We’re still no closer to being able to purchase a Nexus 6 from Google Play here in Australia, but in other parts of the world, the Nexus 6 is in the hands of users. iFixit has also gotten their hands on the new Nexus and in their tradition torn it to pieces to check out what makes it tick, and how easy or difficult it is to put back together.
The good news is that the Nexus 6 appears to be quite repairable, with modular components making the phone easy to repair. Also helping to make the phone a little easier to repair is the standard T3 screw used throughout, and it’s used extensively, which while its tedious to remove them all makes for a decently solid handset and lessens the need for more clips and adhesive to be used.
It’s not all sunshine and roses though, with some components soldered directly to the motherboard, which makes it more difficult to replace components such as the vibration motor, SIM Slot, Speaker and USB port. The digitiser is also fused directly to the display, so better be careful with those screens. Also not to iFixit’s liking is the battery which is glued in making it a little bit more difficult to replace.
Overall, the Nexus 6 scored a 7 out of 10, which is fairly decent though the 2nd Generation Moto X has yet to go through the same process at iFixit, so we’ll have to wait and see how it compares. We’d just like to get our hands on the Nexus 6 (or the Moto X 2nd Gen), hopefully we’ll see pre-orders on Google Play by the end of the month.
It will be interesting to see the bill of materials so we can see how much they’re actually making on each of these!
That doesn’t take into account a lot of things through. R&D, wages, factory to assemble, transport, software, customer support etc etc.