LG G4 teardown reveals a flagship that is very easy to repair

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Published 8 Jun 2015

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LG G4 teardown

The folks over at iFixit have done a teardown of the LG G4, and have ranked it as the easiest 2015 flagship to repair. 

The website praises the handset’s repair friendly design and simplicity of components despite coming with flagship specs. It is nothing short of impressive that the iFixit team was able to gain access to the mid frame of the handset without needing to open their tool bag.

LG-g4-tear

The team also put the LG G4 through an X-Ray scanner which confirmed that the handset does not come with a built-in wireless charging coil. This means that the G4 will not support wireless charging until paired with LG’s own Quick Circle case or any such similar cases.

While the G4 is an easy handset to access and repair, the 16MP rear camera setup of the handset is extremely complex.

LG G4 camera XRay

Below is a quick roundup of the hardware that the iFixit team found inside the G4 during their teardown:

     • Hexa-Core, 1.8 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808

     • Samsung K3QF6F60AM-QGCF 3 GB LPDDR3 RAM

     • Toshiba THGBMFG8C4LBAIR 32 GB NAND Flash

     • Broadcom BCM4339HKUBG 5G WiFi Client

     • IDT P9025A Qi Wireless Power Receiver IC

     • Qualcomm WTR3925 LTE Transceiver

     • Qualcomm PMI8994 Power Management IC

     • Qualcomm PM8994 Power Management IC

     • Avago ACPM-7717

     • Qualcomm WCD9330 Audio Codec     

     • SlimPort ANX7816 Ultra-HD Transmitter

     • NXP 47883 NFC Controller

Overall, the LG G4 received a repairability score of 8 out of 10 — the highest among all the 2015 flagships announced so far. The HTC One M9 had received a repairability score of 2 out of 10 , while the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge had received a score of 4 and 3 out of 10, respectively.

The LG G4 seems like a perfect handset for those who want a flagship that is easy to repair, comes with a removable battery and sports a microSD card slot — features that are now impossible to find in flagship handsets from other OEMs.

[Via iFixit]