After the Nexus 6, which was hard to come by in the market, had some time to percolate in the public, iFixit takes it for its usual teardown tour. While the Nexus 9 was a rather disappointing misadventure, scoring a weak 3 out of 7 on the iFixit scale, there is no immediate reason to expect the same from this Motorola product. Fortunately, the Nexus 6 does not disappoint and provides an almost smooth ride, except for a few minor bumps on the road.
Nexus devices’ batteries are not replaceable, at least not in the normal way. So there is very little reason for Google’s OEM partners to spend money and design on making the back cover easily removable. And while the Nexus 6 is similar in that regard, it is notably a lot easier to open up. The back cover is indeed held shut by some amount of adhesive, but nothing that a bit of pick-powered coaxing can’t handle. No need to heat things up just to get the adhesive to yield. Removing the cover does reveal a literal impediment: a sort of cage that wards off intruders. No problem though because it is only held down by screws. No sticky substance, but lots and lots of screws. 22 standard T3 TORX screws to be exact.
Once done, the reason for so many screws is revealed. The whole device is split into two halves. The midframe (that has the cage) holds the battery assembly while the other half houses both the motherboard and the display assemblies. And again, most, but not all, are held together withs screws, and some with cable connectors and pressure contacts, but nothing out of the ordinary that would prevent easy removal. Except for the display assembly, where the digitizer glass and display are fused together.
All in all, the Nexus 6 makes up for the Nexus 9’s failure, scoring a 7 out of 10 thanks to the loads of screws, a single kind of screw at that, that makes the teardown process easier but also a tad tedious. The battery, though not exactly quick to get to, can be easy to replace. Why not the perfect score then? As usual, the marriage of display and touchscreen makes for a more expensive situation when either one gets broken. Plus, it seems that some components, like the SIM slot, USB port, and speakers, are actually soldered tight onto the motherboard instead of using cable connectors, making the repairs of those parts harder to do.
SOURCE: iFixit
The Galaxy nexus has a removable battery, and I wish Google would return to removable batteries. I passed on the 4, the 5 and I’ll be passing on the 6 as well. Google under estimates the removable battery as an attractive feature to many consumers. So, I’ll be off to find a new phone, not nexus unfortunately, with a removable battery.