Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
As promised, we are talking repairability this week. I thought it’s not really possible to talk repairability without talking about it in relations to build quality.
It seems to me that over the years, the general trend is that phones have become more and more difficult to repair in general. To me, I don’t believe that this is some kind of nefarious plot designed to make people buy new phones every two years, here are some of the reasons why I think it is:
The first is the perceived build quality. It used to be that plastic is the most common type of material for the back of phones, and I would say plastic is the ideal default material for the back of phones: cheap, and versatile in hardness, color, and texture. However, the use of plastic in cheaper phones has resulted in a negative perception. Metal backs are durable but doesn’t allow for NFC signals through, and I can’t believe they settled on glass as the ideal material for the back instead, since it is actually extremely impractical to use.
The second is waterproofing. Waterproofing requirement means that glue is mandatory even with the presence of a gasket, which naturally discourages the
The third would the improvement in actual build quality. Modularity is very much still a trade-off, as if we can assume the phone cannot be easily opened, then more fragile components can be used in the phone that doesn’t have the requirement to be able to be repeatedly plugged and unplugged. One of the most important changes is the change from Micro-USB to USB-C, as the increased durability means that people won’t consider it to be a part that requires replacement as much.
I just think that what’s broken can eventually be fixed, but it’ll never feel the same afterwards.
Sorry if this is a bit messier and late this week, very interested in everybody’s thoughts on this topic. The Fairphones look interesting, but it’s not easy to get in the States.
One thing I’m really surprised about is that the overall screen strength doesn’t seem to have improved over the last 5 years. Screens are still much better than what they were over a decade ago (where a drop without a case was pretty much a screen crack)
But I’m finding on my Pixel 7 pro for example that I’m still finding light scratches, it feels like these screens only have a 5 or 6 on the mohz scale where you’d usually expect a 7 or beyond.
It’s a Heisenberg tradeoff. At a certain point you can either make them more impact resistant or more scratch resistant.
Exactly. I remember looking up information about this back when foldables are still a new thing.
By making glass harder, it makes it more scratch resistant, but also makes it more brittle and easier to shatter on impact. By making glass softer (bendy), the glass is less likely to shatter, but is will probably have more scratches on the surface in the same time frame compared to the harder glass.
In some ways it’s got worse, older phones had bezels that stopped a small drop from cracking the screen.
It’ll get better once big sapphire screens gets common for phones. I think I read somewhere that Apple is thinking about it.