It’s been a big year for smartphones, there’s been winners and losers and well, the whole Note 7 thing, so you can’t say it hasn’t been interesting. Ifixit has released a look back at the year in terms of what they do best, rating phones for repairability.
The phone repairability score issued by IFixit in their teardowns gives owners a good idea of what they can expect if they need to replace some of the components inside their phone for whatever reason. The score out of 10 is a pretty easy way to check and the ensuing photos of phones torn asunder is just a bonus for the Ifixit teardown posts. The winner this year: LG with the G5.
The 8/10 score for the LG G5 from back in April was unsurprising given the modular nature of the phone with its removable battery, standard Phillips head screws throughout the construction and very little glue to hold all the bits and pieces in place. LG may not have been a winner in terms of sales volume with their modular phone concept this year, but they did win this competition.
The runners up include the Google Pixel/Pixel XL with a 7/10 and then it’s in to iPhone territory with the iPhone 7 and iPhone SE. Samsung didn’t have a great year with their phones in terms of repairability with the Note 7 scoring only a 4/10 before it was removed from sale, the still on-sale Galaxy S7/S7 Edge fared worse in terms of repairability with a 3/10 due to what Ifixit called a ‘Glass and Glue sandwich’.
If you love the tear down porn of Ifixit then stay tuned for what 2017 has to offer.
That’s probably because LG has extremely poor customer service and their phones are prone to break.