JerryRigEverything managed to get his hands on the Pixel 3 XL, and he has decided to disassemble the device, in order to give us all a better idea to what lies on the inside, and whether the scratches on the phone’s back will go away. Those scratches, for those of you who do not know, the phone received during the durability test. In any case, the first thing you need to do when disassembling the Pixel 3 XL is to apply some heat on the back, then get a suction cup, attach it to the back of the phone, and pull a bit… you will need a razor blade or something of the sort to cut the adhesive around the phone’s backplate at this point, but be careful not to push that razor blade too far to the inside of the device in order not to cut something, like the fingerprint scanner ribbon, for example.
Once you open up the device, you will notice the wireless charging plate, and a separate NFC chip. Interestingly enough, Google actually included a small white sticker on the inside of the device which will indicate when the phone has been in touch with water, for warranty’s sake. In any case, once you remove the side rail which is holding the battery in place, you can unclip it along with a wireless charging plate. Now, removing the battery is not an easy process, you will need to remove two stickers which are holding it on the top, and then apply some heat to it, before you finally get down to prying it out using force. At this point, you can remove plates that are applied on top of the components on both the phone’s bottom and top, which will reveal the phone’s speakers, mainboard, and so on. You can check out the entire procedure in the video that is embedded down below, just in case you need to open up your Pixel 3 XL.
Having said that, JerryRigEverything did try to remove those razor blade scratches from the back of the Pixel 3 XL, as some other people managed to do it. Unfortunately, he was not able to do it, as these razor blade scratchers are much deeper than regular scratches from your daily use. He tried using soap, water, and a toothbrush, after that didn’t work, he tried his luck with a welding brush… but that didn’t help either.
Background: The source already made a clear back or the Pixel 3 in a previous video, in case you’re interested in doing that yourself, and this teardown did reveal quite a bit of info regarding the internals of the Pixel 3 XL. The Pixel 3 XL was announced earlier this month along with its sibling, the Pixel 3, and unlike the Pixel 3, the Pixel 3 XL has a rather large notch on its display, taller than basically any other notch out there. These two phones look the same on the back, though, so removing deeper scratches made by steel on the Pixel 3 will prove to be just as difficult. The inside of the Pixel 3 is a bit different than the inside of the Pixel 3 XL, though, as Google had to use a different approach here considering that the Pixel 3 XL is a larger phone. Both devices are fueled by the same processor, both sport the same amount of RAM, while both come with the same camera setups as well. Google has actually opted to include two cameras on the front this time around, and only one on the back, and if you’d like to know more about these two phones, check out our full review.
Impact: This teardown did not reveal any ground-breaking news, though, all the officially listed components are in there, and the biggest surprise is the fact that the battery is rather difficult to remove from the device, and the fact that Google include that small piece of paper to indicate when liquids have entered the phone. Both of these phones are already available for purchase, in case you’ve been looking to get one.