Enlarge / Certified refurbished Steam Decks can save you a little money without sacrificing performance or warranty. (credit: Valve)

Valve's Steam Deck hardware has been consistently available to buy for over a year now, but if the price has put you off, Valve has a new option for you. The company is now selling official, certified-refurbished Steam Decks with the same one-year warranty as new models at prices that are between $80 and $130 lower, depending on the configuration you want.

A basic Steam Deck with 64GB of eMMC storage costs $319 refurbished, compared to $399 new. The 256GB model runs $419 refurbished, compared to $529 new. And the 512GB model costs $519, compared to $649 new. All have the same Zen 2-based AMD CPU and integrated Radeon GPU, the same 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a charger, and a carrying case. Buying refurbished hardware directly from the manufacturer—from Apple's refurbished site , the Dell Outlet , and other places—is usually a great way to get like-new hardware for less money without sacrificing software and warranty support as you might if you bought from a third party.

If you want to save even more money on a Steam Deck, consider that iFixit , Framework , and a growing number of SSD makers are also releasing (physically) smaller SSD models that users can buy to save some money on storage or upgrade beyond that 512GB maximum.

Enlarge / The Framework Slabtop, as I dub it. Not a NUC, not quite a desktop. (credit: Kevin Purdy)

Many industry pundits were skeptical when the new laptop company Framework announced a repair-friendly, upgrade-ready laptop in 2021 . Could you really swap parts between laptops—reasonably thin and lightweight laptops—year over year? Would that even work as a business model?

Framework released the first edition of its machine, and we found that it lived up to its promises. The company followed through with a second-generation laptop, and we reviewed the third iteration as "a box of parts" that upgraded the previous version. The upgrade experiment has been a success. All that's left are, well, the parts left behind.

It's 2023, and those who have Framework's first generation of laptops, containing Intel's 11th-generation Core processor) might be itching to upgrade, especially with an AMD model around the corner . Or maybe, like me, they find that system's middling battery life and tricky-to-tame sleep draining (since improved, but not entirely fixed) make for a laptop that doesn't feel all that portable. Or they're just ready for something new.

Enlarge / iCorrect's attempts to draw a straight line on an iPad Pro with a third-party replacement screen led them to look at the screen's embedded chips for parts-pairing problems. (credit: iCorrect UK )

The latest part of an Apple device to demand a repair by its maker appears to be the screens on newer iPads. Reports from repair shops and customers suggest that Apple Pencils no longer work properly on non-genuine Apple screens, as they draw squiggly lines on a diagonal instead of straight.

Ricky Panesar, CEO of UK repair firm iCorrect, told Forbes that screens replaced on newer iPad Pros (fifth and sixth-generation 12.9-inch and third and fourth-generation 11-inch models) do not deliver straight lines when an Apple Pencil is used to draw at an angle. "They have a memory chip that sits on the screen that's programmed to only allow the Pencil functionality to work if the screen is connected to the original logic board," Panesar told Forbes.

A Reddit post from May 23 from a user reporting "jittery" diagonal lines from an Apple Pencil on a newly replaced iPad mini screen suggests the issue may affect more than just the Pro line of iPads.

Enlarge / Very few modern smartphones can be considered to have a "readily removable" battery, but the Fairphone 4 is one of them. (credit: Fairphone)

Whenever regulation passes that seems to herald the dawn of a new age of repairable devices, there is almost always a catch, a loophole, or at least an "it depends." In the case of recent headline-grabbing battery legislation out of the European Union, we're waiting to see what counts as "readily" when it comes to removing and replacing device batteries.

Last week, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of new rules for handling batteries of all sizes in the EU , due to be implemented within 3.5 years of passage or as early as 2027. Along with measures addressing carbon footprints for electric vehicle and industrial batteries and stricter waste and recycling targets, there was a particular line in Article 11 regarding the "Removability and replaceability of portable batteries," that likely got smartphone, tablet, and laptop manufacturer lobbyists moving:

Portable batteries incorporated in appliances shall be readily removable and replaceable by the end-user or by independent operators during the lifetime of the appliance, if the batteries have a shorter lifetime than the appliance, or at the latest at the end of the lifetime of the appliance.

"Readily replaceable," as addressed in the next paragraph, is when, after removing a battery, you can substitute a similar battery "without affecting the functioning or the performance of that appliance." For all the things specifically defined, outlined, and estimated in the 129-page "COM(2020) 798 final," there's not much more about what the phrase exactly means.

Enlarge / An iPhone undergoes repairs. (credit: Apple )

Apple launched its Self Service Repair program in the spring of 2022, giving owners of some iPhones and Macs access to the same parts and repair manuals used by Apple-certified technicians. Since the program's launch, most changes have focused on adding new devices—most recently, support for M1-series desktops in December 2022 . But in a new update today, Apple also announced that it is making the self-repair process slightly less onerous.

The company will now provide a "postrepair software tool" called System Configuration that will handle the process of verifying that repairs were done properly, calibrating and updating the firmware of any replaced components and pairing TouchID and FaceID sensors with the device's Secure Enclave.

Previously, these steps required a call to Apple's Self Service Repair support team, which would run users through finishing the repair process. Apple says its team will still be on standby if home repairers need help.

Enlarge / The Surface Pro 8's replaceable SSD. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Microsoft offers first-party service manuals for several generations' worth of Surface hardware, in keeping with a commitment to improve its repairability and sustainability efforts. Today, Microsoft is taking the next step , listing dozens of replacement parts for Surface tablets, laptops, and all-in-ones on the Microsoft Store.

The screens, kickstands, batteries, keyboards, camera modules, and other odds and ends are available for the Surface Pro 8, 9, and X; Surface Laptops 2 through 5 plus the Go 2 and the Studio; and the Studio and Studio 2+ all-in-one desktops. Most of the major components are pretty expensive—the display for a Surface Studio 2+ is $1,750 all by itself—but they're cheaper than buying a new device, you won't have to pay for labor costs, and you can be sure you're getting genuine first-party components.

"When purchasing a replacement component, you will receive the part and relevant collateral components (such as screws if applicable)," wrote Microsoft VP Tim McGuiggan. "Tools needed for the repair are sold separately through iFixit. It is essential to follow the instructions in the applicable Microsoft Service Guide or article."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

In 2020, voters in Massachusetts chose to extend that state's automotive "right to repair" law to include telematics and connected car services . But this week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told automakers that some of the law's requirements create a real safety problem and that they should be ignored, since federal law preempts state law when the two conflict.

Almost all new cars in 2023 contain embedded modems and offer some form of telematics or connected car services. And the ballot language that passed in Massachusetts requires "manufacturers that sell vehicles with telematics systems in Massachusetts to equip them with a standardized open data platform beginning with model year 2022 that vehicle owners and independent repair facilities may access to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application."

At this point, some of our more security-minded readers might need to have a lie down because, yes, that language does essentially mean there would be no proper security controls preventing someone from remotely connecting into a car.

Enlarge / Minnesota's right-to-repair bill is the first to pass in the US that demands broad access to most electronics' repair manuals, tools, and diagnostic software. Game consoles, medical devices, and other specific gear, however, are exempted. (credit: Getty Images)

It doesn't cover video game consoles, medical gear, farm or construction equipment, digital security tools, or cars. But in demanding that manuals, tools, and parts be made available for most electronics and appliances, Minnesota's recently passed right-to-repair bill covers the most ground of any US state yet.

The Digital Right to Repair bill , passed as part of an omnibus legislation and signed by Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday, "fills in many of the loopholes that watered down the New York Right to Repair legislation," said Nathan Proctor, senior director for the Public Interest Research Group's right-to-repair campaign, in a post .

New York's bill, beset by lobbyists , was signed in modified form by Gov. Kathy Hochul . It also exempted motor vehicles and medical devices, as well as devices sold before July 1, 2023, and all "business-to-business" and "business-to-government" devices. The modified bill also allowed manufacturers to sell "assemblies" of parts—like a whole motherboard instead of an individual component, or the entire top case Apple typically provides instead of a replacement battery or keyboard—if an improper individual part installation "heightens the risk of injury."

Enlarge / An iPhone undergoes repairs. (credit: Apple )

Every time a new iPhone comes out, a team of technicians in the French city of Toulouse start to pull it apart. In the three years they’ve been doing this, they’ve found a device that’s gradually transforming into a fortress. Today’s iPhones are packed with parts that cannot be repaired or replaced by anyone other than an expensive Apple-accredited repair shop. And France doesn’t like that one bit.

It's a problem that’s been getting worse and worse, says Alexandre Isaac, CEO of The Repair Academy , the renowned research and training group that runs the Toulouse workshop. Every time a new iPhone is released, his team finds another part that’s been locked to work only with a specific Apple device. First it was just a chip on the motherboard, he says. Then the list of parts with repair restrictions stretched to Touch ID, Face ID, and eventually the battery, the screen, and the camera.