Samsung Finally Starts Selling Parts for Smartphone Repairs at Home. Sort of

This week Samsung said customers can finally start buying replacement screens, rear glass and charging ports for home repairs from repair resource site iFixit, as well as from Samsung's Experience stores across the country, according to the Washington Post.
But their article warns that for now the program is limited to just 'a handful of higher-end models' like the Galaxy S20 and S21 series smartphones. ('We plan to expand to more models as the program matures,' said a Samsung spokesperson.)

You can't, for example, buy just a screen to replace a broken one in your Galaxy phone. Instead, Samsung says you must purchase an entire screen 'assembly,' which includes the display itself, the metal frame that surrounds it and another battery. Essentially, that means replacing the entire front of the phone and then some.

That also means that, for the time being, Samsung doesn't have a way for you to purchase a genuine battery on its own to replace the one that isn't holding a long-charge or bloating — a common issue in devices that are used and charged regularly. The Samsung spokesperson told The Washington Post that 'additional parts will be added as the program ramps up,' though co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens says iFixit will continue to sell third-party replacement batteries....

And we're not kidding about how fiddly these guides can be: according to iFixit, the process of replacing a Galaxy S20's screen assembly requires 41 steps, and that doesn't include putting the phone back together.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.