Something I've been working on recently is collecting old and unused laptops from various people I know. Sometimes they're shitty Chromebooks that can barely be used but sometimes they're still perfectly good and recent laptops and people just got bored of them and decided to upgrade for whatever reason. I then put Linux on these laptops (even the shitty chromebooks) and distribute them to people at my college who need one.
With the date that Microsoft is stopping support for windows 10 approaching quickly, now's a great time to prevent e-waste by upgrading to Linux or collecting people's previous laptops as they upgrade. You can also get distributions that run better than windows on low-end hardware. Even if you don't know someone who needs a laptop, you can always do something like host a Minecraft server to make use of it.
Also, you can do this to phones too. There are plenty of custom ROMs you can load on Android phones to squeeze more life out of them. Let me know if you want recommendations.
Anyway, I hope that this can inspire more people to try and repurpose electronics to prevent them from becoming e-waste.
as others have mentioned the battery health thing is what makes phones difficult. im comfortable working on phones though so i usually offer them to people like "i have a pixel 3a sitting around that you can have for the cost of a battery". ive also got a 2nd gen kindle laying around that needs a new battery. considering hacking in a smaller cell if i have one. old ereaders usually cant connect to their servers anymore but that doesnt stop you from putting drm free epubs on them over usb
Heh, heh. I didn't know that people actually bought the books on kindles. It's ridiculously easy to get any book you want for free on them.
i'll never give amazon a single dollar for ebooks but i source tech for a lot of people who arent used to there being alternatives yet or think its still pretty difficult