Amazon Fire Phone is officially out for general consumers, exclusively for AT&T though, who have wanted to get their fingers on the device, after having been in a pre-order status for some time. Question is, is it worth the wait?
To test if the Fire Phone is even easily repairable, iFixit conducted what it calls a teardown of the first smartphone of Amazon.
“We had high hopes that Amazon built a solid, repairable Fire Phone,” iFixit said in an emailed statement to Tech Times. “However, all of the fancy tech we found inside made for a veritable mess of cables, connectors, and glue.”
As a free repair manual online, iFixit explained that it started the teardown using the same opening procedure applied to the present crop of Apple’s iPhones, but with Torx T3 screws rather than Pentalobes. The teardown and repairability scale resulted in a score that is three out 10. The only positive thing noted was the opening procedure.
The iFixit team was able to tamper the sticker that connects the front assembly and the rear case, proving it has opened the phone for tinkering. The process was described as simple and free of adhesive.
After a minute of tinkering at the Fire Phone’s adhesive and right after the adhesive pull-tab was taken off their hands, the battery already separated from the phone. Amazon said its 2400mAh battery lasts for up to 285.5 hours on standby, a talk time of 22 hours and Wi-Fi web browsing for 8.5 hours.
iFixit also examined how the phone knows where the mug is to create a fancy 3D effect. First, it identified that the phone has four IR projectors with one close to each corner of the smartphone, which emits invisible infrared rays at any time the user is staring at the smartphone when the display is turned on. Second, there are four IR cameras taking hold of the information, which is also found at each corner of the smartphone.
It says the Amazon phone “rectangulates” the position of the user, then assuming a human face right in front of the phone display, before making its magic right there in real-time.
The smartphone’s front-facing cameras are firmly attached in its place, iFixit said, with the phone features relying on careful calibration so that everything is kept well together. While this sounds good, it would require cutting and heating when there’s a need to repair the phone, making it real tedious. Not to forget that there’s much work to be done when the cameras need replacement or transfer.
In short, there’s just too much going on inside the Amazon Fire Phone, which would give your handyman a real headache before it gets repaired. Check out the full iFixit teardown review here.
