iFixit is breaking up with Samsung. ‘Samsung’s approach to repairability does not align with our mission,’ says iFixit’s CEO.
iFixit is breaking up with Samsung. ‘Samsung’s approach to repairability does not align with our mission,’ says iFixit’s CEO.
“Samsung does not seem interested in enabling repair at scale.”
- iFixit and Samsung are ending their partnership on a direct-to-consumer phone repair program.
- iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens says "Samsung does not seem interested in enabling repair at scale" and that the deal is not working due to high parts prices and difficulty of repairs.
- Samsung only ships batteries pre-glued to the phone screen, forcing customers to pay over $160 even for just a battery replacement, unlike with other vendors.
- The contract also limited iFixit to selling no more than 7 parts per customer in a 3-month period, hampering their ability to support local repair shops.
- Additionally, Samsung required iFixit to share customer email addresses and purchase history, which iFixit does not do with other partners.
- iFixit says it will continue to stock aftermarket Samsung parts and publish repair guides, but will no longer work directly with Samsung on official repair manuals.
iFixit says:
We clearly didn’t learn our lesson the first time, and let them convince us they were serious about embracing repair.
We tried to make this work. Gosh, we tried. But with such divergent priorities, we’re no longer able to proceed.
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I have to admit, Samsung have some great things in terms of hardware, but this is not one of them - and their anti-consumer practices will continue to keep me away from the brand.
Yeah they have some cool gadgets and designs, but this kind of shit + the software side has always kept me away from the brand
that's fine but the number of people on the globe who refuse to buy from them is literally a rounding error
There isn't really a lot of options for a premium products.
Phones for example, sure they're all repairable phones but they're cheap low-end models, there's nothing in the high-end market.
You've basically got Samsung and Google and then if you're prepared to go with iOS Apple, but none of them are any better than Samsung.
At least from software point of view Google doesn't make a fuss with the warranty if you unlock the bootloader of the phone, which can't be said about Samsung (and good luck with Apple about that). It might not matter to the majority of users, but it matters to me.
In the EU at least Samsung can't make a fuss either.
How's that? As far as I know, once you trip Knox (which unlocking the bootloader does), you can't restore the phone to factory state. Will they honour the warranty then?
IANAL: The short of it is that unless Samsung can prove that it's the software's fault that the malfunction is there, they have to repair it. A blown efuse is just as much proof as the 'warranty broken if removed' stickers, which is none.
There's lot's of cases online where Samsung/resellers try to stop people but as long as you are persistent and don't just accept them not wanting to fix it they will repair it.
There's also some cases of going through the small claims court to handle this (which doesn't cost anything if you win) Small claims court
Also: This ONLY applies to the normal EU warranty which you always have, any extended warranty does not need to repair your device if you've rooted it.
You might be right (I hope you are), but it's yet another gamble I'm not willing to take. Moreover, even if you don't have to resort to warranty, you have limitations after you trip Knox if you change your mind or if you want to resell the device.
There are flagship quality phones that aren't totally impossible to repair, and at reasonable prices.
Sent from my OnePlus 12
while i have some significant beef with samsung's repair-ability, i was able to get my phone repaired. Had a problem with the antenna, and for $200 CAD had a new modem and a new antenna installed at a private shop.
At least samsung doesnt 'key' their parts!
Xiaomi phones are repairable in my experience, but they aren't reliable enough to be used long term (except older models).
Apple consistently has better hardware if you're willing to nuke iOS, and slap on an actual version of Linux, or hell, even Windows runs better on Apple hardware in my experience.
It's just getting it on there that's more than a bit dodgy