Repair or Replace? How to Decide With the Numbers

A cracked screen, a battery that dies by lunchtime, a charging port that's given up — sooner or later every phone forces the question: fix it, or replace it?Most people answer by staring at the repair quote. That's the wrong number to start with. The right one is on the calendar: how much software supportthe phone has left. Here's a framework that turns an agonising judgement call into a quick, confident decision.

Step 1: Find out how long the phone can still be safely used

Before you price a repair, find the phone's end-of-support date on our Longevity Tracker. This is the ceiling on the decision: there is no point spending money to repair a phone that's about to become unsafe to use anyway. If the model is on the dying-soon list, the repair question is nearly answered for you — you'd be investing in a phone that's already entering the end-of-support danger zone.

Step 2: Compare the repair cost to the replacement's TrueCost

Now bring in the money — but the right way. Don't compare the repair bill to a new phone's sticker price; compare it to the new phone's TrueCost: its price spread over the months of safe support it buys. Then weigh the repair against how many moresafe months it buys your current phone.

A worked example. Say a battery replacement costs $80 and your phone has three years (36 months) of support left. That repair costs about $2.20 for each remaining safe month — almost certainly cheaper than any replacement's cost per month. Repair it. Now say the same $80 repair on a phone with only eight months of support left works out to $10 a month — and a long-supported new phone might cost less per safe month than that. Replace it. The TrueCost calculator does this sum for both sides in a few seconds.

Step 3: Factor in repairability (and what comes next)

Two more thumb-rules sharpen the call:

• Cheap, high-impact repairs on a well-supported phone are almost always worth it. A battery or screen on a phone with years of support left is the most cost-effective upgrade you can make — it restores the phone to like-new for a fraction of replacement.
• Expensive repairs (motherboard, multiple faults) on a short-support phone rarely are.When the fix approaches the replacement's value and the support window is short, replacing is the rational and often the greener choice.
• If repairability matters to you, it can be bought. Some phones — most famously the Fairphone — are designed for easy, cheap, user-done repairs and pair that with an eight-year support window, which is the ideal combination for keeping a phone for the long haul.

The one-line version

Repair when the phone still has plenty of safe life left and the fix is cheap per remaining month; replace when support is nearly out or the repair rivals a new phone's real cost. If you do land on “replace,” don't repeat the cycle too soon — start from the longest-supported phones so your next one stays repair-worthy for years to come.