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iFixit Tears Down the New Moto X, So You Don't Have To
iFixit's been breaking devices and voiding warranties for years now; latest on their chopping block is the new Moto X from Motorola, a phone hawked as much for its customizability and place of manufacture (the U.S.) as for anything else. You might expect a highly hyped, ultra-customizable phone to be made of high-end components and ultra-repairable as well. iFixit's teardown commentary has both some good and only-middlin' things to say about the innards, but very little bad. They call out the highly modular headphone jack, and say "a considerable amount of effort went in to the internal design of this device; the number of clips and contacts we've found so far is a great testament to that."
They do teardown reports all the time. The site is oriented to people who want to repair gadgets. So what they're showing here is largely how to take the phone apart. It's also interesting to those of us who want to know how things are made and what components are in our stuff.
...at least if Google/Motorola have done their Market research right. They have clearly created a phone that is easily put together, so you as a consumer can have a phone that matches your lifestyle (football team, car, personality or simply favourite colours), and Google still manages to assemble in America, with a JIT inventory and a 4 day turnaround.
That and the the fact that everyone from large companies to small individuals often don't throw things away when they do break. This may be against Apple/Microsoft disposable electronics, but many here would prefer to fix something than throw it away...Its fun and rewarding. I just took my current phone apart to swap colours from black to white.
The bottom line is this is a great phone; this is simply another feature.
Will you ever stop sucking Googles cock? It's a remarkably average phone
To put the Moto X some kind of perspective
The iPhone 5
==========
1.3Ghx dual-core CPU
GPU (three cores) @325 MHz
1GB LPDDR2-1066 RAM
4 in (100 mm) diagonal 640 × 1,136 pixels (326 ppi)
The Moto X
=========
1.7Ghz dual-core
GPU (quad-core) @400 MHz
2 GB LP-DDR2
4.7 in (120 mm) diagonal 1280x720 (316 ppi)
To put it in some kind of perspective it destroys Apples Flagship Phone. You are right though its not the fastest or has the most cores or is the largest *Android* Phone, but then it made the choice to focus on customising the phone and desirable features such as active notifications , focusing on what was important, and making an elegant phone...if they got their research right.
You are not wrong, I have seen many features things on for example Nokia phones before they became another "Designed in" company, but then I like the old features like hardware keyboard(back on the droid), waterproofing(On the latest Sony Z), IR (on the HTC One)....now where are those Internal FM transmitters.
That is a step backwards as far as i'm concerned.
The fact that it is easily replaced is the point of this article. You do lost the ability to "carry" a spare battery, but hopefully Motorola having a focus on battery life by using two separate processors to help improve battery life.
Only a fanboy will overlook at the fact that the specs are more of a requirement of the OS than actually something useful
Hold on there. A smart phone is more than an OS that is the point. The reason why Apple phones couldn't run Flash while Android phones could...is the something useful. The something useful is your first party...and your third party applications. Those specifications define how and what games can do. Apple already is missing out on whole countries worth of Applications...already fallen 100,000 applications behind Google, but it looks to be finding itself unable to run the latest games.
Having twice the RAM and a somewhat faster processor does little for you if you need 4X the RAM and 2X the CPU to operate with the same level of performance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Samsung manages removable batteries quite well.
Also, while most batteries can last for more than two years, they gradually decrease in capacity. Interestingly, people often blame software updates for the resulting decrease in battery life. By providing user replaceable batteries, it is possible to get back to full capacity and use the old battery as a spare. I did this for my last two phones.
As for Li-ion batteries that actually wore out and got replaced, it happened on 3 devices : an MP3 player, a laptop and a phone.
As for the safety argument, I don't buy it. Battery explosions are extremely rare and happen on genuine models as well.
I agree with you that most people don't bother with tearing down and fixing anything. But some others do, even if it is just for fun, and for these people, iFixit is great. Don't call something useless just because it is only useful for a limited audience.