The Essential phone promises to be the smartphone to trump all other smartphones. In a market saturated by iPhones and Samsung Galaxies, Andy Rubin's foray into smartphone manufacturing was heralded with hype. Many people have been saying that the Essential phone is the next big thing when it comes to phones. And it may well be, as reviewers say that it can actually compete with some of the biggest names in the smartphone business today.
Everything from the design, features, and battery life were praised. It seems that one cannot go wrong with picking an Essential phone as their personal phone of choice.
But recently, it was discovered that there was one aspect of the phone that proved to be its greatest weakness: repairability.
What are 'repairability' scores?
iFixit is a website that checks new phone models out for "repairability" and gives them a score. These scores determine if a certain phone model can be easily fixed by people who are not affiliated with the manufacturer. This includes privately-owned mobile repair shops that offer repairs whenever support from the actual manufacturer isn't available.
The score is like a gauge of how accessible the components of a phone model are. This is useful because, in some parts of the world, users prefer to take their phones to a local repair shop because of limited access to an authorized service center.
According to a report by The Verge, iFixit gave the Essential phone a very disappointing repairability score of 1 out of 10. To put this to perspective, the iPhone 7 and the Google Pixel XL garnered a 7/10, while the Samsung Galaxy S8 got a 4/10.
This is mainly due to the fact that the Essential phone gave iFixit a hard time accessing its parts.
The back panel is accessible but when they tried to access the internal components, they had to freeze the LCD and crack it to access the important parts.
These scores are not meant to reflect a review
Of course, people have to understand that repairabilty scores are different from actual review scores. The Essential phone is a good phone in its own right.
A lot of reviews back up the fact that it has great design and practical features.
But the repairability score released by iFixit is just an index of how accessible the Essential's components can be. It is not meant to serve as a judgment about the actual features of the phone.
There's a high chance that people will continue to use the Essential phone without ever needing a repair in its lifetime. However, once it needs repairs, nothing short of an authorized service center can fix it reliably.
