Samsung Self Repair is coming to Europe: the service launched last year in the US was recently extended to South Korea and is now available in Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Owners of Galaxy devices will thus have the opportunity to carry out repairs themselves with the help of original tools. The products currently compatible with the service are the Galaxy S20 series.

Galaxy S21 series, Galaxy S22 series. Galaxy Book Pro 15.6″ and Galaxy Book Pro 360 15.6″ computers. TM Roh, President and Head of the Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics, said: “Samsung is constantly working to extend the life cycle of its devices so that users can enjoy the high performance of their Galaxy devices for as long as possible. We are committed to extending access to our Self Repair program worldwide, improving the repairability of our products.

Samsung Self Repair

For the European market, Samsung relies on various authorized distributors and suppliers of electronic components, many based in the Netherlands. Replaceable parts are the screens, battery, rear glass, and charging port. While for the Galaxy Book Pro and Book Pro 360 is the front with the keyboard, the back, the LCD screen, the battery, the touchpad, the fingerprint reader button, and the rubber feet. Samsung announces that it will soon extend the Self Repair program to other products and countries. “This effort aims to expand access to repair options, giving Galaxy customers more choices for repairing their devices.”

A favour to Mother Nature

Last December, Apple announced the availability of the Self-Service Repair program in eight European countries, where genuine Apple parts and tools can be purchased through the Apple Self-Service Repair Store. Customers who wish to complete their repairs can already carry out many of the most common repairs for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lines and Mac notebooks with Apple chips. The Self-Service Repair Store provides access to over 200 different parts and tools, as well as repair manuals. The program gives users who are familiar with the intricacies of repairing electronic devices the opportunity to perform their repairs using the same manuals, parts and tools available at Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Centres.

Beyond the obvious cost savings in privately accessing the parts to be replaced, it is clear that the initiative has a much broader environmental background. In years when consumers have come to terms with so-called ‘planned obsolescence’, knowing that they can rely on genuine, original spare parts puts the extension of the life of devices at the centre of the issue. Given the price paid for a top-of-the-range device, it is clear that using it for more years is an advantage for the user and the lesser recycling of electronic devices, which adds to the global WEEE pile. This applies to smartphones as well as computers, whose life cycle is even longer than that of mobile phones.