Nokia launches fix-it-yourself £150 phone

Nokia has released a budget smartphone that you can repair yourself should you break it.

It has teamed up with self-repair company ifixit to offer repair equipment for the new G22 phone, which costs £149.99 and runs Android 12.

There are four spare parts available from ifixit’s website (www.snipca.com/45240): a charge port (£18.99); a battery and back cover (£22.99 each); and a screen (£44.99). They come with tweezers, magnetic screwdrivers, and a guitar pick-like implement for removing batteries (pictured).

HMD Global, the Finnish firm that owns Nokia, says G22 owners can use these parts to carry out the most common phone repairs, which are replacing a broken screen, charging port or flat battery. Using ifixit’s official tools won’t void your warranty.

However, Nokia’s G-series of phones receive only two years of feature updates, and three years of security updates. If Nokia applies this to the G22, it will stop being safe to use in 2026.

Nokia says that starting with the G22 it will be “designing and building smartphones that are easier to repair”. You’ll be able to use these for longer, it said, which is “better for the planet as well as your pocket”.

Adam Ferguson, HMD’S head of product, took five minutes to replace the battery during a demonstration for the press. He claimed that this would have taken around 90 minutes on previous Nokia phones.

He added that replacing the screen would take around 20 minutes.

Nokia is the latest phone manufacturer to do a deal with ifixit that lets it sell spare parts, following Google and Samsung. Apple also launched its own self-repair scheme last year (www.snipca.com/44388), though consumer groups say the fixes are too complicated for most people.

The G22 has a 6.52in screen, four cameras, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. For more information visit www.snipca. com/45242.