If you’re the type that likes to poke around inside smartphones’ guts, but don’t have the time or want to risk your great new device, the internet will normally have you covered. Teardowns of just about everything from new phones to laptops and even TVs are available these days, and the new OnePlus 3 is no exception. Coming to us courtesy of FoneArena, a new video shows the phone being treated to a full teardown, with all of the components separated the most they can be without damaging anything and showing off a fairly secure set of innards that may give repair novices some trouble, should they end up attempting to replace a part or two.
Two screws on the bottom will give way to prying off the metal back cover and rim together, somewhat like an iPhone. Those looking to access the non-removable battery will have to contend with two ribbon cables protected by a metal plate. Diving deeper from there, the phone becomes a veritable mess of cables and parts, where a slight misstep with a pry tool or missing a small screw or flap before removing a ribbon cable or component could send you scrambling off to eBay in short order. The repairability score assigned by FoneArena staff after going through the teardown is solidly past average territory, approaching expert. Make no mistake, this is not a phone you want to take apart if you don’t have experience doing such things.
All that said, the connections all looked very solid and well sealed and protected, meaning that the need to ever disassemble the phone could be a moot point. While a clumsy user could easily crack the screen, and likely end up headed to a repair shop in the process, just about any other possible repair is pretty unlikely to come up, so long as the user follows common-sense care procedures with the device. While it’s not a rugged device by any means, it’s incredibly well built and put together, with some amazing attention to detail, and won’t disappoint those looking for a phone with build quality that puts modern flagships to shame.