Huge Win For Potato Repair Enthusiasts

I like how they laughed at how bad this phone is but mine (that is in constant use) is worse

My hopes are really with the EU forcing companies to make all batteries replaceable.
Framework is proof that it is possible to have slick designs combined with replaceable parts.

I think you all missed the point here. This is the kind of phone that sells in massive volumes in countries like India. It does make a huge difference.

I really don't get it. Looking back at the s5neo or something similar. You were able to get removable backs and somewhat waterproof devices. You were able to use headphone jacks ones. There were phones with ir blaster, fingerprint reader, sp02 sensor, a pen, sd card slot, a great 2k oled screen and fast chips while having a metal frame that felt expensive (Note 4). Why did we get rid of every feature that was great. While I certainly didn't need the sp02 sensor, I changed 2 batteries, used headphones all the time and used the ir blaster as a remote replacement. If Samsung did a Note 4 SE with better chip, fullscreen display (fingerprint reader under display or on the side), wireless charging and leaving everyting else the same.... I would buy it 100%. Currently I use a Mi Mix 3 which needs to be replaced soon. While gimmicky and cool it wasn't as big of a jump(Note4->Mix3) as switching from a sgh f480 to a Note 1 or from a Note1 to a Note 4. Because the first time many things were missing instead of added.

The whole nokia phone is cheaper than a battery replacement on the iPhone XS.

Hopefully Nokia does it with their higher spec phones. They do have good ones.

I think I'd have to get hands on to see what the performance is like, but on paper this seems pretty compelling. The price is right, the price of parts is right, and I know I'll be able to get those parts if I need them. It'd be nice to see some sort of open source sdk or something so I knew I'd be able to get Lineage on it after it stops getting updates. I don't think I've ever thrown away an Android device because the hardware was obsolete, but I have because I couldn't get software updates and I have because replacement parts were too expensive or not available.

I wish it had a removable battery. I would have bought this phone this week if it did.

The SOC is definitely underpowered. HMD Nokia phones in general are otherwise pretty decent tho.
If they had the resources, would've been cool to see a whole lineup of repairable phones, not just an entry level one.

It might be a great choice for someone with a tighter budget who's willing to have lower standards. Flagship phones don't really get sold as much where I live for example, in Eastern/central Europe. Everybody has some kind of cheap but functional phone. And being able to fix them without going to a repair shop is a great value proposition.

I'd absolutely be all over this phone if it has an unlocked bootloader

How much more would you pay for an equal phone for it to be repairable? Such as a mid level phone that costs $100 more than an equivalent one, but you can buy and replace components as needed. Personally, I would, but as you both said, what performance level is acceptable? Also, why would this stop manufacturers from offering "upgrades" like a 720p to 1080p screen, bigger battery, and so on. Just a thought.

As an owner of the precursor to this phone, the G21 I must say despite the apparently low spec on paper I have seldom ever been as impressed with a smartphone. The Camera isn't great I will say, but generally it's an insanely good phone for the money. Somehow it just doesn't feel slow and it has all the features most people want. My other half who has a pixel phone was genuinely impressed.

The only reason I would prefer a 1080p 60Hz display on such a low powered phone is because I find that after a few months of usage they can no longer hit that 90Hz refresh rate most of the time and then you're stuck with sub 90Hz and a low 720p resolution. I would rather have a 1080p display at 60Hz so text is sharp at least.

I am using my iPhone 12 until it falls apart, but man I’d love to get something in the flagship range in the coming years that is highly repairable.
If something came out that had modular motherboard design where after you know 3-5 years, you could simply go buy a newer chip/motherboard for idk $100-200 and have a functionally new phone just replacing it in your existing phone. Screens are not going to get that much better over the next decade. 1080p-1440p 90+ Hz is wonderful. Battery tech (probably) won’t improve that much in phones. Design preferences are almost certainly not going to change. Camera improvements are coming through software and not hardware nowadays. So I don’t need a new screen, camera, battery, frame. I just need a new chip every couple years that can keep up with new software demands. That would be the dream man.

I have my screen set to 720p and on a 5.8" screen I cannot make out any stairstepping whatsoever. Maybe on a 6.8" screen I could tell but that is a bloody huge phone

I rocked a Note 8 that I had outright bought brand new for years & years until the battery swelled up. And then I just replaced the battery with one I got from Amazon that literally came with the tools for the job (albeit a couple were trash), and a PLclip tutorial video the seller provided. It wasn't hard at all, about a dozen tiny screws and you have to unscrew the fingerprint scanner and the antennae to get to the battery plug. The scanner, clips, and glue all made sense as those are features of the phone. IP68 and the scanner is on the backplate. The Antennae placement was the only thing the felt like it was intentionally designed to keep end users from replacing their own battery. It didn't NEED to be that way. They hardest part of the whole procedure was plugging the fingerprint scanner back in as it was a tension fit, not a clip/lever deal like most & the ribbon cable is ultra short. Not a lot of wiggle room between that plug & the sensor itself that lives in your backplate.

If it got more than 2 years of software updates it would actually be a really solid move.

Linus comments on how little it might cost to bump the screen to 1080p, but fails to consider that the GPU may not be up to the task of running a higher resolution display, even at a lower refresh rate? I don't know how the bandwidth requirements change in that scenario.

If they can make beefier spec versions with guaranteed five year updates, I can see this begging desirable for industry.

I wish there would be smaller phones that aren‘t iPhones, i‘m currently still using my iPhone SE (not the SE2 but the OG SE) and it‘s still working fine, performance wise.
One of the problems i have is that i want to get away from apple (although i did enjoy very long support for my phone) but as i now don‘t get support for it i want to switch.
So now a new problem is that the only phones that are smaller than 6 inches that i‘d consider worth buying are iPhones.
I‘d also love to support a repairfriendly phone like this one or the fairphone, if they were smaller and i think with the G22 Nokia missed the mark. They could have easily gone 720p if they had a smaller screen (5,5 inches or so) as pixel density wouldn‘t suffer as much and they could have gotten a processor that‘s a little faster and gone for a slightly higher pricepoint, 180$ is dirtcheap so they could have easily asked 250$ for a phone with acceptable/good performance.
In my opinion they missed their shot with this product, only time will tell if they really did

I just replaced the battery myself on a Pixel 4a, plenty of performance, a bit chuggy when switching apps especially as the CPU gets hot but I'll probably use this phone until the battery I just put in there is done with life, probably in 2 years. Maybe I will do one more battery swap on it, we will see.

I like the idea of Nokia G22. It might be slow. But I hope it does the job.

I've only just heard about this phone and I'm considering getting it for my dad who is currently using my old Xperia XA2 and this seems way better.

I am DEFINITELY getting this for my wife. She just uses her phone to take pics of 9ur kiddos, and for instagram and breaks them constantly but HATES screen protectors.

I use a refurbished 2016 top spec XPS-13 for uni work, so only word processing and web surfing for the most part - but honestly its still very usable and far better than any low spec laptop I could buy today. Its easy to get caught up with newer and newer hardwear, but upgrading has become less necessary than ever before

They probably don't use screws because it adds more points of ingress for liquid damage.
It wouldn't make the replacement steps shorter in any case, they need to be thorough so anybody can follow them. Basically, IKEA-style.

Got my Huawei P10 lite in dec 2017, I'm actually happy it's still alive after 5+ years. Battery still last about a day, if I don't utilize it to much.
My previous Sony, HTC, Samusng phones barely lasted 2 years... HTC being the worst... And those all died under normal use-case, without a single scratch on them...

i hope it does well enough to see it updated with slightly better spec. my current s8 which is a 6 year old phone at this point is great. don't need anything fancier for day to day.

I've managed to keep using the same phone for 5 or 6 years thanks to its replaceable battery (And my stubbornness to never get a phone without a replicable battery).
Glad there are companies still doing this!

Yeah, my 3 year old Pixel 3A is fine (after a battery replacement), the problem is the lacking security updates.
My company phone Iphone 7 Pro only got replaced now because of missing support for IOS 16. Otherwise it's fine as a mobile hotspot and a google authenticator app.

I feel like the biggest issue with repairability is the lack of cheap parts, like if you have an s10e it costs about $100 for an LCD replacement when an entire refurbished phone costs that much, it just doesn't make sense financially to repair a lot of older flagships when it's cheaper to buy a whole "new" phone in better condition. If the replacement parts dropped in price along with the phone then they'd actually make sense to repair.

$170 for a new, budget, repairable phone? We will watch their career with great interest

For the record, I still use a Galaxy S8, and the only issue I have with it is that the USB-C port is going out and Samsung uses a fairly non-standard attachment method for it.

I set video quality to 720P on PLclip for most videos. I sometimes have to bump it up to 1080P if PLclip's compression blurred out text to much. It saves loads of data so I'd recommend 720P if you're on a limited data plan.

Linus, you should check out the Fairphone 4. Even more reparable than the Nokia (camera and loudspeakers are also replaceable; all replacements only require a screwdriver), 1080 x 2340 Display with Gorilla Glass and a Snapdragon 750G.
I have been daily driving this phone for approx. 1 year now and the only complaint I have is that the camera could be better.

That's about the same as my phone, and being repairable is a bonus.

I would gladly accept a phone that is slightly bulkier/thicker if that meant it would be easier to open up and repair/replace things.

I'm still using a Galaxy S7 & loving it, though I bought this new in 2016. When I do upgrade my daily driver it will probably with a brand new phone again.
If Google makes a smaller pixel I'll buy that, I really hope they do. If not I might just buy a pixel 5 used. It HAS to be a pixel cause I want GrapheneOS, I am not gonna tolerate spyware. I am running a custom rom on my S7 as well for the security updates.

Honestly repairability probably matters more for an entry level phone. Like if you're getting something this cheap then you are clearly not loaded with cash, so being able to repair for cheap is great. Meanwhile if you can afford flagship specs then you are clearly well-off and can afford the extra cost of having a repair shop perform surgery on your device, or just a new phone.

720p is honestly fine, I mean the PinePhone has such and it is pretty okay, as for the context I’m currently using quite recent iPhone and I have a laptop with 4k screen. Of course there’s a difference but it doesn’t really bother in daily use

My Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S still runs EVERYTHING perfectly! It is from 2019 (launched 2018) and has a snapdragon 845 in it... Seriously haven't had a single problem even in new games. The only issue - like Luke - the battery doesn't last as long anymore - but can easily last a day of use.

I remember 720p on a phone being just fine, but the screens were only about 4.2-4.7" then. The most noticeable change going to a 1080p screen was just that the text was sharper. For an entry-level device like this, you don't care if the text is perfectly sharp as long as it's readable. But, with how common mass produced 1080p smartphone displays are now, I question how much they're actually saving by using 720p screens that are presumably not being manufactured in as large quantities anymore. Maybe they just got ahold of some old stock of 720p screens for cheap. From the display manufacturer's side of things, I don't think it makes much difference in cost whether it's 720p or 1080p.

I feel on my 8t with 65W charging that the charging speed has no connection to battery degradation if not make it better due to electricity flowing for shorter times.

I feel like 1080p is important to me because I often use my phone for media consumption.

3year old flagship hardware is perfectly good. I bought a used s21 upgrading from a OnePlus 8 and it is plenty good and very reliable.

All these repairability talks now a days remind me of older phones (and I'm not talking about the Nokias with keypad). I had a Lenovo K4 Note, excellent phone, decent performance, removable battery, headphone jack, two front firing speakers (actual speakers and not speaker/earpiece combo), and you could take it apart in minutes. One day a huge puddle of water splashed onto it from a broken pipe during heavy rain and it refused to turn on. All the shops refused to repair and called it dead. Guess what? Saw a bunch of YT videos, opened it up, cleaned it with some alcohol and done, it booted up just fine, everything working! Combine that with great community on XDA, it had so many good ROMs.
Repairable phones existed. None of the phones I have today would ever come close to that level of repairability.

If you want a higher spec but more expensive repairable phone look up the Fairphone 4, it has a removable battery micro SD and the company only this month dropped support for the Fairphone 2 that came out in 2015

128gb + sd slot and beeing able to repair it.
Sounds pretty good for a work phone

Im pretty sure that a Note 9 with AOSP installed would fly by most, if not all, daily tasks.

I would settle for first party repairs with less red tape. I just took my iPhone into apple for a battery replacement and they said the internals were ‘too badly damaged’ for them to replace the battery and that my only option was to buy a new phone.

Linus is right, why not screws? Like those watches that are water proof and you can unscrew the back and there's a rubber ring thing. I'd be ok with a phone that gives access to the innards including the camera and the display by taking off a few screws, even if it were a tad chunkier, I'm ok with chunky phones, I've had them before and was happy, as long as they fit in my pocket, who cares? Now add long term support for software updates and boom, I'd keep that phone for a very very long time

Pixel launcher on a note 9 really makes it feel brand new

I'm still using my lgv20...
The battery is just pop out and replace, I've replaced it a couple times already over the years.
I may end up having to do something with the screen at some point as it's beginning to have image retention issues.

The 720p screen is a problem for me, the rest sounds really good as long as the manage to provide good software updates, my Samsung A30s got so slow after the last update that I want to throw it st the wall.

Lol in direct contrast to what Linus was saying about screen refresh making devices feel faster: I have a moto g power 2022. 720p display. Has option for 90hz. When that is on, you can tell that there is much more usage on the CPU and the phone runs noticeably slower as a whole than when you turn off high refresh and just live at 60hz. On this device in particular the higher refresh is not worth the extra processing power required to output it

as someone who uses their phone as just a phone I would buy this and repair parts as needed till it go too expensive to do so, I used my galaxy S2 till mid 2020 when the battery bloated and it was going to cost more to replace then it was to buy a budget phone.

I feel that having software update specifically linked hardware is a problem as well. My PC is about 7 years old and I still have no problems getting updates from Microsoft. Why can't android updates be the same? I would expect that particular game from the "A" company, but not from A Linux based OS.
For PCs, we've been able to buy individual components that all fit together using industry standards, and build our own computers. We can and upgrade hardware piece by piece (with some limitations). We've been doing this since the 80s. No soldering or college level electronics training required. With the way connectors are made on modern tech, it's pretty hard to plug something in where it doesn't go. We need this kind of system with phones.

this phone sound great for a repair savvy parrent or for someone whose prone to damaging their phone. i'd buy one for my father who has broken every phone screen he's had or my future kids because of it's price and the again tendency for it to get damaged.

And here I am, not having gone for the Fairphone because I didn't like the specs lol

I can't believe just 10 years ago I was finally watching youtube at 480p instead of 360p. Now I can watch at 4k with my fiber or upscale to 4k with my gpu.

My Galaxy S10+ has been my main phone since its launch. I've only recently replaced the battery and replaced the cracked rear panel. This is an amazing phone, but I wish repair was a little easier

I understand why you covered it as I saw many websites talking about it, but it truly does not make sense for north america and eastern europe markets 🧐 and because of this I’m not sure why many websites talked about it

As someone who dailies a phone with worse specs in every possible way, I like this.

I daily a Note 9. Have for a bit over a year, probably two. You saying it was unpleasantly slow for music hit me pretty hard.
As for screen, 720p is a bit tight on a screen THAT BIG.
On a 5", 720p is fine. But on a 6.5" monster, you're going to start noticing pixels.
I don't normally like advocating for higher res screens for the sake of it, but this time I actually agree thar it shoulda been 1080p. With good scaling that'll let me zap the UI elements way down so I actually HAVE A REASON TO HAVE A 6.5" 1080P SCREEN.

Hey Linus...
How long until Framework makes a repairable cell phone? :)

I'm happy using 720p, I actually set my s8 to render at 720p to save battery life. I wanted to get something 720, but they stopped putting good processors in those phones when we broke past 1080p.

Im still using my galaxy s8 as a spare for media because its sim slot doesnt work anymore. If it wasnt for that i would still daily drive it because thats pretty close to the maximum performance i need. I dont want to edit videos or play games on any phone. Especially when i want to play a new diablo that should have been for pc in the first place lol

I use alcatel 1, a quad core A53 with a battery pack that can be removed tool-less in about 5 seconds. Yes it's garbage, but it does 4g, can run pixel dungeon, and can play most video (h265 lowres is iffy, h265 highres is unplayable, but h264/vp9 is fine). It also cost bugger all and has survived years of daily use with barely a scratch.
Might get an oldish pixel at some point and put grapheneOS on it.

Watching them complain how "720x1280" resolution isn't enough for a phone really makes me realize they live in a completely different reality to me. I could write a book about how ridiculous I find what they stated to be.
Specially even more when Luke starts saying he only uses the phone for socials...

I don't think the issue with phones slowing down is always with phone makers. Sometimes it is, e.g. new OS updates often don't receive the same amount of tuning and optimization as the initial version that shipped with the phone or when they intentionally clock down the chip to allegedly handle an aged battery.
But the real culprits are the software makers. Both on the OS side and especially on the app side. They just become less and less efficient and add features that often aren't worth the performance penalty.
Many news websites went from simple static HTML pages with low res banner ads to client side JS monstrosities with tons of autolaying/scrolling/paralaxing ads, an absurd amount of tracking and constant pup ups.
iOS added a ton of features to spotlight. Simply searching for an app now takes seconds because spotlight is looking at all those other sources.

Can confirm, 5yo hardware is serving me just fine in my Oneplus 6T. Not thinking of replacing it anytime soon as it hasn't even slowed down, only the occasional Chrome bug (more google's fault than Oneplus)

I'm seeing this on my note 9, and can tell that the slow downs, are a weird thing, sometimes happens, sometimes it doen't

we need standards for phone components like in pc's. Imagine being able to build a phone from parts 😳

minimum spec to me
1080p 90hz
Snapdragon 8 or 7 series, 6 at a stretch
latest wifi and bluetooth standard, doesn't have to be highest performance, but has to be reliable

Adam, you should get a Jokari cable stripping tool (specifically Jokari 28H). It has a spring-loaded "hook" which grabs the cable, and there's a tiny freely-rotating blade inside, which cuts the cable sleeve.
You push the spring-loaded hook over the cable, rotate the tool around the cable, and then pull it to the end of the cable (all of this one-handed). It cuts the sleeve along the cable, so it's really easy to remove. The length of the blade is adjustable, so it cuts just deep enough into the sleeve.

5 years ago, for those same specs i paid $120, this is not a good price, the only redeemable qualities are the screen speed and battery and still that would make it $150 at most

5Ah battery, replacement method almost like in good old days, not worse display than my current phone, 4GB RAM, *and* headphone jack.
At 170$ They got me, this is gonna be my next phone.

I love the repairablility and low price, but they didn't mention a headphone jack. Why not one of those? Or another USB C port? Wired headphones are much more sustainable than Bluetooth, and that just sucks that you need another adapter and probably no charging just to use them.
Software is less of an issue if they offer easy bootloader unlock and rooting. The community will sustain a phone like that for YEARS if those things are there. My Oneplus 3 was just long in the tooth hardware wise and battery wise. Unofficial Software updates made it fly for the most part, even though the niceties of more modern hardware and screens definitely started to necessitate an ugrade in the end

The improvement of this kind of repairable hardware will depend on how much interest customers put into it. Sell them out. Tell them repairability is MANDATORY.

I mean, just a couple of years ago, budget phones had easily removable back cover, huge swapable battery, micro-SD card slot and inner casing held down by screws etc. I remember being angry, since you had to compromise on performance and camera quality to get a "repairable" device. But the manufacturer knew this of course. They knew that people would still upgrade after 2-3 years due to the subpar specs. Meanwhile flagship phones, which could've lasted a decade with the same manufacturing ethos and proper support were glued and sealed shut... They knew what they were doing. It's planned obsolescence in its purest form.
I don't find this Nokia phone particularly inspiring as it doesn't solve the main issue with planned obsolescence.

It's probably a test phone to see if it can be done and go for better phones in the future.

My note9 havent slowed down its the 6gb model with 128gb storage my only problem is with ISP broadcast towers, I live in a valley and if I just move to a bad spot there is no internet where the phone comes as a problem is that it wont reconnect for 2-5 minutes

I got a Nokia phone because it had a reputation of solid build quality.
The first update introduced random restarts and 2 years of updates solved nothing and removed features that are still available in stock Android.
Also, locked bootloader and fantastically unhelpful support.
But hey, at least it's built well.

The Fairphone suffers from a similar problem, a dreadfully underpowered SoC. Then the speed of updates will likely be just as disappointing, too.

Like.. what?? I value resolution waaaay more in textual content than multimedia.. 60Hz 1080p any day of the week.. 😂
Also.. I really don't want to salvage the water tightness of my phone to repairability. I love, that phones are watertight nowadays.
That said.. I used to repair samsung XCover phones, which were watertight aswell, before and after the repair, water taps are aswell and they are not glued so.. pretty sure this is in fact a solvable problem ✌🏻😂

Should you be already rocking a entry-level or a mid-range phone, you wouldn't have to compromise all that much on lower specs if it gets you an easily repairable phone.
Though personally I'd wait for Nokia's next generation repairable phone because this G22 is still quite of a steep performance drop coming from my current similarly priced middle of the road 720G-powered phone from 3 years ago...

You can have a removable back and be waterproof. Galaxy S5. I went swimming and snorkeling with that phone in my pocket. I kept it for 2 years

Only usage I see that phone being good for would be as a work-phone that the workplace hands out to ever worker for use while at work or for work purposes.

What a horrible title.. I'll be picking up one of these for sure so thanks for covering this.

Nokia HQ: We need to polish our brand image by releasing a repairable phone.
Intern: But then people would keep their phones for longer.
Head of Nokia: Make the specifications as unattractive as possible, so we can say that we've tried.

The problem isn't low end hardware, it's high demand software. Most phones run great on their launch software version.

This just the first one, the specs will get better.

720p is still alright on a phone because they use comparatively small screens. Back in the day of 5 inch screens it was so much better though

Looks like a good burner phone to take on travels and avoid border security spying on your real phone

If Linus buys it, I'll use it till eol

Much rather 1080 60hz imo. I mostly use my phone for reading. Bought a g9 power for battery not realizing it it was 720 and right away started getting eye strain issues. Previously had a g7 that was 1080 so it never occurred to me to check

The 3 years of updates are the real problem here

Unless there has been news I missed since, the bootloader will not be unlocked. So it's a strong zero recommend until they do that.
The phone's specs are greater than almost everyone needs.

its good phone people have worst phone hope they increase more software update.