It's been a while since the release of the Essential Phone, but with the recent price
drop it's worth delving into and taking a second look.
My Essential Phone has been durability tested and dropped a few times to test the ceramic
back panel.
And while the screen isn't alive anymore, it's time to take this Essential Phone apart
and analyze it from the inside.
[Intro]
Rumor has it that this is a very difficult phone to repair and I found that to be true
– kind of.
It's one of those phones that's glued shut, which means that the screen is most likely
going to be sacrificed if you ever need to open it up to access the battery or charging
port.
But in my case, where the screen is already destroyed, I don't have too much to worry
about.
It came off just fine – since I wasn't trying to save it.
Prying isn't too dangerous to the internal components either though, cuz once the screen
lifts up, there's a large metal plate protecting the insides from damage – kind of like what
we've seen on the Pixel phones.
Heat is going to be your best friend.
Unlike the Pixel phones though, this Essential phone has zero replacement parts for sale...even
now, four months after its release.
There are 2 Phillips screws holding down the Lego-style connector for the LCD panel.
I would link to the replacement parts in the video description, but they don't exist, which
is unfortunate for anyone who breaks their phone or needs a battery replacement in the
future.
As Apple could tell you, batteries don't last forever.
Speaking of batteries, the battery is under this metal plate held down by 6 screws.
There's a cute little heat pipe on the bottom of the metal panel – not even close to the
monstrosity we saw inside the Razer Phone.
It's interesting that the back of the camera unit also gets to rest up against some copper.
I wonder how hot that gets.
The 3040 milliamp hour battery has a metal bracket over it's Lego-style connector, and
two magical pull tabs underneath holding it in place.
Thumbs up for those.
Now the rest of this phone is pretty unorganized, but I'll try to make sense of it all.
There are a ton of brackets holding down each of these little connectors – like this one
over the camera connectors.
And this one over the front facing camera.
And two screws hold down this clear plastic bracket.
Another screw over here for the volume ribbon bracket, and there's a little bit of black
tape over the loud speaker ribbon.
This just tucks into a latch style connector.
And, of course, the SIM card tray needs to be removed as well and the whole motherboard
can pull up and away from the phone body.
It's a bit disappointing to see the USB-C charging port soldered onto the main board,
making it not replaceable.
But to be honest, now that the charging ports are reversible, there are less physically
damaged charging ports from people accidentally plugging it in the wrong direction.
So an attached charging port is not as big of a deal as it used to be.
Still not ideal though.
The fingerprint scanner is replaceable, but no wireless charging anywhere to be found.
Dual rear facing cameras have 2 screws holding them in place.
I'll remove those and we get a close up look at the 13 megapixel lenses.
No wide or telephoto, and no optical image stabilization on this phone.
My 8 megapixel front facing camera popped out with the earpiece – kind of an interesting
looking contraption.
It's still kind of disheartening that no one will ever actually use this video to fix their
phone since replacement parts don't exist.
And the screen is most likely going to get obliterated during any removal process.
But at least we get to see the inside of the Essential Phone.
It's going to be a complex process to get this thing back together.
I'll start with the front facing camera, and the dual rear cameras, and the screws that
hold them both in place.
Before I set the motherboard all the way down, let's take a look at the loud speaker and
vibrator here at the bottom of the phone where the headphone jack isn't.
One screw holding down yet another bracket over the vibrator motor, which seems rather
redundant.
The loud speaker can come up from the frame.
It has some of that water resistant mesh covering the speaker hole.
It is nice of Essential to add a little bit of protection, even though the phone itself
isn't IP water-resistant rated.
Now that we've got those back into place we can get the motherboard situated.
With the ribbon cables plugged back in, the loudspeaker ribbon and it's little latch cable,
and the front and rear facing cameras get plugged in like little Legos.
And of course, all of their little corresponding metal and plastic brackets.
There are a total of 9 extra little bits and pieces inside of this phone holding it together,
making it one of the more complicated phones to repair this year.
The screws are different sizes as well, adding yet another level of complexity.
I wouldn't recommend repairing this phone to anyone...which is good because without
replacement parts available, it's going to be impossible anyway.
The next video you see on my channel will be the 2017 smartphone durability and repair-ability
awards.
2017 has been a great year, and I'm looking forward to all the sweet technology we'll
get to see the insides of in 2018.
The metal plate is back on the phone.
But since the screen is obliterated and there are no replacements available, it's not turning
on.
Hopefully Essential organizes their guts next year with the Essential 2.
Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already.
And thanks a ton for watching, I'll see you around.