It has just about become expected that nearly all smartphones, especially high-end ones, aren’t built to be easy to repair. Of course, they could be designed to survive a couple of accidents, but repairing them with trained hands has never been a priority. Instead, that practice has trickled down into the littlest of accessories that are often too easy to lose or too easy to interrupt. Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 is no exception and should even point to less favorable changes within the future, a minimum of as far as iFixit cares.
Earbuds aren’t precisely the toughest accessories out there, though they’re often designed to possess some water resistance. They don’t have many hardware components inside, though, but they often are not as easy to get rid of and replace. iFixit has previously praised Samsung’s line of Galaxy Buds for their repairability, but it seems that the corporate is taking a turn for the more severe in its eyes.
The Galaxy Buds 2 was easy to open up, though you need to deform the shell within the process. The inner pink shell that houses all the hardware comes off easily, but the batteries are soldered to connectors, unlike models before last year’s Galaxy Buds+. They’re not exactly an enormous deal for experts like iFixit, but DIY repairs may need problems with this common part.
The Galaxy Buds 2’s grace is the charging case, which is far easier to open up and even features a modular battery. That battery is a smaller amount likely to fail or die before the buds’ coin batteries, though, but it’s still reassuring to ascertain how easy it might get replaced when the time does come.
iFixit gives the Galaxy Buds 2 a 5 out of 10 when it involves repairs. While not the foremost difficult buds to level, Samsung seems to be heading down a path where it could end a bit like those within the very near future. That said, the Galaxy Buds 2’s easy teardown may have also come at the worth of a lower IPX2 compared to other buds within the market.
