Broken laptops are not becoming easier to fix, despite the availability of public data about their repairability and growing support for right-to-repair legislation. That’s according to US PIRG Education Fund, a consumer protection nonprofit.
Its fifth annual Failing to Fix survey found Asus to be the most repairable laptop brand — although its score dropped compared to last year — and Apple the least repairable of those surveyed. Prominent enterprise PC suppliers Dell, HP, and Lenovo fell somewhere in the middle of the rankings.
While the report looks at consumer products, many of the issues highlighted by the report would apply to businesses too — particularly Apple, which sells the same models to everyone.
“We haven’t done the research, so don’t have the exact numbers,” said Nathan Proctor, senior director or Right to Repair. “But businesses buy the same products and Right to Repair issues are even more pronounced the more expensive that the device is.”
Repairability is not just about product design: It can also be affected by contract terms.
“A lot of companies will tie service to a maintenance contract, and enterprises will find themselves left short if they don’t sign up, said Proctor. “For example, they might not send the firmware needed for a repair, if the customer hadn’t signed up for such a maintenance contract.”
It is certainly the case that more enterprises will look at maintenance as part of the overall package and will not look at PCs or laptops in isolation but rather as part of a “PC as a service” (PCaaS) deal, according to market research firm IDC. In a survey from last year, it found that enterprises were paying more attention to sustainability. “We see more IT leaders considering the complete lifecycle when choosing IT products for the enterprise,” said Lara Greden, senior director market intelligence with IDC.
“In a recent IDC survey, 88% said end-of-first-life, or IT asset disposition services, are a critical or important factor in choosing PCaaS vendors, for instance. OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer these services, often with partners, including Apto Solutions and Iron Mountain, for example,” she said.
This is also reflected in the longer laptop lifecycles that companies are implementing. The tradition approach taken by companies is to allow for three years before upgrading but that is no longer the case.
“Some companies still refresh on a fixed three-year lifecycle, but there is a trend towards lengthening lifecycles to four to five years and even more so, to replace only as needed. Services such as Dell Lifecycle Hub and Lenovo xIQ make use of device performance telemetry data to inform repair and replacement cycles,” said Greden.
The PIRG survey of 105 products revealed some to be wary of when it comes to considering whole lifecycles. Apple’s laptops scored the worst, rated C- by PIRG, just behind Lenovo. Businesses wanting to put repairability at the top of the list will look to Asus and Acer, the two top scorers in the PIRG ratings. “I think people were surprised by Apple’s ratings,” said Proctor, “but we found that they didn’t offer the same levels of software support.”
The repairability of a device is certainly a factor to be considered. “IDC research shows that the ability to repair PCs, and even to include refurbished PCs, in PCaaS contracts is a top-2 decision-making factor for choosing a PCaaS vendor,” said Greden.
This is not the first time that PIRG has had the IT industry in its sights. Last October, it was urging Microsoft to change its deadline for the end of Windows 10 support. It is now looking for the US to introduce the same sort of system for scoring system for repairability that France has introduced. Consumers there can see detailed information about how fixable consumer tech products are, with companies obliged to post an overall repair score based on standardized criteria when a product goes on sale.
Buyers elsewhere would benefit 100% from the same sort of labeling, said Proctor.