Letter From the Editor
The Future Must Be Fixable
A great device can still be a pain to repair
Earlier this month, movers dropped and shattered my television. It was less than a year old and, it turns out, completely unsalvageable.
The original manufacturer, LG, shrugged: Accidental damage understandably isn’t covered under warranty. The company’s customer service agent connected me to a number of local repair shops, none of which were able to fix the screen. Displays are by far the most expensive part of a television, and I soon learned that a replacement for my particular LG would cost about $1,117, not including any shipping or labor costs. I had bought the TV brand new for $1,300.
So it wasn’t that my local repair shops didn’t have the know-how to fix the thing, necessarily—it just didn’t make any economic sense for them to do so. I negotiated with the movers to pay me back for the damage, arranged for the busted TV to be hauled off for whatever recycling is possible, and paid for a new set. An awful waste all around.
The ordeal reminded me of a story I wrote last year about the Samsung Galaxy Fold after critics found flaws with early review units that led to broken displays. Experts told me that the Fold’s unusual form factor would lead to issues down the line, even once the…
