In the arms race to be the number one phone provider world-wide, the big brands are regularly bringing out more and more models and versions to try and capture every segment of the market. In order to maintain this turnover of new handsets, have Samsung strategically made it harder to fix their phones?
Several steps taken by Samsung over the last few years have shortened the lifecycle of Samsung Mobile Phones. Until 2015, most of the Samsung’s flagship models such as Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung S5 and Samsung Note 2 had much longer product life cycle purely because their screens were being refurbished in huge quantities at a fraction of the cost of a used mobile phone of the same model. Not only did this help the environment and reduce handset turnover but most importantly, it significantly dropped the need of newer mobiles.
Now all the devices which use, upgraded technology called WQHD Super AMOLED rather than the previous technology HD Super AMOLED are much more difficult to refurbish. So, in the case of an accident the customer must pay more than the price of a used mobile phone of the same model to replace the screen. Conveniently for Samsung, this means fewer phones are being refurbished and as a result, they are simply being scrapped and a new device is purchased.
In addition to the screen technology, Samsung also has started gluing its mobile phones together, rather than screws previously used. When a screen is in need of a replacement, in most cases the screen has to be broken or peeled off using a hot oven, with a 50% chance of the mobile becoming damaged further in the process.
The change in Samsung’s manufacturing process was first introduced as part of the release of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and has been the same for every subsequent model. Rapid Phone Buyer fixes and recycles 1,000s of handsets across a number of brands and collected data of the number of Samsung phones recycled pre-2016 to now and recorded some key changes in behaviour:
- Product lifecycle of handsets has halved from 24 months to 12 months
- 30% fewer handsets are being recycled
- The price for broken Samsung phones has decreased significantly
Author: Rapid Phone Buyer
