Pixel Pro 6 is one of the best Android Phones you can grab right now. If its features, Google’s in-house processor, and the phone’s camera ability were not enough to lure you; a YouTuber Hugh Jeffreys has taken two Pixel Pro 6 devices apart and swapped parts to suggest the phone is also repair friendly. It is friendlier to repair and replace parts than most of the other flagships, including the new iPhones whose software prevents the cameras from being used if new parts are replaced.
Multiple claims previously have been suggestive that Google seems to have gone the Apple way, not just in terms of removing the charging brick from the box, but also by disabling camera functions if the phone parts are swapped. Jeffreys’ teardown of the Pixel 6 Pro however foils any such claim and proves that the Google phone’s cameras and all their modes – slow motion, video etc. – all work just as intended even after the parts of the two units of the phone were swapped.
The fairly easy to repair Google phone has the screen held firm against water and dust using an adhesive and the display is connected to the phone with a flex cable that’s easy to remove providing you access to the innards of the phone blocked by the heat-sink and graphite sheets. Reaching the battery requires removing many complicated components and the battery is attached to a simple sheet of plastic running under it. This can be used to pull out the battery but since it’s glued too firmly, plastic picks may be required to pull it out.
Interestingly, the main board of the phone is not particularly modular, the USB-C port, proximity sensor, and microphones are directly soldered to it and may make repairing tedious, but the phone’s wireless charging can be used even if the USB port happens to malfunction. Worth noting in the repair process is the glass back of the phone, which can easily break.
The wireless charging module of the Pixel 6 Pro is stuck to the back, which is similar to the new iPhones. Worth consideration here is the Tensor chip. It is a black rectangular chip and unlike anything marketed by Google, but what’s in the appearance; the chipset is a potent component of the new Pixel device and that’s what really matters.
In Jeffreys’ testing with the swapping of parts between the two Pixel 6 Pro devices, while everything worked just fine, the major hiccup was the in-display fingerprint sensor which failed. The same is however an issue well addressed by Google, which has released a calibration tool to recalibrate the sensor so it can work as intended.
