing before or don’t mind following dozens of step-by-step guides, you might want to avoid doing phone repair at home. These kinds of adjustments really benefit from a level of finesse and attention to detail that, let’s just say, isn’t everyone’s forte. And we’re not kidding about how difficult these guides can be: According to iFixit, the Galaxy S20 screen replacement process requires 41 steps, and that’s not including putting the phone back together.
But now we’re left with a bigger question: If these companies are willing to let us repair the products they make, how about designing them to be easier to repair in the first place? At least for now, that’s a lot easier said than done.
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