New smartphones now come with a label like the one you know from washing machines. What's new is one line that has never appeared on an EU label before: the repairability class.
It is based on Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1669. Since 20 June 2025, it applies to smartphones and tablets newly placed on the market from that date.
Smartphones and tablets are the very first product group for which a repairability class on an EU label is mandatory.
Until now, repairability was something you had to find in test reports, or simply never found out. Now there's a letter next to the price, and you can compare two devices in a second.
Behind the letter is an index that combines several properties. Put simply, these are the ones.
These are exactly the points that decide in the workshop whether a repair takes half an hour or half a day.
The second point has the biggest effect. A screwed housing opens in minutes, while a glued one needs heat, patience and a new seal when it is put back together.
What the letter leaves open is just as important.
We come across the third point most often. A device can be easy to open and still show a message after a part has been replaced. That's a topic of its own, and it's called parts pairing.
The fourth point has got its own line on the label: the class for resistance to repeated drops. It sits right next to it and answers the question many people confuse with repairability.
Not every device carries a class, and that says nothing about how repairable it is.
Read the repairability class together with the two figures next to it. The drop class tells you how much the device can take. The charge cycles tell you how long the battery lasts.
The QR code takes you to the full product data sheet. There you'll find the individual values the letter is based on.
And a letter is no substitute for doing the maths: even a device with a good class can have an expensive display. The class tells you how easy a repair is, not what it costs.
A is the best of the five levels. It means the device is particularly easy to repair according to the regulation's criteria: few steps, easily accessible parts, and available spare parts and information. What a repair costs isn't shown there.
Only if it was newly placed on the market from June 2025 onwards. Older devices don't have a class. Many of them can still be repaired well, so bring yours in and we'll take a look.
Retailers have to show it in the listing. It's usually behind a small icon near the price that you can expand. The QR code takes you to the full data sheet.
Not automatically. The class describes the effort of a repair, not the quality of the device. How long it gets updates often matters more. If you're torn between two models, we're happy to tell you what a typical repair means for each of them.
Your question isn't here? Call us on 0211 26134549 or send us a repair request.
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