The new Razr is crazy thin. From bottom to top: The glass, display, motherboard and motherboard chips. On top: A U.S. quarter coin. How’s that for thin?
Motorola Droid Razr launched today on the Verizon Wireless network as one of the three flagship smartphones in their portfolio. It only took hardware experts over at iFixit a few hours to tear it apart and peek under the hood. Their teardown analyst revealed the biggest downfall, repairability-wise: Its ultra-slim profile.
The Droid Razr measures at a mere 0.28 inches at its thinnest part, increasing to 0.42 inches at the prevalent bulge which houses an eight-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel one out the front. The device has very little space inside for the components so engineers had to work around this by fusing the AMOLED display to the front glass. Careful: Shatter the front glass and both the display and glass cover have to be replaced as one pricey unit.
Likewise, the innards are glued together and pretty much everything is on one side of the logic board, another feat enabling the “impossibly thin” profile. There are two liquid damage indicators, one on the bottom and the other on the right side (be careful with holding this phone in sweaty hands). A 1750mAh replaceable battery provides over 300 mAh more capacity than that of the iPhone 4S. Compared to the original 2004 Motorola RAZR V3, the Droid Razr has a 1070 mAh greater capacity. However:
It’s quite the ordeal for removing the battery, but at least you don’t have to rip apart the entire device. Instead of the traditional battery connector socket or soldered wires found in other phones, the Droid RAZR utilizes contact points for its battery connector.
Right past the break: The full list of chips and Motorola’s making of video revealing the secrets behind how they made the Droid Razr so thin. Also, stay tuned for our Razr review, coming later today…
The back plastic cover is mated with the woven Kevlar so it’s very flexible.
