iFixit has taken the Essential PH-1 apart, in its latest teardown, and found out that it’s going to be pretty tough for DIY-ers to repair any part of this phone themselves. iFixit gave the phone a repairability score of just 1, on a scale of 1 to 10. Which is its lowest score possible, and also the first time a phone has scored so low. What iFixit did find was where Essential hid all of the regulatory information for the device. Remember, there’s no regulatory information on the Essential PH-1, nor any logos. So instead, Essential has hidden the regulatory information just above the SIM card slot. iFixit also noted that the tag doesn’t actually come out all of the way.
Getting into the phone proved to be a bit of a hassle for iFixit, with the team taking the back off – only after quite a bit of trouble with heat, then going to cold to get it off. But it turns out to get to the inside of the phone, you’ll need to pop off that display. Definitely not a good idea for those that need to replace the battery quickly. Even after prying the display off (and basically totaling that LCD display), the internals are still pretty safe guarded, according to iFixit. Who also says that their Essential Electronics Tool Kit isn’t enough to get into the Essential Phone. Once you’re finally inside, you can see all of the different parts of the Essential PH-1, just as you’d expect, with the battery taking up the majority of the internal space.
Once inside, iFixit finds all of the internals you’d expect to see. Including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, the Qualcomm WTR5975 gigabit LTE transceiver and many other parts inside. The cameras are also pretty easy to take out – with the front-facing camera being a bit tougher than the dual rear cameras. Overall, the Essential PH-1 doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to actually get into, once you get either the back or the front off and then crack into the rest of the phone. It’s a bit of a weird thing for Essential to do, especially since that likely adds more space that could be used for other things. But it’s still a good idea to send your phone into Essential if anything ever does go wrong and needs fixing. As this one is going to be a hassle to get into.
