For those lucky enough to be receiving their Galaxy S8 or S8+ in the next few days, you’d better be careful with it as it appears to be quite difficult to repair – at least according to IFixit.
The Ifixit team has performed their traditional teardown of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and found there’s a few things which will hinder your attempts at home repair, though it’s not all doom and gloom.
According to Ifixit, there are ‘Lots of components are modular and can be replaced independently’, and additionally the battery can be replaced, at least once you’ve managed to get through a load of tough adhesive and a glued-on rear panel which according to them ‘make it unnecessarily difficult’.
That’s the good news, but the bad news is that the front and back glass make for a difficult repair, with twice the chance to crack the glass. This also makes it hard to access components inside the device. The curved ‘infinity display’ also makes it hard to replace the front glass without destroying the display.
Overall, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ score a 4/10 repairability score, a step up from the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge from last year which scored an even worse 3/10 score for similar reasons. Overall it appears that Samsung has learned a few lessons in design but the lesson here is to be careful with your phone and perhaps invest in a case.
I’ve never understood why there’s this cachet about glad backed phones. Surely it’s just something more likely to break?