iPhone X Teardown Reveals L-Shaped Dual Battery, Miniaturized Motherboard

iphone x

Apple is famous for coming up with clever engineering tricks to cram more components inside a smartphone. The new iPhone X with its edge-to-edge display and compact front-facing camera cluster presented some unique challenges, though. As is tradition, iFixit has pulled the latest Apple gadget apart to see what makes it tick. The phone disassemblers have discovered some wacky things in the new iPhone, including an L-shaped dual battery and a folded-over logic board.

Past iPhones have gotten low marks for repairability from iFixit, and part of the problem is the company’s insistence on choosing non-standard screws to keep people out. This phone uses a combination of tri-point and pentalobe screws, plus adhesive to ensure the phone is water-resistant. Once the chassis is opened, it’s clear the iPhone X has some new tricks up its metal and glass sleeve.

Most of the internal volume is dominated by the battery–actually, batteries. There are two separate lithium-ion cells connected in an L-shape. Apple is notoriously light on spec sheet details, but the capacity of these cells together is reportedly 2,716mAh. That’s slightly more than the iPhone 8 Plus (2,691mAh), but that phone is a little bit larger. Apple really packed in all the battery it possibly could to power that big OLED panel. Even so, reviews say the iPhone X’s battery life is a little weaker than the iPhone 8 Plus.

, iPhone X Teardown Reveals L-Shaped Dual Battery, Miniaturized Motherboard, #Bizwhiznetwork.com Innovation ΛI

iPhone X hardware. Credit: iFixit.

Part of making room for that battery was shrinking the logic board of the phone. After freeing the board from the phone, iFixit noted it was only 70 percent as large as the iPhone 8’s board despite having more components. Apple basically folded the board over and soldered the two halves together. It’s a fascinating way to save space inside the phone, but it also means repairs to the logic board are virtually impossible. If something goes wrong there, it’ll probably need to be replaced. it probably the most expensive part of the phone as well.

In general, Apple’s miniaturization techniques don’t have as much negative impact on repairability as they once did. The goal of iFixit’s teardowns isn’t just to let us ogle the inside of a phone, it’s supposed to tell us how easy a device is to repair. In this case, the iPhone X got a respectable six out of ten. That’s the same score Google earned with the Pixel 2 XL and a little better than Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 at four out of ten.

Top image credit: iFixit

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