The Nexus 6 is the new flagship device from the Google-Motorola collaboration. It is being touted as the iPhone 6 Plus's sibling from an Android mother. Recently, the device was tested for a teardown by the folks from iFixit. The move has resulted to some additional finds on the device and an impressive repairability score of 7 out of 10.
Prior to performing the teardown, the group gave an overview of the specs of the Nexus 6 phablet. The device sports a 5.96-inch display with 1440 by 2560 resolution at 493 ppi. It runs on the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop, a Quad core Krait 450 CPU of 2.6 GHz, Adreno 420 GPU, and a RAM of 3 GB. Internal storage is set at either 32 or 64 GB. It also has a non-removable 3220 mAh battery, rear-facing camera with Optical Image Stabilization at 13 MP, front-facing camera of 2 MP, and a slew of connectivity options such as NFC, Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11ac 2x2 (MIMO).
Next, the group noted the device's physical attributes including the location of the headphone jack and the nano SIM card slot which are both decked at the top part of the phone. Other observed features include the Micro USB port and the FCC markings found on the device's bottom part and its back side which is relatively jargon free.
In the third step, the team compared the Nexus 6 with the iPhone 6 Plus in terms of dimension and learned that the former has more screen real estate than the latter. However, the Nexus 6's measurement of 82.98 mm by 159.26 mm by 10.06 mm earns for it a slightly larger chassis compared to the iPhone 6 Plus which measures at 77.8 mm by 158.1 mm by 7.1 mm.
The team continued with their prying and had reached at least fifteen steps in the teardown. After they had successfully opened the Nexus 6, the team learned that the device is made up of components that come from an array of makers. These include the SK Hynix, which is responsible for the 3 GB of RAM found in the device; Qualcomm, which is the maker of the device's Snapdragon 805 processor and the one that handles its modem and power management; and SanDisk, which provided the device's 32 GB of flash storage.
The phone's repairability score, wherein the score of a perfect 10 would mean that it is the easiest to repair, may be credited to the fact that the device use pressure contacts and cable connections. These allow easy and painless replacement of the headphone jack, buttons and cameras. Moreover, the Nexus 6 can be 'screwed' open using only a single screw type which is significant as there were at least 22 screws found that were holding the device together. Still, screws are so much better compared to clips and tons of adhesive.
