The Samsung GALAXY S 4 flagship smartphone is now out and in the wild. Arriving on doorsteps and in reviewers hands this phone is finally here. In the usual fashion the folks from iFixit have a nice little teardown like they do with every device, and so far the GALAXY S 4 sounds pretty good. Finding plenty of plastic on the inside – just like the outside – but more importantly it scored high on repairability.
According to iFixit the Samsung GALAXY S 4 has tons of easy to replace parts that are all wrapped in plastic, easy to get to, and most aren’t glued or soldered in place. With 11 screws in total the device isn’t too difficult to work with, and their guide should enable most do-it-yourself types to fix things with ease.
Obviously the removable back and instantly replaceable battery and micro-SD slot for storage gave it huge points in that regard. A place where others fail, but then Samsung had a few things that weren’t too great that dropped the score down to 8 out of 10 – in terms of repairability.
If you break that gorgeous 5-inch 1080p HD display, you might have a tough time replacing it. The protective glass on the front is fused to both the display, and the display frame, which will make it difficult and increase repair costs. They also state you’ll have to break through and tear apart the entire phone to get to the front to replace the screen, since everything is built back-to-front.
At least the device is extremely easy to work with, and most components inside are modular and will be easy to replace should that sad day come when you break something. More details at the via below, and check out further S4 coverage below.
[via iFixit]
[device id=5332]
