Tech and Repairability

[unspeakablehorror]

If there's one thing I hate it's the Apple-ization of electronics, by which I mean companies making products that look flashy but break easily and aren't easily repairable or salvageable by the end user.  Apple isn't the only company that does this by a long shot, it's just the most egregrious about it (though Microsoft certainly tries their best to beat that record lol). For example, I stopped buying Nexus phones from Google years ago when they stopped making the battery user-replaceable.  The laptops I've bought over the years run a wide gamut of brands as well--the only thing they share in common is the ability of the end user to change out the battery/hdd/RAM etc without much more than a screwdriver. There's no one brand I'd recommend because companies frequently switch their products from being user-repairable to being unrepairable.  Making sure my electronics are repairable is very important to me, so regardless of other advantages, I always look for decent repairability first and foremost.

Comments

[tobermoriansass]

Oh man this is a mood. I kind of resent the shift to these slimmer smartphones with nano-sims because it's just a way of making sure that batteries aren't removable and goddammit. I don't want to buy a new phone at the end of three years when this battery drains out, especially if the phone is still functional.

It's awful and I find it pretty rich that a lot of the firms doing this kind of stuff are also making the biggest noises about environment and climate change mitigation.

[unspeakablehorror]

Yeah, I really hate it. Even the battery issue is only the tip of the iceberg of terrible because everything from the supply chain to the software updates are designed, at the highest levels, with accelerated obsolecence in mind.

So yeah, it's real rich when these companies claim to care about the environment and act like they aren't purposely trashing it with every one of their badly designed tech gadgets.