iFixit ranks repairability of 2016 flagships, LG G5 comes out on top

The LG G5 may not have garnered the lion's share of love from critics (or sales) in 2016, but it is the easiest phone to repair.

People who are good at the business of taking things apart and putting them back together again — iFixit — gave the G5 a repairability score of 8 on a 10 point scale in their 2016 roundup. They cite the removable back and battery and modular components — the circuit boards inside and not the outer modules in this case — as the reason why it's so easy to take the phone apart.

Things like standard screws and easy-to-remove screens also garner points in the judging, while excessive adhesive, soldered components and "complex opening procedures" make the process more difficult and result in a lower score.

The full results for 2016 were (in order):

We won't suggest you take your phone apart and try any repairs yourself unless you know what you're doing, but if you have a G5 it's going to be a lot easier to do.

Jerry Hildenbrand
Senior Editor — Google Ecosystem

Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.

59 Comments
  • This is great news for all 50 people that have a G5!
  • Good one sir
  • Its not about quantity, its about quality
  • It's actually quantity and quality, LG has serious issues with both at the moment.
  • I have had a G5 for the last 3 months got it in a deal and I have been very impressed with it. Never had any lag or runs slow. The battery life is very good. The add-on for the headphones is amazing for sound and the camera is as good as the one I had on my lumia 950xl and the wide angle camera is also very good and comes in handy. I have people in work who have the iPhone 7 and galaxy s7 and all of them have said they like the look of the G5 and it matches them phones with everything we have tried to compare them to.
  • I have to agree with all of above points. Coming from a 950, I am glad that there were more options that just an iPhone and a galaxy. I am very impressed with this phone. Great screen, no lag, good battery. I have zero complaints with this phone.
  • Yeah I think the LG G5 gets a lot of stick for no reason at all. Not had one issue with it. The only issues I had but were easily resolved was the keyboard was to small for my fat fingers so I use the Google on now and I prefer using cortana over Google now and I now have that on my phone. It's also changed my mind about android to being a Windows mobile fan I still think Windows mobile as an OS is the best os to use but the lack of apps it now has like PayPal was the reason for moving to android and I can't fault this phone at all. Now I have android 7 running to it also feels like a cleaner is to.
  • Yep. Love The thing. Have Cortana as well. Also if there are issues I have the att warranty, and can trade it in after a year. No worries.
  • Lg has neither of Quantity or quality
  • I actually have one from a nice trade in deal. I basically managed to sneak a G2 with a broken mic past quality control and got a G5 for about $400 back when it was brand new. Not a bad phone, just unspectacular.
  • more people have this phone than you think. and objectively speaking, it's better than the iphn7+ and yes i have tested both of them extensively
  • No surprise there as most Android phones are better than the ****** and inferior iPhone 7 Plus.
  • As someone who repairs phones.... no way in hell is the 7 more repairable than the SE. The iPhone 7 requires at minimum 4 screw drivers. Why?
  • Well yeah, not only is it the only "flagship" with a removable battery, you don't even need a screwdriver or soldering iron (or even any skill) to replace the USB port! Not a big fan of the G5, but kudos to LG on the repairability front.
  • Is the LG on top because you can fix some of them with a toaster?
  • +100000
  • The g5 just won its first competition.
  • Actually it's best at bootlooping!
  • Better than blowing up
  • Why am I not surprised?
  • Seems like in recent weeks, I've seen more articles on the G5 than I saw when the phone was released.
  • Jerry, why's there an ad for scientology? It's a cult
  • Just recently started watching Scientology &the aftermath by Leah Remini - Holly$hit I can't believe that the authorities did close to nothing all these years - decades.
    Just wondering how in the world FBI,NSA,etc failed to full investigate, spy, intercept or whatever necessary in order to shut down this brutal billion dollar enterprise.
    What's even scarier is the fact that in the US thousands of people are in full submission to this Cult, accepting variety of abusive practices (emotional,physical , financial) on them.
    So, what progress can we expect in the 3rd world,where many people desperate for basic necessities are seduced by religious interpretations of their tyrants.
  • Really? I'm hollering to the people who need to know about that right now.
  • Do you guys have actual control over the ad content on here? I was assuming it was based off all the little things Google knows about me.
  • On some level, yes. We can talk about what ads are shown with someone. I'm not privy to all the details tho. I'm sure there are also some generated from your(our/mine/everyones) browsing data, too.
  • Has anyone sent off an S7 for repair and got the same one back, the same year it was sent.
  • Huh? We all are in the same year. I sent mine and got a brand new one.
  • I meant does it take forever. I wondered if once opened the S7/E is treated as parts, or takes too long to and another one is sent back. I don't know.
  • Mine's already been fixed. Dropped it on tile floor and the screen spidered at the corner it fell on. They had it fixed in about an hour and a half. That cheap case (advertised here) was promptly thrown away.
  • OK. I guess they don't get many with hardware parts to replace.
  • I had a guided tour through a company that does warranty repairs for Samsung. The employees are trained on a few models, and do nothing all day but fix them. The S6 back then was a nightmare to fix. Experienced employees often took several tries until they got it put back together correctly. It also requires special Samsung hardware (which Samsung probably won't give everyone, and isn't cheap either) to put it back correctly and to test it. Even though they use official parts and are careful, often they can't get a proper seal on these phones, and they have to start all over again. There is a reason why getting it fixed at an official place is so expensive compared to those small shops that fix phones. They don't, and can't do a good job.
  • Anyone have a DIY bootloop tutorial? ZING!
  • All the LG haters can go ***k themselves.
  • Lol sorry we #triggered you. Reality hurts sometimes though. I can't imagine the meltdown when the G6 doesn't have a removable battery and the V series is watered down even more.
  • My phone won't be bootlooping any time soon, so I guess to each their own :)
  • I assume you don't have an LG anymore then?😉
  • Last was the G4. Happy S7 user now!
  • The LG V20 is actually a really solid phone. But if your a fan of another brand you'll say how Crappy it is.
  • Most of the cynical, sarcastic, nasty, and otherwise idiotic comments are from people who never even held the G5. Sure LG has some issues with certain models and yes the G5 was a marketing disaster... Mostly because it was touted as modular system and poorly implemented. If you take modularity out of the equation it is actually a great phone. Is it perfect and without issues.... Of course not. I defy anyone to show me a phone that doesn't have issues and I'll jump on the bandwagon. Loving my V20 right now... Not sure why it didn't make the list of easy to repair but it is, though not even close to the reason I bought it. BTW, there are a good number of former Note 7 owners that are very happy with the V20... Would have been a lot more if LG didn't drag their feet releasing it after the N7 debacle.
  • I do not like LG, and that's coming from someone whose friend had a G4 die boot looping , who told his mother to sell her G4 before it boot looped, and whose brother's LG G2 suffered severe ghost touching and needs a mouse tethered up its... to work. You'd THINK LG would've improved their quality control over the years to prevent... like this from happening, but NO! It seems to be getting worse, actually! So no, you can't dismiss those who are vocal against LG as "cynical haters..."
  • I had the V10, the screen on that phone had image retention after only a couple months of use. I loved the sound quality, removable battery, and how sturdy the phone felt but LG is just awful at quality control when it comes to their phones. I had the G3 as well and it lagged like crazy and the screen was very dim. Do you remember the hairline fracture that the G3 would develop on its own? It was a huge problem for many. The G4 had boot loop issues and touch screen issues. It was so annoying that I had to sell it. It also lagged a lot. Strangely enough, the V10 never lagged even though it shared the same specs as the G4. Then there is the G5...It was just plain ugly and had gaps, edges that felt as if they needed to be sand papered down and light bleed. That didn't really bother me but then I found that the American version couldn't get the external DAC, which was my main reason for buying the phone. That's what drove me to return the G5. I gave LG enough chances. My ZTE Axon 7, which costs far less than the G5 currently has zero issues while having an excellent DAC built in. I have reason to hate LG devices since I've actually had many of them crap out on me.
  • lol. You can actually measure the butthurt in these comments with a barometer. It's almost Christmas guys. Try loving and caring about each other.
  • Lol.
  • It's just a phone
  • The G5 is a great device overlooked due to the horrible marketing on the pointless and poorly done mods. The phone by itself is definitely top notch. My wife hasn't touched her nexus since she got it. 7.0 also breathed new life into the device with theme built in and a slim version of the LG ui much like that of the V20.
  • I'm sure the Lg5 is a good phone,but my Lg3 is rooted now and running 7.1 so smoothly.....and so didn't see the need to buy the lg5
  • Why's the Galaxy note 7 even on the list if it was impossible for even Samsung to fix it?
  • I've never had an issues with my LG phones, G3, G4, G5, and V10. While I like the G5 I'm using now my favorite of all was the G4 with black leather cover. Good to know the G5 is easily serviceable.
  • Good to know that it's easily repairable. Though it'll take a whole lot for me to go back to LG due to me having not one but 2 G4s failing to the bootloop.
  • The common denominator in your case was you...... Lol
  • They weren't abused, though. Just used normally.
  • I have the g5 And haven't had an issue with any lg phones over the past ten years....... Expect for the extreme overheating of my optimus LTE ... I used to work in a phone Store and even tho they never sold well they make a solid device. And the ease of repair was one of the reasons I got this one. Up until the tcl deal with BlackBerry, their phones were by far the easiest to repair and the cheapest
  • I`m one of the 50 that has a G5 :) , i actually only bought it because it was a bargain and an easy way to get a device with a snapdragon 820 and 4gb of ram :) and a decent feature set ,
    the Galaxy S7 was my first choice ( well actually the note 7 was , but we know how that turned out sadly ) and quite a bit more expensive in my neck of the woods .....so it was a no brainer.
    In all honesty i had seen the many videos bagging it and i thought it was a bit of a rough pos but still a fairly decent phone.
    After having it for some months now , i still think LG`s attention to detail in the battery chin area and design of the case was/is very very average(being kind here) , especially when you compare it to sammys very nice job on S7 variants .
    On mine it does seem to have the odd GPS malfunction on the odd occasion , and the small sized battery does go down fast when i use it heavily , and as many have pointed out the case quality , but aside from that and the other minor things , i have to say , its actually a pretty good daily device , it runs pretty well and has a good feature set , and i have come to like the wide angle second camera , i certainly wouldn't trade it for a pixel .
  • I think the g5 is the best bang for buck device out right now. I used it for 6 months no issues good performance. Upgraded to the v20 only because I found an unbelievable deal on Craigslist.
  • I have a Pixel XL and for my second line I did the jump on demand from s7 edge to the V20 because the Note 7 wasn't happening.
    I will objectively say the V20 is one of the best devices I've owned! Great build quality, smooth, fast, and ton of features. I have been honestly surprised.
    I still think the Pixel is the best Android ph you can buy but if you like an even bigger screen the 20 is excellent.
    Most ppl bashing probably never even used the 20. LG get crapped on because of the G5's poor quality control at launch...and they should get hit for that.
  • Ha repairability is the only thing the LG G5 will win at besides worse phone of 2016 and most ugly too. LG phones have always sucked.
  • How is it the worst phone? Did it explode? No. Your argument is moot.
    You're probably a Samsung fanboy.
  • My sister has had the g5 since launch and I wouldnt say she very careful with her phone and to this day it looks great my lg v20 has impressed me so far with big phones I don't like to use cases so it's great that the durability is great with the v20 and like the v10 you can take it apart in 5 mins to replace anything I think lg got a bad wrap for a bad batch of phones but everyone I know that has either a g5 or v10 and v20 love there phones I'm sure there's a few who had there issues but every brand has defective phones out there