- 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.
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.