Last year the OnePlus 5 was one of the top scoring phones in our repairability
meter. Thanks to its lack of proprietary screws, a display held on by clips, and a
ton of modular components. This year we have the OnePlus 6, and it looks like
things have changed a little. On the outside there are no visible screws. And a
design similar to the Galaxy S9 with a hint of the iPhone 10. Which means that
there must've been substantial design changes since the last version.
What other changes are we in store for and how will this affect the OnePlus 6's
score? There's only one way to find out and that's to tear it down. The
OnePlus 6's opening procedure starts with the back plate. Heat it up. Use a
suction cup to gently lift the panel away, and insert a pic to separate the
adhesive. Once we've made it all the way around with our picks we can lift up the
backplate thanks to a generously long fingerprint sensor cable. Both the
fingerprint sensor and battery are connected to the motherboard underneath
a tiny little bracket that's held in place by a rubber stopper. We're happy to
report that the battery removal is super easy thanks to a handy green pull tab.
Even if the battery itself warns you that it's not removable This is a 3.85
volt, 12.70 watt hour battery. Which is a
slightly lower capacity than the Galaxy S9+ and the Google Pixel 2 XL.
The mid frame is held in place by a ton of Phillips screws and comes out
in two pieces revealing the motherboard, a small daughter board, and the dock connector.
Several cables are connected to the motherboard and then there's just one
screw securing it in place. While the 16 megapixel front-facing camera can be
lifted right out you have to lift the motherboard out to gain access to the
dual rear facing cameras. On the motherboard we can see the Samsung made
LPDDR4X DRAM which is presumably layered over the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.
and 128 GB of also Samsung made embedded universal flash storage. At the
bottom of the phone we find a modular headphone jack that lifts right out. And
another nice surprise is the modular dock connector. Pretty much all that's
left is the 6.28" samsung made AMOLED display which has a
resolution of 2280 x 1080. With our OnePlus 6 fully disassembled it's
time to talk repairability. The OnePlus 6 scored a five out of
ten and here's why. On the upside the battery can be accessed almost the
moment you open the phone, and is only lightly adhered in place. Plus there's a
convenient pull tab. Many components are modular and can be individually replaced.
All the threaded fasteners are of the standard Philips variety. On the
downside display replacement, the most common repair is not prioritizing the
design and will take a lot of work. Front and back glass means twice the
risk of cracks and you don't even get the benefit of wireless charging.
Finally the primary access point for all repairs is heavily glued in place.