If you have a smartphone, you likely want it to last as long as possible. You probably have a case and screen guards to protect it physically, but bad things happen all the time, and you might end up crashing your phone. That is where self-repair programs come in, or if you have the budget to fix it, you can ship it back to the official store and get it repaired for a hefty fee.

Unfortunately, the company that created your phone plays a major part in how you get to DIY repair your phone. In this guide, we’re going to give you all the info you need on self-repair programs, the cost, and what parts you can buy.

Apple was the first major brand to launch a self-repair program for its customers back in April 2020, which allows customers to order genuine spare parts and tools and read instructions and access manuals from the self-service repair website. This is something we all thought we would never see, Apple selling parts and tools to the public. Is there a catch? Well, let’s find it out by understanding how the service works and more.

The Apple self-repair service is only available in the US. Later this year, Apple said it would expand its iPhone self-service repair program to European customers, with other regions to follow suit.

Samsung announced the launch of a self-repair program earlier this year in partnership with the well-known repair guide company iFixit. The full arrangement and more details on the partnership are yet to go live. However, here are all the details we know from the official launch:

Samsung hasn’t specified availability in its press release of the iFixit partnership, but it is most likely to be North America-focused as well.

Back in April 2022, Google announced that, just like Apple and Samsung, they will offer self-repair programs to fix Google Pixel devices. Unlike Apple, Google partnered with iFixit and managed to keep things quite basic. Not every part of the Pixel is available yet, but the common ones are, and you can head over to the iFixit Google Pixel portal to order the spare parts you want.

As a cherry on top of the partnership, iFixit is offering wholesale parts for fixing Google’s all Pixel phones If you are a repair shop.

Google’s self-repair program is available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. It is also available in the specific European countries where Pixel is available.

Access to spare parts doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to fix your smartphone, even if you really want to. The manufacturer’s are trying to make the program as unfriendly as possible to deter users and it doesn’t financial sense at times as well. Share with us in the comment section your reactions to how the phone manufacturer’s are approaching the self-repair programs and if you would DIY repair your phone.

Featured Picture: Insung Yoon from Unsplash