An annual report released by US PIRG, a consumer advocacy group, highlights that the iPhone is the least repairable phone.
It's not great news for Samsung fans either, as Galaxy devices aren't too far behind in making repairability easy.
There's certainly room for improvement
The report, titled Failing the Fix, is the first to be based on the European Product Registry for Energy Labeling system, which better reflects real-world issues associated with repairs. The reports were previously based on an older French repair index and this shift has resulted in lower scores for both companies, with Apple scoring a D- and Samsung scoring a D.
This system judges repairability on several factors, including the ease of disassembly, tools required, availability of spare parts, repair documentation, and more. This reevaluation has brought down their scores due to several factors.
They only mention five years of software support in the EPREL database despite offering longer software update support. Both Apple and Samsung have also been docked points because they are part of trade groups that advocate against Right to Repair legislation.
Ten devices per brand were evaluated in this report, while only five Samsung devices were evaluated, as many of its devices weren't listed in the EPREL database when the report was put together. The limited dataset also skews the rankings, but nevertheless, the report does provide a general idea that repairability of these devices isn't as easy as it could be.
Motorola and Google fared better for their devices, scoring a B+ and C- grade, respectively.
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