The teardown masters at iFixit pulled apart the Google Pixel a couple weeks ago to reveal a little bit of expected HTC branding on the inside, and now they’re back at it again with the Google Home. This time the biggest finding is just how easy this thing is to repair, getting a score of 8 out of 10 — which is notably better than most smartphones these days.
With the new Galaxy Note 7, Samsung built on top of the earlier success it had with the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. An iFixit teardown of the phablet reveals many of the same internal components as the S7 and even slight improvements in repairability.
With a dual-camera system that takes good pictures, the Huawei P9 is an excellent hardware showing from the company. As usual, iFixit has a teardown of Huawei’s flagship and reveals an easily repairable device with modular components and easy access to the battery.
While Samsung continues to make their phones harder to repair, LG’s devices remain relatively easy to fix. Modular internal components play a large part in iFixit giving the LG G5 the same repairability score as the G4 before it.
An as-yet-unpublished report from IHS has revealed that Samsung pays around $255 in component and build costs per Galaxy S7 unit. As noted by Re/code, that’s pretty much the same as it cost Sammy to build the Galaxy S5 a couple of years ago, clearly indicating that high-end materials are dropping in price.
Earlier this week we got our first peek inside the new Galaxy S7 as our friends over at iFixit did their normal teardown of the device. Today, the repair guide site gives us a look inside the device’s sibling with a teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
There are plenty of different comparison points between this year’s Nexus phones, and in most of them the Nexus 6P is simply superior. The Nexus 6P has a larger screen, a more premium build, a better camera, and more powerful internals. But there’s one area that we now know that the Nexus 6P is clearly the loser. When it comes to repairability, the Nexus 6P is one of the worst phones ever, getting a score of just 2 out of 10 from iFixit…
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As usual, iFixit has cracked into the latest Nexus device, Google’s Nexus 5X manufactured by LG, to give us our first look at the insides of the device and some insight into just how repairable it will be for owners.
Google’s Android team already filled us in on why it left out Qi Charging on the new Nexus devices (the reversible USB Type-C included is simply more efficient, it said), but we didn’t get an answer on why it didn’t take advantage of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology. It turns out the device actually includes a chip that supports the feature, the Qualcomm SMB1358, Quick Charge 2.0 IC, as confirmed in the teardown earlier today. And Qualcomm supports the Nexus 5X’s new USB-Type C connector, so it’s still a possibility the feature could be enabled for the device in the future.
But apart from getting a look inside of the device for the first time, the teardown doesn’t reveal many details we didn’t already know. It does, however, show that Nexus 5X is easily repairable compared to much of its competition with a score of 7 out of 10 meaning most components of the device will be easy to swap in and out or fix. The one downside iFixit noticed included a fused display assembly, which it noted means the “glass and LCD will need to be replaced together if one or the other breaks.”
The positives include the fact that several components “are modular and can be replaced independently,” according to iFixit, and that a standard Phillips screw driver, and not proprietary tools and parts like other devices, is all that’s necessary to open the device.
You can check out iFixit’s full tear down here.
iFixit’s 2015 Chromecast + Chromecast Audio teardown
Two years after the original Chromecast HDMI streaming stick, Google decided it was ready last week to unveil the sequel with a redesigned and more capable 2nd-gen Chromecast as well as an entirely new product for streaming audio to old speakers called Chromecast Audio. Readily standing by, the folks over at iFixit have already picked up and torn apart both new streamers. Both look remarkably similar on the inside at first glance, and iFixit has some praise for how Chromecast handles HDMI this year…
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Google released version 1.5 of Google Photos for Android last week, and there weren’t any notable user-facing features. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any additions at all in the new app — these updates very often lay the groundwork for features set to launch in the near future. Cody Toombs pulled this update apart himself, revealing that Photos is preparing for quite a few new additions including album collaboration, people labeling, Chromecast support, and more…
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I’m sure by now, you’ve all heard about Samsung’s “design flaw” with the Galaxy Note 5. If you stick the S Pen in backwards, which you should obviously NOT DO, it will get stuck and in most cases damage the S Pen detection mechanism. Please don’t do this. It’s not a fun experiment and you will likely ruin your $800+ smartphone to a point where it’s not fixable. Seriously. Just don’t do it.
On that note, I was curious to find out why this permanently damages the Note 5, so in the name of science I decided to do some research. Thanks to my friends over at uBreakiFix, we now have some pretty interesting teardown photos of a Galaxy Note 5 that suffered from this issue and an explanation on exactly what happens when you stick the S Pen in backwards…
This year’s Android flagships have really gotten the beating from iFixit. The group gave the HTC One M9 a 2/10 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 a slightly-better 4/10, just as two examples. But the LG G4, which many believe to be the best Android handset introduced this year as of yet, seems to have an advantage in terms of repairability as well. At least partially due to the fact that it’s one of the only handsets left that has a removable back, iFixit has graced LG’s flagship with a repairability score of 8/10.
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The disassembly pros at iFixit are at it again, this time tearing down the LG Watch Urbane. LG’s latest entry into the Android Wear space is considered by many to be the fanciest and nicest smartwatch available, but now it looks like we have the authority on device teardowns confirming that it’s also going to be pretty easy to pull apart on the off chance you’ll need to fix it yourself.
iFixit has been hard at work tearing down the latest round of Android flagships, and following last week’s pull-apart of the HTC One M9, we now have a look at the inside of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. Smartphones in general have been breaking records for difficulty in repairability, but it seems that this year’s phones in particular are especially a pain, and the S6 edge is absolutely no exception. In fact, the S6 edge is taking a two-point hit in repairability compared to the S5…
The Samsung Galaxy S6 was only recently announced at the beginning of this month, but at least one person seems to have already gotten their hands on the device and given it the teardown treatment. Smartphone teardowns have definitely gotten more difficult as components continue shrinking and device designs have gotten sleeker, and based on this video, the Galaxy S6 is no exception…
You can find the full teardown over at iFixit (a site well-known for their comprehensive device disassemblies), but this one is a community contribution. It supposedly only takes 12 steps to take apart, but the guide is definitely an over-simplification if you have no experience tearing these devices down. Just removing the back of the S6 would probably be a challenge for the faint of heart.
You can check out the full teardown video below:
Following its ritual teardown of the Google’s new HTC-made Nexus 9 tablet earlier this month, today our friends over at iFixit have torn apart Google’s new Nexus 6 smartphone made by Motorola. While the Nexus 6 scores a decent repairability score— 7 out of 10, which is on par w/ the new iPhone 6 Plus— it does have some shortcomings that you’ll want to be aware of before cracking into your phone for repairs.
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Google’s all-new Nexus 9 announced last month has already been through an unboxing and overview video, hands-on review and head-to-head comparison with the iPad Air in the past few weeks, and now the HTC-made tablet has undergone a full hardware teardown courtesy of the team at iFixit. Take a closer look inside the Nexus 9 after the break.
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Sony has yet to officially announce an Xperia Z3 smartphone, however that hasn’t stopped the leaks from coming. Expected to debut next week during IFA, alleged teardown pictures of the device have surfaced, giving a closer look at what we might be seeing in a few short days. Rumor has it that Sony’s next premium smartphone will feature a 5.3-inch 1080p HD display, a Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a 20.7-megapixel rear-facing camera.
Have you been wondering what makes Google’s 3D mapping Project Tango tablet tick? The tinkerers at iFixit have managed to get their hands on the device and performed a little exploratory surgery on the device in the name of science. According to the DIY repair site, some of Project Tango’s entrails resemble Microsoft’s Kinect motion tracker, which kind of makes sense.
A OnePlus One in the wild is about as rare as a household connected to Google Fiber, but despite how uncommon these two occurrences are, they’re very much real. In the case of the former, the folks at iFixit have managed to get their hands on the elusive smartphone and dismember it in the name of science. This exploratory surgery pretty much uncovered what we’d expect to see: 3GB of Samsung-made RAM, a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 801 CPU and a pair of cameras (5 and 13-megapixel) designed by Chinese manufacture Sunny Optical Technology.
LG recently revealed its new top-shelf smartphone to the world and while the company talked up its latest handset’s bells and whistles, we’ve yet to see what really makes the G3 tick. Enter the folks at uBreakiFix, who’ve managed to get their hands on the device and tear it apart. Aside from completely revealing the phone’s hardware, this exploratory surgery helps determine the G3’s repairability.
Hints of new features have been found in the just-released Google Camera app. The APK — which was put under the microscope by Liam Spradlin of Android Police — contains references to an Advanced Camera Mode, Time Lapse Mode, and Wide Angle Mode. Additionally, Google has confirmed that the Camera app now captures Photo Spheres in 50 MP, making for a major upgrade in image quality.
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The folks over at iFixit showed off just how repairable Samsung’s Galaxy Gear 2 smart watch is earlier this week, and today the site has shared its teardown of Samsung’s Galaxy S5 smartphone. The verdict? Smart watches are easier to repair, but so was Samsung’s Galaxy S4. For comparison, the site rated both the Galaxy Gear 2 and the Galaxy S4 with an 8 out of 10 for ease of repairability. Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone was rated at 5 out of 10 by iFixit (which is more in line with Apple’s latest smartphone as the iPhone 5s was rated at 6 out of 10 by the site)…
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Chipworks managed to get its hands on a Galaxy S5 ahead of Samsung’s new flagship handset officially going on sale on 11th April, and has been taking a look inside. The model it obtained was a Korean one, thanks to several carriers releasing it early. We’ve also noted third-party suppliers on Amazon advertising it as available in 1-2 days.
While Chipworks has only just begun its analysis, it does provide a sneak peek of the innards, together with a steer on three of the elements it plans to examine in detail: the fingerprint sensor, heart-rate chip and camera sensor.
The company says that the fingerprint sensor is split into two parts, a touch sensor embedded in the home button, and a second part connected to the touchscreen. It isn’t yet clear whether the screen simply detects a touch and switches on the sensor, or whether data from the touchscreen forms part of the identification process.
