Our friends over at iFixit have completed their much anticipated teardown on the iPhone 8, and it revealed a few surprises for Apple's latest smartphone.
iFixit carries out its teardowns on various electronic devices primarily to check how easy it would be for owners to perform repairs by themselves. However, users have also started waiting for iFixit's teardowns to know more about the internals of devices, including the details that companies such as Apple do not divulge.
Here are the most important things we learned from the iFixit iPhone 8 teardown.
iPhone 8 Repairability
Let's start off with the true purpose of the iFixit teardown, which is to determine the repairability of the iPhone 8. iFixit gave the smartphone a repairability score of 6 out of 10, with 10 being the easiest to repair, compared with the score of 7 given in the iPhone 7 Plus teardown.
The teardown found that the display and the battery, the two components that are most commonly replaced, are easy to access in the iPhone 8. The addition of wireless charging will also reduce the strain that will be placed on the Lightning port, which is another component that commonly fails.
iFixit, however, warned that the lower components of the iPhone 8 are hidden underneath a complicated tangle of brackets and flex cables. In addition, the glass back of the device appears to be very difficult to replace, so users should be very careful not to crack it.
iPhone 8 Battery
The iFixit teardown also confirmed that the iPhone 8 battery is smaller compared with the iPhone 7 battery, at 1,821 mAh with 6.96 Wh of power compared to 1,960 mAh with 7.45 Wh of power, respectively.
Apple fans, however, should not worry about shorter battery life for the iPhone 8. Apple claims that the new smartphone will feature the same battery life as its predecessor despite the smaller battery, primarily due to optimizations in iOS 11 and the energy-saving performance of the A11 Bionic chip.
iPhone 8 Quirks
Breaking down the iPhone 8's components also showed the design quirk of Apple making the new housing of the Lightning port match the color of the device. It does not affect performance in any way, but it does show Apple's commitment to making its products beautiful inside and out.
Lastly, iFixit discovered a mysterious chip in the device's display assembly. The purpose of the chip remains unclear, and at this point is probably the only thing that we still don't know about the iPhone 8.
