Most Mobile Devices Score Low on ‘Repairability,’ Greenpeace, iFixit Report
Greenpeace teamed with iFixit, an advocate of “right to repair” legislation for consumer tech products (see 1704100047), to grade repairability of smartphones and other products, they reported Tuesday. They found that only three of 17 brands -- Fairphone, HP and…
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Dell -- “make the provision of spare parts and repair manuals easy to access.” Apple, Microsoft and Samsung fall “at the other end of the scale,” meaning they make no spare parts or repair manuals “easily available to users,” the report said. It said Samsung's Galaxy S8 is prohibitively difficult to repair. Apple, Microsoft and Samsung representatives didn’t comment. For all devices, the display is “the most problematic component” from the standpoint of repairability because it’s a part that “commonly fails” and is “very costly” to replace even if the component can be procured, the report said: Batteries are another common problem. There's “enormous potential” for improving the repairability of mobile electronics, it said. They “take a massive amount of energy, human effort, and natural resources to make,” said iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens Tuesday in a statement. “Manufacturers produce billions more of them every year -- while consumers keep them for just a few years. ... E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams.”