In this article
Introduction
Ever had a casual slip of the hand, but only to feel your phone comes crashing to the floor? You pick it up, and to your dismay, it’s broken –– with a long crack running through its screen. Regardless of the number of protective gear you purchase for your phone, it seems almost inevitable that it would one day require some fixing. Whether you hold an expensive or relatively affordable phone, damaging your device can be extremely frustrating to deal with, especially if buying an entirely new phone seems too costly and out of budget for you.
Are you currently dealing with such a situation? Read on more to find out some key things to take note of before approaching your local Samsung screen repairs shop.
Why Repair And Not Replace?
While it may seem much more convenient to replace your phone when met with issues such as software malfunctions to cosmetic damage, repairing it would be able to help you prolong the current lifespan of your phone. This, in turn, is great news for the environment as it saves on resources that may have potentially been used to manufacture an entirely new phone from scratch. In doing so, you’re cutting down on your phone’s carbon footprint and amount of e-waste, which has become a pressing issue within today’s current generation. Take our word when we say that the potential environmental impact of the production of appliances like smartphones should be a major consideration when deciding between replacing or repairing your phone.
Ways To Repair Your Broken Phone
There are a plethora of phone repair services available that can leave you spoilt for choice. Before deciding on a particular service, you need to first understand the two available routes to embark on –– either opting between going for an authorized repair versus an unauthorized one. Authorized repairs are fairly straightforward: just book the service and make the insurance claim. On the other hand, unauthorized repairs would require you to either fix the phone yourself or get someone else to do it for you.
Authorized Repairs
Though usually costly and relatively slower, authorized repairs are the safest way to ensure your repaired phone comes back as good as new. Manufacturers and their authorized partners would have access to authentic phone parts which have been tested and certified, and the repair works are done under stringent procedures and protocols. An appointment would have to be made before you take your phone down to the manufacturer’s store or its authorized service centres. This can be done by visiting the support pages of your respective phone brand’s website.
Insurance Claims
If your phone comes with its own insurance plan, this could be another option for you to fix your phone through authorized repair centres. Be sure to look through the terms and conditions of what the coverage provided is like as some might require you to pay an excess fee. Overall, monthly payments for your insurance can range between £25 to £100.
Unauthorized Repairs
Finally getting an unauthorized repair might be a more cost-effective option. However, this might also invalidate your phone warranty. Particularly, Apple has intentionally made it difficult to repair its products with unauthorized repair centres as non-genuine phone parts would be picked up by the phone’s software, and might eventually add up to even more costs. However, there are still some certified repair centres like Carphone Warehouse and iSmash, which do have skilled technicians who are able to fix your phone with high-quality or genuine phone parts.
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Repair
Alternatively, you could do the fixing yourself. With the advent of videos and websites that teach you all you need to know to fix your phone, this is definitely not impossible to do. One obstacle though might be obtaining the parts and tools needed to fix your phone. Phone repair kits can be bought from places like iFixit, and you could even attend repair parties to share and learn technical knowledge with like-minded individuals in the community.
The Costs
The costs of fixing your broken phone largely depend on the model and type of repair needed for your phone. This means that prices may fluctuate significantly on whether you need to fix your screen or replace your battery.
Broken Screens
In most cases, physical damage is not included in the warranty. This includes repairing a broken phone screen or back glass. Even so, it is generally more cost-effective to repair a broken screen than to replace your phone, and doing so with an authorized repair centre is also often the cheaper option. However, for repairing back glass, it is relatively more expensive to do so, and some brands do not even provide such services. Of course, doing it yourself is by far still the cheapest option but getting your hands on replacement parts of less popular phone brands might be a challenge.
Battery Replacement
Degradation of phone battery is a common phone fault as this might affect the overall performance of your phone. Fortunately, this problem is quite easy to solve, especially if your phone is still well within the warranty. Going directly to the manufacturer for phones Samsung or Apple would give you a free battery replacement. In general, for other brands, unauthorized repairs are not significantly cheaper than authorized ones if your phone is still under the warranty. Additionally, since this is quite a common problem, finding a suitable battery would not pose such a challenge if you choose to do it yourself. The only consideration to take is to safely remove the old battery and replace a new one.
Conclusion
Choosing to repair any faults that your phone might have is a good idea, especially if you are looking to sell your phone in the future. While some repairs might cost a lot, they help to keep your phone in good working condition for as long as possible, while helping to conserve the environment as well.
In essence, owning a phone from a well-known brand makes it easier to find a suitable repair service. While cost-effective, attempting to repair your phone yourself comes with risks –– at the end of the day, you might not possess the skills or expertise to provide the right fix for your phone. While advocacy groups like Right to Repair are doing good work by helping individuals and businesses gain better access to repair parts and official guides and easing the repairs of phones, it would still be ideal if phone manufacturers are clearer and more transparent about how users can repair their products. In a generation of planned obsolescence, smartphones are often expensive and degrade quite significantly just after a few years. Hence, it would also be exemplary if phone manufacturers could provide warranties on their products for a longer period of time.
