Today we’ll be tearing down the Xiaomi Mi6.
We’ll see if it really is splash proof and check out what it looks like with a clear
glass panel on the back instead of the black coating you see now.
Let’s get started.
[Intro]
As I mentioned in my previous video, there is an unfortunate lack of holes in this phone.
There is no headphone jack.
This makes the phone easier for Xiaomi to waterproof though, since water can’t get
inside a hole if it doesn’t exist.
The dual SIM card tray does exist though, and it has a very thin bead of rubber surrounding
the opening.
This is pretty darn similar to how Apple and Samsung have waterproofed their phones as
well.
In this shot we have the Mi6 on the left, the Samsung S8 in the center, and the iPhone
7 on the right side.
The Samsung has the most rubber, which hopefully makes a tighter seal, but all of the SIM card
trays appear to be pretty equal.
So the Mi6 is just fine in the waterproofing department so far.
We’ll have to analyze the other holes from the inside, so it’s time to remove that
back panel.
This is pretty similar to how the LG G6 with the Galaxy S8 work since both of those have
glass panels as well.
I’m going to take a bit more care with this one though since the Mi 6 has a curved glass
edge on every single side.
With enough heat and some gentle persuasion from my metal pry tool, it starts to come
off.
This might look easy on camera but the back is very very secure.
Speaking of secure, I go through a lot of phones on my YouTube channel, and setting
up my individual accounts on each new device is a pain.
But there is one app that makes it a little bit easier.
Dashlane reached out and wanted to sponsor one of my videos to make sure the phone got
the full teardown treatment.
So let me show you how it works.
Instead of trying to remember my passwords for every single app or online account when
I get a new phone, I’ll just sign into Dashlane and it will automatically bring up my passwords
and sign me into any app or website as I visit them.
It’s much easier than trying to remember everything myself.
And it’s totally free and, more importantly, totally secure.
They use AES 256 encryption.
So not even the employees who work at Dashlane can see your notes or passwords.
Because of this “trust no one” system, which I approve of, if you forget your master
password, literally no one can help you since no one has access to your account but yourself.
You don’t have to take my word for it though; Dashlane has been downloaded over a million
times from the Playstore and has over 50,000 positive ratings.
It works on iPhones and computers as well.
I’ll toss a link in the video description so you can try Dashlane yourself.
The app is totally free, but if you want the extra features, like backing up your data,
or syncing across multiple devices Ill leave a 10% discount code for Dashlane Premium.
Now that the glass panel is completely off, let’s try to make it clear.
There is no lamination on this glass; just one giant sticker that I assume is there to
hold all the glass together if it cracks.
The coloring is from paint on the inside of the glass.
After I spend several satisfying minutes scraping away at the glass, I realized it was going
to take far too long and I resorted to the same industrial paint remover you saw me using
on the Galaxy S8.
This managed to destroy most of the paint in a matter of minutes.
I did end up removing the camera lens as well because there was some color trapped beneath
the lens that needed removing.
That paint thinner is pretty strong stuff.
I’ll give it one last spray to get rid of the stragglers and set it aside so we can
do the actual tear down.
There are 16 screws inside of this phone.
They are all Philips head screws, but they are different lengths so you have to keep
them organized as you remove them.
A wrong sized screw in the wrong hole when reassembling the phone could damage the electric
components.
Then the top plastic can come off.
The black motherboard is pretty cool looking.
It looks like the diffusers from the camera flash might pose a problem for us later on
though.
The battery is the next thing to disconnect.
It’s always good practice to disconnect the power on whatever phone you are operating
on.
Luckily this battery does have those magical pull tabs…and hopefully there’s another
one.
Since we already removed the screws for the bottom plastic, it pops off easy enough.
Flipping it over exposes the loud speaker with its two golden contact pads as well as
the vibration motor.
It’s interesting that this is a rectangle vibration motor similar to the iPhones.
In pretty much every single other phone I’ve taken apart besides iPhones, the vibrator
is a circle, so that’s interesting.
The battery does have one more hard to grab magical pull tab, and once the adhesive is
removed from that side of the battery, a gently little pry of shame with the flat end of my
pry tool will pop out the other side since that pull tab is the one that broke.
The 3300 milliamp battery is released from the phone.
I’ll try to include any replacement parts I find in the video description.
To pop out the motherboard I’ll remove this signal wire, the two extension ribbons down
at the bottom of the board, and the volume and power ribbon on the left.
Each of these unsnap like a little Lego.
Another little screw on the right side of the board and the whole thing can be gently
lifted out of the frame.
On the back side of the board we have a thin white rubber snake that I assume is helping
the heat transfer from the processing chips to the metal frame of the phone.
The dual SIM card slot is not removable.
But all three of the cameras are held down by that same Lego-like connection we saw earlier.
This cute little guy is the 8 megapixel front facing camera.
And over here we have the dual 12 megapixel rear cameras.
One has the 2 times zoom on it for the close up shots without losing any image quality.
The normal lens on the left has the 4 access optical image stabilizing so the phone is
physically moving the lens inside of itself to compensate for hand movement.
The two times zoom lens moves a little as well, but that could just be part of the focusing
mechanism.
It doesn’t look like the extended lens has the full optical stabilization that the normal
lens has.
I’ll snap both lenses back into place, and the last cool thing that I want to show you
on the motherboard is the infrared diode for the IR blaster.
This is the same little doohickey that you’d find in a TV remote allowing you to change
channels and stuff.
It’s always a good thing when manufacturers include features you wouldn’t normally expect
on a smart phone.
Adding features is infinitely better than subtracting features.
Down here at the charging port we have the signal wire along with the fingerprint scanner
cable and the extension ribbon.
There is one Phillips screw holding it all in place, and then the whole charging port
can pull out of the phone.
Let’s talk about water proofing for a second since the bottom of the phone has the most
ingress points.
The holes on the right side of the charging port are for the microphone.
There is mesh screen blocking the holes as well as the rubber shield for the mic.
And on the left side of the charging port we have another mesh screen for the loud speaker.
This is the same type of screen we’ve seen on the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8, so I’d guess
that it would be just as good at keeping the water out as those phones.
The adhesive holding the screen in place is pretty strong.
Up here at the earpiece, another point where water could get inside the phone is the speaker.
This has a rubber speaker cone and the same water type mesh we saw at the bottom of the
phone.
So water shouldn’t be getting in this hole either.
So if all the holes seem to be water resistant on the Mi 6, why didn’t Xiaomi just IP68
certify this thing?
And I’ll tell ya.
It’s because of the charging port.
The charging port is not water resistant at all.
There’s no rubber ring around the edge and it’s not sealed along the back like we saw
with the iPhone and the Galaxy S7.
So if this phone ever gets wet or submerged, water has easy access to the whole phone from
inside the USB slot.
Xiaomi is really close to getting the whole phone water tight.
I imagine this Mi 6 is a practice phone and one of their next phones will start implementing
the full water resistance that we’ve come to expect in major flagships.
I would personally rate this phone as an IP64.
Any forceful splashes or immersion could very well kill the phone entirely, so be careful,
especially with that charging port.
But still, you got to hand it to them - some water proofing is better than no waterproofing.
So thumbs up for that at least.
Now for the display.
It’s glued into the frame of the phone and has to be removed with heat just like we did
with the back panel.
I’ll put links in the video description as replacement parts become available.
And now it’s time to reassemble this thing and see what it looks like clear.
The charging port gets set back into place along with the extension ribbon and fingerprint
scanner ribbon.
They all snap in like little Legos.
And then the round wire cable gets clipped in as well.
One screw holds the whole board in place and then we have the plastics.
This plastic holds both the loud speaker and the vibrator, so we need both halves.
Unfortunately this means we can’t show off the black circuit board at the bottom of this
phone.
The top motherboard is going to be hard to show off as well.
It has one screw holding it in place along with the volume Lego connector, the extension
ribbon and the screen ribbon cable.
They all get plugged in.
And lastly the little wire cable clips into that white water damage indicator sticker.
Before the top plastics go on though, the battery needs to be set in place and plugged
in.
I added one little strip of adhesive to help hold it in place.
Because of the way the flash diffuser is integrated into the plastics and the way the antennas
are much more intertwined into this panel, I’m going to leave it intact.
I wish the internal circuits would be more exposed and visible, but I think cutting through
this piece would incapacitate the phone more than it’s worth.
I’ll get the 16 screws back into place and we can finally start with that clear back.
Some of the clear double sided tape allowed the camera lens to sit back in place, and
I’ll put that same tape all around the outside edge of the phone to help keep the glass down
and to help keep dust from getting inside the phone.
The tape is pretty strong stuff.
I’ll firmly press the glass into place and it is finished.
I wish I could show off more of the circuits, but it is what it is.
You’ll have to let me know which of the clear phones I’ve made has been your favorite
so far.
Tell me down in the comments or over on Twitter.
I hang out over there quite a bit as well.
I’ll have a few more pics of this phone posted over on my Instagram.
Don’t forget to check out the Dashlane link in the description.
Big thanks to them for making this video possible.
And thanks for watching.
I’ll see you around.