ASUS And Motorola Top Repairability Rankings While Apple Falls To Last Place
A new edition of the U.S. PIRG Education Fund's annual Failing the Fix report reveals that while the consumer electronics industry is inching toward better transparency and compliance with the right to repair, several major brands failed to make the grade due to restrictive practices that make simple screen or battery replacements a logistical nightmare for the average user. PIRG, by the way, is the same organization that pressured Microsoft to extend Windows 10 support (to no avail).
While legislative pressure in states like California and New York has forced some movement, the actual ease of repair (measured by the availability of parts, documentation, and the absence of parts pairing software) varies wildly between brands. For the second consecutive year, Apple finds itself at the bottom of the rankings.
Despite marketing campaigns touting its environmental sustainability and Self Service Repair program, the PIRG report suggests these measures are often performative. Apple’s persistent use of software locks, which require a device to handshake with a new component, remains a primary barrier. This system effectively prevents third-party repair shops or DIY enthusiasts from using salvaged or third-party parts without losing functionality like FaceID or TrueTone settings.
In an interesting turn, Motorola moved from third place last year and emerged as the leader in the cellphone repairability space, outperforming Samsung, Google, and Apple. By improving device modularity, providing clear, public repair manuals, and partnering with the likes of iFixit to sell genuine parts directly to consumers, Motorola shows the rest how it's done.
Samsung’s performance remains middling, hampered by the excessive use of strong adhesives and a complex internal architecture that requires near-total disassembly to reach common points of failure. While Samsung has expanded its own repair programs, the PIRG findings imply that the cost of these official repairs often rivals the price of a new device.
In the laptop repairability category, ASUS and Acer top the charts, although the former dropped a grade from A- last year to a B+.
If anything, PIRG's findings spotlight the tension between innovation and sustainability. As manufacturers integrate power-hungry AI features and slimmer profiles, the ability to swap out a degraded battery or a cracked screen is often sacrificed. One can say that these low scores are a choice rather than a technical necessity. By making devices difficult to fix, companies essentially perpetuate a cycle of disposable tech, where a minor hardware failure leads to an expensive replacement rather than a fifty-dollar repair.
