The Fruity Cargo Cult Apple has flunked its repair class.
Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund’s new scorecard, released on 9 April 2026, slapped it with a C-minus for laptops and a D-minus for phones.
PIRG’s “Failing the Fix (2026): Grading laptop and cell phone companies on the fixability of their products” examined the 10 newest laptops and phones sold through manufacturers’ French sites in January. It judged how easy the kit is to take apart and to find repair information.
Job’s Mob topped the laptop repairability losers list, mainly because its disassembly scores were poor. Apple, Dell and Samsung each lost a full point for membership in TechNet and the Consumer Technology Association.
Lenovo dragged in with the second-worst laptop grade at C-minus, with disassembly again doing the damage. It lost 0.5 points for failing to properly post PDFs explaining French repair scores for some new laptops, as required by France.
That is awkward, given Lenovo’s F in last year’s PIRG report for missing the same info on at least 12 laptops.
Lenovo director of communications David Hamilton told Ars Technica: “due to a backend web compatibility issue that temporarily prevented the display of repairability scores on our Lenovo France website” that was “widely resolved.”
PIRG isn’t buying that it is sorted yet. “While Lenovo has improved somewhat with their compliance with French consumer law by providing more repair score PDFs on their website, we urge the company to resolve this multi-year issue,” this year’s report says.
PIRG’s report said “laptops are pretty stagnant in terms of repairability” across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US.
Proctor said consumers’ access to parts, tools and information has improved, but ease of disassembly “takes longer to realise,” while praising more repairable designs such as Job’s Mob MacBook Neo.
The scoring weighted physical disassembly most heavily, followed by documentation, spare parts, affordability, and other device-specific criteria. Acer sidestepped the 0.5-point trade-group penalty entirely by not being listed as a TechNet or CTA member, which is a rare bit of restraint in an industry that loves lobbying more than screws.
