this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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  • 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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[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 200 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Evil megacorp declines to be less evil, news at 11

[–] neo@lemy.lol 62 points 7 months ago

True. Still I think it is not possible to have too much public attention, when it comes to evil corporate stuff. Keep a light on these mf.

[–] joojmachine@lemmy.ml 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

mfw the zaibatsu does zaibatsu things

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Chaebol. Zaibatsus are in Glorious Nippon, Chaebols are Korean. But same concept, and just as terrible.

[–] joojmachine@lemmy.ml 8 points 7 months ago

Yeah, forgot the Korean term for it, but it's basically potato potato

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 132 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago

Yeah they have some cool gadgets and designs, but this kind of shit + the software side has always kept me away from the brand

[–] refalo@programming.dev 15 points 7 months ago

that's fine but the number of people on the globe who refuse to buy from them is literally a rounding error

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There are flagship quality phones that aren't totally impossible to repair, and at reasonable prices.

Sent from my OnePlus 12

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[–] MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world 90 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Did they really say, "We tried to make this work. Gosh, we tried."?

Well, golly.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah. It would've been fleek and groovy if they said mid or litchally. So fetch.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

“We tried to make this work. No cap fam fr fr ong.”

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Ugh... stop trying to make "fetch" work!

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[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Oh God. You are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.

[–] MxM111@kbin.social 46 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So, at this point it is cheaper to change iPhone battery in Apple Store. Wow.

[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This article is primarily about Samsung, but yes, there is a brief mention of iFix its battery prices, which are $50.

Apple charges $99 for a battery swap on a new phone. Component + labor.

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Samsung's replacement is $90 if done at a service center, so it was more expensive to buy the parts (because they included the screen for some reason)

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[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 40 points 7 months ago (10 children)

If you're technically inclined, you buy a Samsung phone only once.

But in my defense, the Galaxy S3 is legendary up to this day. They didn't got better since then.

[–] beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I had the original Galaxy Note and loved it. Then I went to oneplus one and loved it. Then I went Nexus 6 and liked it enough. Then I got the first Pixel.

I've been pixels ever since. But there was a deal on the Galaxy flip5, $0 up front, $300 over 2 years. I couldn't pass it up, for the novelty if nothing else.

There's a lot I like about this phone, but a lot more that I don't. I'm looking forward to going back to Pixel when I can.

This phone is missing so many standard features, and so many others are locked behind Samsungs walled garden that I refuse to sign up for. It's just a mess. I'm frequently frustrated.

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[–] blujan@sopuli.xyz 5 points 7 months ago

I love the displays they put into cheap phones, but other than that they charge too much a premium for features that now should be standard such as fast and/or wireless charging

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think s10 might have been peak.

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[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Man, I'm glad I bought a Murena Fairphone.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am 1000% asking Lemmy where to buy my next phone. It'll take some setup but Stallman will be proud.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I don't think Stallman would be proud of anything Android, and certainly not something that the user can't update outside of the manufacturer updates. Pretty much everything has a locked down BIOS, and you can't really modify the OS yourself.

I'm using a Pixel (bad) with GrapheneOS (good), so I think Stallman would be a little happier, but he'd probably still prefer something like a Pinephone, which I think has a project to open up the modem.

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 7 months ago

I always hated Samsung for their shitty business practices, and the way they dealt with their customers in terms of device repairability

[–] 3ntranced@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So if I were to order a battery replacement part from Samsung would it already be paired with a screen? Or could it be future proofed with a bit of DIY engineering? Cause I love my S22 Ultra, and am tired of upgrading every 2-4 years because the battery starts holding less and less charge.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Some newer phones allow you to stop charging at 80% which will essentially extend the life of your battery for as many years as you want it.

Settings->battery->stop charging at 80%

I get a full day out of 80% and I'm nearly always near a charging source so I use it and haven't found any issues with it.

I am pretty sure this only showed up in Android 14 for me. OnePlus phone.

[–] I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

My phone doesn't have this feature, so at bed time I just tap a button on a smart switch to give it roughly another 20-60% overnight.

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[–] AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They really should just make 80 the new 100

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

I fully agree. Like even 90% would reduce the amount of waste significantly without really impacting usability.

I got a reasonably high end phone for my last one (about €500 at the time) and it survived so so well and I only learned about the 80% thing about 2 years into it and still was charging it to full occasionally.

This automatic 80% thing that just came in is great.

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[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

I think it's more if you want to replace one you have to replace both, and if you don't glue the battery to the screen the phone will fall apart, that's what I'd do if I was an evil corporation and wanted customers to buy a new phone instead of repairing

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 9 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Two years after they teamed up on one of the first direct-to-consumer phone repair programs, iFixit CEO and co-founder Kyle Wiens tells The Verge the two companies have failed to renegotiate a contract — and says Samsung is to blame.

“Samsung does not seem interested in enabling repair at scale,” Wiens tells me, even though similar deals are going well with Google, Motorola, and HMD.

Instead of being Samsung's partner on genuine parts and approved repair manuals, iFixit will simply go it alone, the same way it's always done with Apple's iPhones.

(While Samsung did add the S23, Z Flip 5, and Z Fold 5 to its self-repair program in December, that was with a different provider, Encompass; iFixit says it was left out.)

Some of those guides also mention a Samsung Self Repair Assistant app, which is weirdly not available in either Google Play or the Galaxy Store and has to be sideloaded in the US.

We can’t comment further on partnership details at this time,” reads part of a statement from Samsung head of mobile customer care Mario Renato De Castro to The Verge.


The original article contains 748 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.social 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Changed my phone last December.. increasingly glad it wasn't a Samsung.

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[–] orphiebaby@lemmy.cafe 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Samsung has always been garbage, and they've tricked you into thinking they're premium just like Apple does. My $2000 Samsung TV from 2016 suddenly had serious light bleed at the 2-year mark. Turns out on the forums, lots of people complained about that model having light bleed at the two-year mark. The support forums morons refused to do refunds. My Samsung remote stopped working properly until I reinsert the batteries. Samsung folding phones break from folding, Samsung batteries explode, Samsung products are cheap garbage made to break that try to sell you on a single "cutting edge" feature. Samsung is planned obsolescence. Don't buy Samsung.

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