Although I'd love to know what iFixit thinks, esp since I'm hoping to hang on to it for a few more years at least. Was hoping to find a general database of phones, but it looks like they don't do a ton of reviews. Only 21 smartphones listed here, including both apple and android. https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit... Of which only 3 were samsung.
Well, this phone was released late 2022 so I'd be surprised to find it in a legacy list already. And indeed there was nothing in the legacy list more recent than 2020.
I bought it the instant it was released so I've gotten 2 years out of it so far with just a few scratches from constantly forgetting and putting it with my keys in my pocket. I have a 2nd battery for quick swapping, but that also helps with battery longevity. I protected the USB port with one of those magnetic connectors so hopefully that will last a while too.
In the case of that specific phone, it seems to be a bit more niche (not that I obsess over the phone industry, but this is the first time I've heard of it, and as a frequent phone shopper, I'm not sure that I've seen it offered by any of the US carriers, but again, my perspective is limited). It does seem that given the amount of effort they put into a teardown, they limit their teardowns (which is way more comprehensive than a typical "review") to some sort of mass market threshhold.
The Xcover is more of an enterprise product. It's not really interesting for consumers because the bang for the buck is low, due to the price being aimed high so that they can offer bigger discount to the enterprises buying 10k of these in one go. They aim these at front line workers, eg warehouses, public service etc.
For consumers they had the galaxy S Active line which sadly has been discontinued..
Well funnily enough these phones are quite easy to repair, they even have removable batteries :) That's one really easy thing that often comes up (especially with the amount of work these devices do every day on the manufacturing line and warehouse) that can definitely easily be "repaired" in-house.
Well, they clearly report on niche phones that they feel have a decent repairability. For example they call out the Fair Phone (which is awesome, but according to wikipedia they've only sold 400k phones across all models).
It seems if they have limited resources they should focus on the most repairable models of all major phone manufacturers and tip the needle that way.
The niche phones I see, as you've mentioned, tend to stand out in some way (open source based, new foldable models, etc), rather than being a variant of a brand they've covered dozens of times.
I'm willing to bet that Samsung has hundreds of different SKUs, across their different categories: rugged enterprise phones, S class, A class, etc.
At my local Microcenter, they literally have 27 different phones across about a dozen model number of Samsung (A05, A15, A25, etc). Most of them are all built on similar manufacturing processes, so I'm guessing that the repairability of a closely related one is comparable.
Yeah, the XCover6 is unique on repairability due to its design, thus the good score in the report I linked. Replaceable battery (one of the more common things that needs replacing as a phone ages). But also:
"Everything else is relatively easy too, Samsung used standard Phillips screws and didn’t go wild with the glue. Also, not only does this phone have a 3.5mm headphone jack, it is a separate module held by a screw. It does take some disassembly to get to it, but it is not soldered to the board. The USB-C charging port is on a separate PCB, the pogo pins (which can also be used for charging) are below that and the speaker assembly."
So, I feel if they'd call out FairPhone (which rightly deserves the 10 out of 10) they could also highlight this effort from Samsung to encourage things like this, one that maybe warrants an... 8? Just guessing :)
'course, thanks to the EU replaceable batteries will probably be a lot more common, although maybe not as easily swappable as this one. The other things are fairly unique too - perhaps they were aiming for easier repair since it was a business/military phone.
Although I'd love to know what iFixit thinks, esp since I'm hoping to hang on to it for a few more years at least. Was hoping to find a general database of phones, but it looks like they don't do a ton of reviews. Only 21 smartphones listed here, including both apple and android. https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit... Of which only 3 were samsung.