The Vergecast - A repair shop’s guide to surviving RAMageddon

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

It feels right now like prices are going up, gadgets are getting worse, and everything is getting harder to buy. Leo Mastrolia, the Digital Doctor and the owner of a repair shop in New Jersey, is seeing this all play out first hand. For the second part of our conversation (and the first part of our RAMageddon survival guide), he tells us what he’s telling his clients about fixing their gadgets, managing upgrades, and surviving a parts crisis. Further reading: Elon Musk made flying even worse so Palantir could profit Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods appear in leaked video Fairphone’s latest repairable phone is going on sale in the US Spirit in the machine Polaroid’s new Pokémon collection captures memories, not Pikachus Digital Doctor Repairs on YouTube Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of supplier websites. I'm your friend David Pierce, and today on the show is part two of my conversation with Leo Mistrolia, the digital doctor himself. If you didn't hear it or watch it yesterday, the first part of our conversation was all about Leo's journey. As a gadget repair person, as a creator, as someone trying to start a business in a time where repairs are complicated and lots of companies don't want you to do it. We talked all about his journey, his customers, the relationship that they're building with, their gadgets and with him and where all of this is headed next. Today, we're doing what actually we set out to do in the first place when we started talking to Leo, which is talk about Ramagaden. This is the first episode in a new series on the Vergecass. We are calling the Ramageddon Survival

Guide. The Ramageddon Survival Guide is designed to basically help us figure out what to do in this moment when after 20 years of all of these computer parts becoming cheaper and faster and more abundant everywhere and invading every product everywhere in our entire lives, this stuff is getting more expensive and harder to find at just unbelievable pace. So with Leo today, we're going to talk about how he goes about getting this stuff in order to help repair people's gadgets, what he tells people about when to upgrade and when to sell and how to get rid of their old stuff, how we, the users can start to take more control over our devices in that way and lots more. It's a great conversation, we're going to survive Ramagetan together, my friends. But first, here's

everything else happening on The Verge today. I'm Nathan Edwards, and this is 90 seconds on the verge for Tuesday, August 18th, 2026. Macrumors found a video in a MacOS beta that appears to show AirPods with cameras in them and refers to setting up visual intelligence with AirPods. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later. Apple's been rumored to be working on these for months, and Bloomberg's Mark Germann thinks they could launch as early as September. German also says they won't take pictures or video, but instead rely on low-resolution visual data, which sounds a lot like a picture to me. Darrell Campbell has a story on the verge today.

America's air traffic control system needs more controllers and better equipment. Instead, it got Elon Musk's doge, which made everything worse. And now the Trump administration has handed Palantir a series of no-bid contracts to implement AI into everything from runway collision avoidance to grant writing, and actually plans to reduce controller headcount even more. The Fairphone 6 Plus, which just got a 10 out of 10, repairability score from I Fix It is the first phone from the company to officially be sold in the U.S. It'll cost $650, and every part of it is designed to be repairable and upgradable.

I really hope it's good. I love the repairable trend from them and from framework and others. Also on the site, Google just paid $10 million for a bunch of Spirit Airlines business data, including spreadsheets, emails, documents, and teams messages so it can use it to train AI. I'm so excited for that. And finally, you can now buy a Polaroid camera that looks like Pikachu, so you can Take a Pikachu. You can read more at Theverge.com. That's 90 seconds on the verge for August 18th, 2026.

Our earliest childhood memories can feel so visceral. I have this memory of my mother standing on the beach, you know, the wind whipping her hair and her jacket, calling into the wind with my siblings out in the lake and the dam, you know, looming in the distance. But none of these memories were true. This week, Unexplained It to me from Vox. Why can't I remember being a baby? Hi, it's Kara Swisher. You know me as co-host of Pivot, but for August, I'm Flying Solo, and I've lined up some incredible guest host to join me.

Mark Cuban, Chelsea Handler, Caitlin Collins, and a lot more you won't want to miss. Already out, my conversation with Hillary Clinton. Among many other things, we get into redistricting fights, reshaping state politics, and what Trump's golden makeover of the presidency actually means. And it's not good. Trust me, you don't want to skip this one. Find Pivot on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Coming for a song. Again, Leo Mistrolia, the digital doctor,

what are you seeing right now in terms of how people are feeling about Ramageddon? Like, do people understand that prices are going up right now? Has it hit sort of the people you're talking to in the story every day? Definitely, definitely, especially with the younger crowd. I mean, people are looking at MacBooks and they're looking at the prices and they're like, this is crazy. a lot of the gamers, they're coming in. They're like, hey, I like, because I have a custom PC right in the store when you walk in.

They're like, that's a beautiful computer. Like, I love it. But, like, I want to upgrade my computer. And like, but like the prices of RAM and the graphics cards, like, everything's crazy. Like, it's better to buy a pre-bill. And, like, that's a lot of the issues that people are running into. They want to upgrade to newer tech, but they just simply can't afford it. Yeah.

What do you tell those folks right now? I say, you know, the main issue right now is the data centers, you know, buying up all the, all the computer parts and shooting prices to the roof. Yeah. And then also, when. When Samsung raises their prices, they use, you know, Apple uses a lot of Samsung parts with the chips and everything. So those prices go up too. So it's just across the board, I'm like, I tell them what it is what it is, unfortunately. That's just our life now is everything's going up. Yeah. And is it, are you finding that people are mostly coming in trying to, or even this maybe being talked into trying to make their devices last longer, that you're getting stuff that's kind of on its last legs or, you know, screen cracked or the. battery is starting to die or whatever. And folks who might a year ago have said, well, I already went to the T-Mobile store and bought a new one, are now saying, can I keep this alive for a couple more years? Yeah. So I always try to do what's best for the customer. If it's only a few years old,

I always tell them, hey, probably needs a new battery, just pop a battery in it. You're good. You save yourself the money. But if it's like an iPhone 7, and I'm like, the phone's been out for over 10 years. Sure. It has done its job. Just get a new phone, you know? And if you don't want to buy brand new, just go on back market or even Amazon renewed. It's honestly not bad. Pick up a renewed phone for three, 400 bucks, like a 13, and you'll be very happy. Right. Have you noticed devices getting more repairable? I think we've started to hear some noise the last couple of generations that as rights repair has become more popular as these laws have started to pass that, you know, the I Fixit scores are going, they're not going to 10 out of 10,

but they're going from like two to six. Are you noticing that in the shop? Definitely. I feel as though iPhones have been making some pretty good headway. iOS has been offering at least this self-repair program, so you can go on their website, get serialized parts sent directly to you. They also do have an option in settings that show you like a, it's like finished repair option. It calibrates the new part, which is super cool. But at the same time, Samsung doesn't give you that message at all.

You could swap a screen, battery, chargeboard, aftermarket OEM. And that's the cool part about Samsung is it gives you the ability to make your own decision as a consumer to fix your own thing and not have to worry about these stupid little caveats with the calibration and settings, you know? Do you think we're headed in a good direction there? Are we going to get more of that kind of user repairable stuff? I think part of the reason I ask is,

I think what has changed and what is kind of in the process of changing is that after a whole generation of basically trying to run stores like yours out of business, these tech companies are being required to embrace that they exist. Right. And I think the reexistence of the local repair shop, just as a place to go to figure out what's going on that isn't the Apple store, Apple would really like it to be the Apple store so that they can sell you more stuff. You're operating a different business that they are now having more and more to play along with. Yeah. And so I guess what I wonder is, is there a world in which the sort of right to repair movement is bad for business because it puts more things into the hands of users? Or is it just good for business because it lets you do your job?

Well, you've raised up a couple of good points, honestly, because I feel as though all of these companies, they do it under the guise of safety. You know, we say, well, we can't have you touch your own battery because what have you damage it or, oh, sorry, we can't have you work on this because we're, this is going to happen. Yeah, they're like, who's this guy, Leo? What does he know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's exactly how they think.

Now, the issue arises, though, when it comes down to, do you own what you bought? Or am I just using it? Because I think when you own something, you should be able to allow to take it apart. And that's the issue a lot of people have with these, like, Tesla's, for instance, they don't sell replacement bars. A lot of shops aren't Tesla certified in order to work on them. So a lot of the car world, especially because it's doing a weird merge with tech now, too. A lot of cars are turning into EVs. And it raises a very good question of like, all right,

if the consumer can't take it to an independent shop or fix it themselves, they kind of own the whole thing. And if you're forcing people to kind of go in that direction and like, all right, we want all EV cars moving to 2025 or 2050, whatever, you know, it raises a good question of like, what are we going to do moving forward? Like, are we just going to keep allowing these companies to bleed every last dollar out of us as consumers, or are we going to actually make a stand and be like, hey, we're not going to buy from you anymore. Do you find yourself having to explain that dynamic to people all the time? Because I think, again, especially with phones, we're just so deep into this phase where we kind of don't own our phones that I don't think people really think about it.

They're so important, and yet they're sort of disposable in a way. It's funny, too, because most people don't own their phones. You're absolutely right. I ask people a lot. I go, is the phone paid off? And I would say 90% of the time they say no. Interesting. Yeah. So the carrier still technically owns that phone because they're still making payments on it. Does that change the way you approach it?

Well, yeah. So if the phone's really damaged, they can't really go ahead and replace it because now they're stuck with that bill. If they owe $700 on that phone, they have to pay it off in order to get a new phone. Right. So a lot of people are getting stuck with their older phones, even though it might not be worth fixing just because, you know, they have that payment. Right.

Okay, so we've talked a bunch about phones, but I want to talk about laptops, too, because I think laptops, A, are a device people tend to want to keep longer, like you said. I think very few people willingly upgrade their laptop. You go until it's dead and then you get a new one. And B, a thing we talk about on this show all the time is that the single most important way to upgrade your laptop is to get more RAM. And so I would assume that one thing you have done for many people over the years is add more memory, add more RAM, and send them home. Yep.

Is that even a thing you can do in 2020? Like, can you, Leo, go out and buy RAM right now? Honestly, no. It's very difficult. I mean, there are sometimes they'll pop up on like my supplier's website.

You'll see DDR5 RAM. You're like, oh, great, let me buy some. Do you just have to like, you just buy as much as you possibly can as soon as it arrives? Yeah, just as soon as you can get a hold of it. That's crazy. But a lot of issues on iOS side is

it's Sododon. So like there's no real way to upgrade the RAM on Mac computers because everything's soldered on since like 2018 and up like they've been doing that. Soddering on memory, soldering on storage. And basically if one of those two components

craps the bed on you, you're basically SOL out of a computer. Like if you didn't have your stuff saved, you're screwed. One of the more egregious rate to repair violations out there, I would say. Oh yeah. No, I think so. We're not having removable storage is like the absolute worst.

Because if your computer goes dead, At least you can still recover the information. That's why I always let people know, no matter if it's a phone or a tablet or computer, just backup your stuff. Have a cloud backup and then also have a physical backup to a thumb drive, external hard drive. Because external hard drives aren't really that expensive anymore. Right. So what do you do now?

If somebody comes in, like my laptop is busted, a new one costs a billion dollars, particularly on the window side, which I think has traditionally been an easier thing to service and repair. What's your process now with a laptop? like that. So a lot of times I let them know about the costs and they're obviously not very happy about it. A lot of times I can just go through and just adjust some of the settings on the computer kind of make it run a little bit better. But when it comes to major hardware upgrades on computers, I don't think we've done a major one on laptops for like since this whole debacle started happening. Is part of the thinking just I could install more RAM, but it would cost basically what you

paid for the computer. Yeah. Yeah, you can get a pre-built, like, laptop, like a HPNV for like, you know, a thousand bucks, you know, and it's going to have not that much storage, maybe 500, 512 gigabyte storage and maybe like 16 gigs of RAM, but like it'll be all right, like for most people now. And then anybody that wants more performance-based stuff, they're leaning more towards Mac in my opinion. Yeah, that's fair. How are you thinking about getting parts like that these days? Like, I would assume, you know, again, you said that you have a supplier. Yeah. You buy things that you need.

You probably have a reasonable sense of how many screens you're going to need that week. I would assume that's actually getting trickier now that flip phones and foldable phones are kind of back. There is no longer sort of one shape and size of device. But then you throw in, there's a bunch of RAM available. It's unbelievably expensive. Am I going to take out a second mortgage on the shop to buy a bunch of RAM that people are going to need? It just seems like a hard time to buy and forecast need for anything like this. Yeah.

The simple answer to that is I just, I just, I just don't buy the ramp because it's way too expensive. And unless a customer comes in and they're like, hey, like, I absolutely want to get this fixed. Most of the time, they're not fixing it, to be honest with you. They're just not going to. And then when it comes to parts availability, a lot of the more expensive stuff, like the foldables, I don't carry that in stock just because the foldable screens are extremely pricey between $400 and $600 for the screen. And the main issue with those foldables is they start to delaminate on the foldable.

old where half the screen will just go black or turn green. And, you know, I let people know, like, hey, I can fix it, but I've had people have the phone for two months and it started doing that. Yeah. So I don't really trust. I'm like the most anti-foldable phone person there is just because I've seen them constantly with so many issues that I don't think it's worth it. Hey, what's up guys? It's Babish, host of In the Booth with Babish. On this week's episode, I sit down with Dominic Sessa, who plays Anthony Bourdain in the new A-24 film, Tony. We talk about getting into character as one of food's greatest icons, and of course, which castmates he'd fuck marry or kill. Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

People are big mad about data centers in the United States this summer, but don't sleep on how mad people are about flock. Flock cameras, if you haven't noticed them, don't worry, they've noticed you. You may have heard about them in your reels or on flock talk. I have never, in my life, been as pissed at the government as I am now to. that flock cameras exist. Americans are going to war against Flock AI surveillance cameras, and people are going around and literally sawing them down,

absolutely destroying them. An AI surveillance apparatus goes against the very essence of freedom and the core values of our country. It's not right, it's not conservative, and it sure as hell ain't American. The Flock surveillance cameras have popped up all over the nation every state but Alaska, but this year, dozens of cities and counties

across the country have cut ties with flock. And on today, explain from Vox, we're going to tell you why. Elon Musk and a lot of other very smart people think we're all going to have robots at our house any day now. But when you look at where the tech is today and how far it has to go, you might reach a different conclusion. This idea that humanoid robots are coming to live in our house and I went and explored that is just not true. That's Joanna Stern, the tech journalist who spent a year outsourcing her life to AI and robots. That's on channels, the show about tech and media and what happens when they collide, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Retailers want you to believe September is a fresh start that comes with a brand new shopping list, but the only thing back to school season really refreshes is their profits.

I'm Vivian 2, your rich BFF, and on this episode of Net Worth and Chill, we're breaking down how to save big this fall. Scoring tech for a fraction of the price with trade-ins and refurbished deals, the college money hacks that keep you from ever paying full price for a textbook again, and the parent-tested strategy. to outsmart every retailer trying to cash in on your kids. Everything from 529 accounts to student discounts, you can maybe milk a little longer than you should. We've got you covered. Ready to hit this school year with a fuller bank account and zero buyer's remorse?

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Okay. I'm going to make you play a game that you're going to hate. We're only going to play it for a couple minutes. Then I'm going to let you go. This game, I just decided, is called deal with it, fix it, or upgrade. Okay.

And I think particularly at this moment, moment in time. It's stuff is so expensive. We, we want things to live longer, but also you don't want to throw a bunch of bad money into an already outdated gadget, right? So I'm going to throw a bunch of gadgets at you. Let's assume these are all sort of mid-sized problems, like things that will cost me some money to fix, but it's not completely ruined. And I want you to tell me if I should just deal with it as long as I can, fix it or just go get a new one. It's not worth it. Sound good? Perfect. I'm excited for this, actually. Xbox Series X.

Pretty recent Xbox. Fix it. Okay. Same for PlayStation 5? Fix it. Are we talking about the day one PlayStation? Are we talking about like the PlayStation 5, like slam with a pro? Because the slim in the pro, I would say yes.

Okay. Now the base model, PS5, I would say probably upgrade. Okay. iPhone 17. iPhone 17, fix it. iPhone 16. Fix it. 15.

Fix it. 14. Deal with it. Interesting. Okay. Why deal with it and not fix it or upgrade? I thought you were going to say upgrade for 14. No.

Honestly, it's at that weird age where like, honestly, if you're having a minor issue, but it still like still works, no issue. Like, besides that, it still works, like, 99% of the time. I would say, just save yourself the money and just rock with it until, like, you just want to upgrade a new phone. Yeah. Do you get a lot of people with, like, lightly cracked screens that you're like, just go about business. It's going to be fine. Just deal with it. Some people come in with like light scratches and

they want a new screen for that. And that always blows my mind because I'm very much a person that like even if my screen's broken, I'll still use it until it's done. Like you can't use it anymore. The touch is like acting crazy. But there's some people that are very particular about their device and they want it to be pristine. I should confess to you that I'm one of those people. My iPhone 16. I mean within within two weeks of me getting it got just, I mean, the tiniest little scratch that you barely noticed. It certainly didn't cause any problems, but it was like I couldn't see anything else.

I couldn't see what was on my phone. All I could see was the scratch. It's only because it's the new factor. That's what it is. When you have something that's new, like if you buy a brand new car and you scratch it, you're like, I'm never on seeing that. But if it's like a 10-year-old car, you're like,

who cares, you know? Yeah. Do you have a screen protector on your phone? Like, I always wondered that with people. I don't have a screen protector because I put one on once and it took me so long and was so annoying that I just decided to never do it again. Did you have the annoying air bubbles in it?

Yes, it was awful. I spent so, it was again, it was like the trying to take the battery out of the phone. I spent so much time doing the very best that I could and never got it to my satisfaction. Well, next time you're in New York, let me know, I'll put one off for you. I'll get them on perfect.

All right, I have a couple more. Yeah. I have a four-year-old Windows laptop with eight gigs of RAM. Get a new one, upgrade. I think upgrade is probably the right answer there. And it's like upgrade right now before everything gets even more expensive.

A lot of people are actually switching to Linux now because Windows 11 just has so much blowed on it. It's such a bad operating system. Yeah, do you have a set of recommendations? I mean, I would imagine you get a lot of people who come in like you're talking about with the Android funds who are like, this thing is too complicated. I've caused this number of problems.

Everything feels bad. I don't like it. What do I do? Do you have a sort of road you guide people down of like here is the thing you can do to make your life simpler? I try my best, but the issue is all these companies have major issues. Like, Microsoft's really been dropping the ball the last couple years.

Like Windows 11 is the worst version of operating system I've ever experienced with all the copilot and all the unnecessary, like, animations and stuff that just slow it the hell down. And then they're really dropping the ball with Xbox now. I mean, they're having a lot of controversy right now in the media with a lot of the decisions that they're making. And they might even sell the Xbox after raising the prices. when it comes to companies using, like, the thing, you don't own anything when it comes to software anymore because every single company has taken advice

from the streaming companies of, hey, instead of buying a movie and, you know, you own it, they're all just letting you, you know, subscribe to it either month or yearly, like Microsoft 365. And then now the game pass. It's like they don't want you to actually own any of this media anymore. They just want to rent it to you and they make way more money in the long term.

And honestly, I think consumers have let this go on for, so long that I think people need to finally start pushing back about these endless subscriptions because it's bleeding Americans dry. Yeah, I think there is a real Linux thing happening right now for exactly that reason. And I think I am extremely curious to see how big that goes. Because it makes sense that there's a niche of people who are, you know, tech savvy and have the means and the interest in the time who are like, I'm going to invest in building this out. That's a very hard thing to ask of most people, including, I assume most of the people who come into the, the shop. But at the same time, the energy you're describing is real. I think most people feel

the way that you just said. Yeah, they're getting fed up with it for sure. Yeah, and they're trying to figure out what to do about that now. It's going to be really interesting. Okay, last one on the deal with it, fix it, upgrade it thing. And this one is impossible. It's just iPad. Because I would assume you get a lot of people coming in with an iPad. Walk me through the, what are we going to, what are we going to repair? What are we going to tell them to upgrade? What are we just going to send them home for? So it depends. I would say anything from anything too old, like an iPad Air 2 to like an iPad 8th generation. I would say don't fix it. Honestly, don't fix it. Unless it's for like a little kid, like a baby, toddler, a kid with autism that just needs something to play on and helps them like relieve stress, those can be really cheap to fix like between, you know, $50 and $80. So if they're constantly breaking it, I would say, Yeah, stick with those and fix them.

But if you want to like, you're just an average consumer and you want something that, you know, work on, definitely upgrade and get a new one. Now, the pros, I would say the pro 12.9s and the pro 13 inches, most of the time it's worth just upgrading and getting a new one because those parts, the digitizer and the LCD are fused together. So the screen costs on those are extremely expensive. I think even for the first 12.9.

nine, first generation that they release. It's like about eight years old now. The screen cross is still $400. So you could put that money towards a new device, you know? Yeah. So I would say anything that's too old, and then any of the errors, I would say from Air 4 and Up, fix, anything below that, don't even worry about it, just upgrade.

All right, that's it for the show. Thanks again to Leo for being here. And thank you, as always, for watching, and listening. If you have more thoughts, questions, feelings, again, I still have Leo's email. If you want to hit me up for gadget repair questions, I will burst the battery on your phone trying to pry it open. Leo presumably better. Hit up the digital doctor. Hit us up.

Fergcast at the verge.com. Call us on the hotline 866, verge 11. We love hearing from you. As a reminder, the best thing you can do to support all of this is to subscribe to the verge. Theverge.com slash subscribe. It gets you all of our podcasts ad-free, including this one. It gets you all of our exclusive newsletters. it gets you all of our coverage of Ramageddon, technology, everything.

Theverge.com slash subscribe. Best thing you'll ever do. Thank you, no chance. The Verge cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchak. We'll see you tomorrow. Rock and roll.