Are Apple Products Bad For The Environment? MacBooks, iPads Hard To Repair, Greenpeace Says

Samsung Galaxy smartphones are much harder to repair than the iPhone 7, but Apple faces low repairability scores with its MacBooks and iPads, a campaign by Greenpeace said.

The Greenpeace campaign spotlighting planned obsolescence by tech companies teamed up with iFixit to analyze dozens of devices that were launched between 2015 and 2017. The campaign rated repairability of Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers’ devices. The scores were determined by four factors: availability of spare parts, need for special tools to fix the gadget, and battery and display replacement.

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“Being long-lasting is what we look for when we buy our washing machine, our fridge, our car. So why do we accept that our electronics become obsolete after just 1 1/2 years and are OK with constantly buying new ones?” the campaign’s site asks.

The campaign launched a petition to demand tech companies like Apple and Samsung design longer-lasting devices.

“Today, our technology has a short expiration date. IT companies like Apple, Samsung and LG design electronics that just don’t last,” the campaign said. “Besides, they make repair tricky and expensive, offer no or short-term guarantees, and do not provide repair manuals or spare parts. This is planned obsolescence.

“Making devices that can be easily repaired and are designed to last is the most significant step that companies can take to reduce the environmental impacts of making our electronics.”

Smartphones

The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S8 ranked the lowest among smartphones, including devices from Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and LG devices. The Samsung S7 and S7 Edge devices scored 3 out of 10 repairability score while the Galaxy S8 scored a 4 of 10. The iPhone 7 and Google Pixel scored 7 out of 10. Smartphones that had better scores were the LG G4, G5 and the Fairphone’s Fairphone 2.

Laptops

Among laptops, Apple notebooks had the worst scores compared to manufacturers HP, Dell, Samsung, Acer and LG. The 2017 MacBook Retina and the 13-inch MacBook Pro both scored 1 out of 10, as did the Microsoft Surface Book. The HP EliteBook 840 G3 Notebook PC and Dell’s Latitude E5270 both scored perfect 10s. Samsung’s 15-inch Notebook series 9 and the 15-inch LG gram had 9 out of 10 scores.

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Tablets

The iPad 5 and the 5.7-inch iPad Pro had among the lowest scores across tablets, 2 out of 10, but Microsoft’s Surface Pro had the worst score, 1 out of 10. The Google Pixel C and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S3 followed the iPads, with 4 out of 10 repairability rates. Amazon’s new Fire tablet scored 7 of 10 while its Paperwhite Kindle got a score of 8 of 10. HP’s Elite x2 1012 G1 had the best score among all tablets, 10 out of 10.