Nokia G42 5G review: Repairable phone

I received the Nokia G42 5G and tried to harness my inner mobile phone repair skills — but sadly I failed miserably.

A phone that is specifically designed to be repaired at home is an admirable thing.

Sadly, it didn’t work out too well in practice, for me at least.

I was shipped the Nokia G42 5G for a review and what caught my eye was the repairability.

We’ve all had that heart-stopping moment when your phone slips out of your grasp and is shattered on tiles. Blast! You know it will cost a bundle to repair and sometimes it’s easier to just buy a new one. That creates heaps of waste and it would be much better for the environment (and your hip pocket) if you could repair it yourself cheaply. That’s the whole idea behind the Nokia G42 5G.

Nokia G42 5G

Once I got hold of the phone I decided to test if I could successfully remove and reinsert the battery.

I’m old enough to remember Snake on the old Nokia phones — the ones you could easily remove the back and change the battery.

Due to incredible advancements in mobile phone technology, that’s not situation any more and it’s a fair bit harder to take off the Nokia G42 5G case.

Nokia has teamed up with QuickFix and they sent out a kit that included all the tools I needed.

I used a pic to pry off the clips of the phone, which wasn’t too much trouble. I ejected the SIM card and then used a pick to jimmy off the cover.

Then there were a bunch of tiny screws that needed removing. I managed that OK.

I took apart the Nokia G42 5G. Picture: Andrew Backhouse

But it was unfastening the fingerprint reader bracket where I ran into trouble.

Despite removing the screws I couldn’t easily remove it. I did manage to get the battery out, which was stuck in with adhesive tape.

But when I went to put it all back together, I discovered that the reader connection had broken — and the phone wasn’t turning on.

I just wrecked the phone! Luckily the whole thing is under warranty and Nokia has a team that can easily fix the damaged caused by incorrect phone repairs. They’ll be able to stitch it up and send it out to another journo in no-time.

The takeaway

I consider myself a bit of an everyman — I’m not completely useless and I’m not that handy either.

So if I can’t do it, that doesn’t bode too well for the average person.

Overall the phone looks great and is good value for money.

The purple colour really shines and the specs are great for the price of about $450.

A mid-tier phone with repairability is an incredible step forward for an industry that’s been accused of planned obsolescence.

It’s a great concept — it just didn’t work so well for me.