Nexus 6P Fares Horribly in iFixit TearDown Repairability

[dgstorm]

You may not recognize that smartphone above because it has been gutted and its innards put on display like a Halloween horror flick victim. You know what that means? It's iFixit teardown time!

This time it's the Huawei made Google Nexus 6P getting the iFixit teardown treatment. Sadly, it comes up far short with a miserable score of 2 out of 10 on their repairability scale. Here's a brief summation as to why,

Nexus 6P Repairability Score: 2 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)

• Solid external construction improves durability.
  
  
• Once the arduous opening procedure is complete, the battery is immediately accessible.
  
  
• It's very difficult—although not impossible—to open the device without damaging the glass camera cover. Because of the unibody design, this makes every component extremely difficult to replace.
  
  
• The display assembly cannot be replaced without tunneling through the entire phone. This makes one of most common repairs, a damaged screen, difficult to accomplish.
  
  
• Tough adhesive holds the rear cover panels and battery in place.

It seems like smartphones today are getting more and more integrated and much harder to repair. What does this say about the state of smartphone manufacturing? Is this is good thing? Bad thing? Is it simply the natural consequence of fancier aesthetic design?

Don't forget to check out the full teardown here: Nexus 6P Teardown

 

[badtoy1986]

I think it's purely a trade-off that you have to accept with nicer design. You can't make a removable cover with 0.0mm seems reliably. The phone isn't too bad once you get inside. Maybe they could have attached the screen assembly with the mobo to the back of the case with strong magnets like the iMac? I am not sure how that would affect the radios though. And that still takes up more space making a larger device.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I'll knock on wood right after I type this, but I've never had to replace a phone screen. I've never done any physical repair on a phone, actually. Aside from cleaning ports out, that is.

I agree that it's a trade-off. Their report flat out says that it's construction makes it durable, which, in turn, makes it difficult to take apart. It wasn't designed or built to be taken apart.

 

[cynkrzy]

Tell ya what, I don't think that's all bad. Warranty replacements might be new instead of re-furbished ???

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Tell ya what, I don't think that's all bad. Warranty replacements might be new instead of re-furbished ???

Idk if that's true. The guys who put them together in the first place might have a better idea of how to safely take them apart again.

Also, the fact that it's so hard to crack open should further settle your nerves. Big baby...

 

[cynkrzy]

OK - Ate some food, Took a couple of pics. That Versus case fits snug, was a bit of work to get off. Gonna go put the screen protector on it, then I'll post the pics. Calming down now....

 

[Mustang02]

OK - Ate some food, Took a couple of pics. That Versus case fits snug, was a bit of work to get off. Gonna go put the screen protector on it, then I'll post the pics. Calming down now....

Agh he was hangry. Gotcha.

 

[liftedplane]

so it has the Qualcomm SMB1351 Quick Charge IC (Likely an iteration of SMB1358 found in the Nexus 5X) which begs the question why the hell isn't this backwards compatible with the other quickcharge.

I seriously think it's a google thing in the firmware that's preventing the backwards compatibility. it could be a hardware issue. just a way to force you to buy more chargers.

 

[Mustang02]

It's a conspiracy for the charger companies. They want more money so Google said "hey, I've got an idea. Let's make everyone throw all their current chargers away and make them useless. You win, we win, its foolproof". (Spoken like someone on drunk history)