iFixit tears down the HTC One M9, says it’s easier to open but battery still buried

iFixit is known for their smartphone teardowns, and today they published their step-by-step walkthrough covering how to disassemble HTC’s latest flagship, the One M9. They’re adding to the device’s already less-than-awesome reception with this guide, though, giving the phone a mediocre 2/10 repairability grade and bashing the way its internals were designed the whole way through.

iFixit found that the device seems to have a lower standard of quality control than is to be expected from HTC, with their device sporting scratches and dead pixels right out of the box. But then pulling out the torx screwdriver and the spudger was when things got bad. Repairing the device was a dreadful process, as the phone features a glued-down motherboard, a soldered-down vibrator, and an LCD held down with adhesive.

The teardown is actually pretty comical and worth a read…

When it comes to other things happening lately in the HTC world, you might be interested to know that the Taiwanese company yesterday announced their HTC One M8s smartphone for Europe, and made the HTC One E9+ handset official in China last week. If you want to know more about the One M9, be sure to check out our video comparing it to Samsung’s Galaxy S6.