It really depends on what exactly is broken. If it's a BGA chip, it's much easier to just replace the whole board, because almost no one has the facilities or

It really depends on what exactly is broken. If it's a BGA chip, it's much easier to just replace the whole board, because almost no one has the facilities or expertise to replace BGA packages on a board correctly. If it's a connector or a capacitor, you can do that with a soldering iron if you have some skill. If it's some little 14-pin SOIC package (with 0.5mm pin spacing) and you have a hot-air rework tool, it's trivial to replace it. Of course, most hobbyists don't have hot-air rework tools (they're not expensive though).