
Stephanie Markowitz
Former Designed to Last Campaign, Associate, U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Nobody walks into an electronics store and thinks, “I’m going to buy something that can’t be fixed.” Our newly-updated scorecard helps you choose repairable phones and laptops from brands that support your Right to Repair.
Former Designed to Last Campaign, Associate, U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Director, Designed to Last Campaign, U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Has this ever happened to you? You spend good money on a new device, expecting years of use—then it breaks, and fixing it is nearly impossible. Many phones and laptops on the market are designed to be so difficult to fix that they become essentially disposable once they start to malfunction.
Consumers should be able to choose electronics knowing they are durable and fixable, but right now manufacturers and vendors aren’t making that information easy to access or understand. How can we know which products are designed to last and which are destined for the dump?
This annual report calculates a repairability score for the most popular cellphone and laptop brands, and grades which manufacturers are designing devices to last and which are “Failing the Fix.”
The biggest takeaway from this year’s “Failing the Fix” is: Devices are getting more repairable, but it’s not happening fast enough. In other words, advocating for Right to Repair is having an impact, but there’s still a lot of work left to do.
When you spend hundreds—or even thousands—on tech, you should know whether it’s designed to last or destined for the landfill. High prices don’t always mean repairability, and that’s a problem. Consumers deserve products that are durable, fixable, and made by companies that respect your Right to Repair.
This report is part of a larger movement: Right to Repair legislation have been introduced in 20 states this year, and four states have passed laws including the first electronics Right to Repair law in New York, the first law restricting a harmful software practice called “parts pairing” in Oregon, and multiple laws enshrining comprehensive repair rights in Colorado and Minnesota. At the federal level, the FTC has been increasing its investigations into manufacturers that fail to disclose expiration dates for their products’ support, do not comply with nationwide warranty requirements, or that engage in anticompetitive repair practices. If we’re going to maintain and accelerate the positive trajectory of major tech manufacturers improving their products’ repairability, we need to continue to advocate for policies like these that empower consumers, promote manufacturer responsibility, and address the growing harms of e-waste on the environment.
Since January of 2021, France has required companies to provide an index of detailed information about how fixable certain consumer technology products are, and to post an overall repair score out of 10 once the product goes on sale. Our fourth edition of “Failing the Fix” reviews the detailed repair information from 104 devices and tracks changes in fixability since our last report.
This year, we’re including Samsung in the list of laptop manufacturers we analyzed, as data shows that it’s among the most popular laptop brands in the U.S. In addition, instead of including all of the device models available from each manufacturer’s website, we’re limiting our sample to the 10 most recently released devices from each brand, or the top 10 devices featured on the website. This ensures that our data reflects the repairability of the newest devices and those that are most prioritized by each brand. It also allows us to more accurately compare our findings to previous data, and to calculate a repairability score for the brand as a whole.
To calculate a final grade for each manufacturer, we include data for each qualifying device. We start with the five categories from France’s repairability index, but we more heavily weigh the disassembly score because we think this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates and because the other categories can be country-specific. Because consumers’ ability to fix their devices is limited by efforts to stop the Right to Repair, we remove points from companies who are members of trade groups that lobby against repair legislation. Finally, we grant points to manufacturers that are actively supporting Right to Repair legislation.
Here’s the breakdown of the factors that determine the grade for each device, and subsequently each manufacturer:
Consumers should choose products from manufacturers with the highest fixability grades using our scorecard, such as ASUS and Acer laptops and Apple cellphones. They should also prioritize manufacturers that have good track records with Right to Repair, such as Google. Because cellphone repairability is improving while laptop repairability is staying basically the same, consumers should be extra cautious about making a major investment in a new laptop without first understanding whether they’ll be able to repair the device if it breaks.
We also asked independent repair shop owners what they look for when advising customers to choose a repairable and long-lasting device.
Dave Winsor, owner of PC Consulting, Inc. in Seattle said, “I look for a device that can be opened and accessed with simple tools available from most online retailers.”
Joe Pilat, founder of Joe’s Gaming & Electronics in northern Washington state, said, “I look for a device that doesn’t require soldering for basic repair and has the option to remove and add storage and memory. But mostly, I look for durable design from brands with a track record of prioritizing their consumers.”
Repairability grades like the ones here in “Failing the Fix” provide important information for consumers so they can make the best purchasing choices for their budget. However, the more permanent and more standardized solution is to provide repair scores in stores. In other countries, retailers like Amazon already display this information. American consumers also deserve to know which products are fixable before they make an expensive purchase. It’s ridiculous to spend hundreds of dollars on tech that is unfixable and therefore disposable.
It’s important to note that even with improvement from some manufacturers, fixability is not improving fast enough given the growing e-waste problem. Alongside the movement for repair scores, the coalition of organizations fighting for Right to Repair, which includes PIRG, iFixit and Repair.org, has been calling for better access to the parts, tools and information needed to repair modern devices.
We need Amazon to display a repair score from 0 to 10, which tells us how fixable a product is.
Add your name.
Advocacy and education are important, of course, but all parties need to step up and take action to solve this problem. Manufacturers should design products that are easier to open up and repair, and they should not be joining trade associations that lobby against the Right to Repair. Retailers can voluntarily display Right to Repair scores that already exist to provide market transparency. Lawmakers can help by restoring our Right to Repair to ensure that we can fix our stuff, and requiring repair scores so we know which products are designed to last.
We need Amazon to display a repair score from 0 to 10, which tells us how fixable a product is.
Add your name.
Former Designed to Last Campaign, Associate, U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Lucas leads PIRG’s Designed to Last campaign, fighting against obsolescence and e-waste and winning concrete policy changes that extend electronic consumer product lifespans and hold manufacturers accountable for forcing upgrades or disposal.