Samsung gets a D, Apple scores a D minus: Repair report says your phones aren't built to last

A new report has delivered quite a blunt verdict on Samsung and Apple when it comes to smartphone repairability.

According to the latest “Failing the Fix 2026” study released by the US PIRG Education Fund (via Wired), Apple’s iPhones scored a D-, the lowest grade among major smartphone brands, while Samsung’s Galaxy phones weren’t far behind with a D.

The rankings place the top two smartphone makers in the world well behind competitors like Motorola, which topped the chart with a B+, and Google, which scored a C-.

How were smartphone repairability scores calculated?

US PIRG is a consumer advocacy organization that researches tech, environmental, and public interest issues. It often pushes for stronger Right to Repair laws and greater transparency from manufacturers.

The organization notes that this year’s report switches to a new methodology for calculating smartphone repairability. Instead of relying on France’s older repair index, it uses the European Union’s EPREL (European Product Registry for Energy Labeling) system, designed to better reflect real-world repair problems.

Under the EU’s new scoring system, repairability is judged across several factors, including how easy a device is to disassemble, whether it uses standard tools, the availability of spare parts, access to repair documentation, and the length of software support. Ease of disassembly carries the highest weight in the system.

The change from the French index to the EPREL seems to have hurt both Samsung and Apple. One of the biggest factors dragging their scores down is the lack of proper software support disclosure. While both companies offer long-term software update support, they only declare the regulatory minimum of five years in the EPREL database. As a result, they earn the lowest possible score in that category in the report.

Meanwhile, the report also factors in corporate behavior beyond hardware design. Companies lose points if they are members of trade groups that lobby against Right to Repair legislation, and both Samsung and Apple take a hit here as well.

That said, the report isn’t without some limitations. While it evaluates up to 10 recent devices per brand, the dataset is uneven. Samsung, for instance, was graded using only five models because several of its phones weren’t yet listed in the EPREL database at the time of analysis. Similarly, Google’s score is based on eight models, as devices older than the Pixel 8 are no longer listed for sale.

Another notable omission is pricing. Unlike France’s earlier repairability index, the EU’s EPREL system does not factor spare parts costs into the score. That’s a significant omission, given that high repair costs are one of the main reasons people choose to replace devices instead of fixing them.