The Pixel 6 and 6 Professional are out, and which means it is teardown time. PBK Opinions has movies on the Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 6 for us to select aside.
Crack open both telephone and you will find a ton of warmth dissipation. The again of the display screen is roofed in copper, so it is a large warmth sink. Below the show, the inside is roofed in sticky, heat-dissipating graphite movie, making the telephone look strikingly messier than the rigorously curated insides of the iPhone 13. Under that’s extra warmth dissipation: an aluminum mid-plate that connects to the key chips with thermal tape.
The again of the display screen can also be attention-grabbing. On the left is the under-display fingerprint reader, and you may see why firms are such followers of those elements over capacitive rear fingerprint readers. An optical reader is a super-thin sticker on the again of the show—it appears prefer it’s solely a millimeter or so thick. It’s also possible to spot the cutout for the under-display brightness and proximity sensors, which, just like the fingerprint reader, invisibly dwell below the show.
PBK Opinions
PBK Opinions noticed just a few attention-grabbing variations between the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional. On the Professional mannequin, the haptic motor is on the underside of the telephone, whereas the baseline Pixel 6 has it towards the highest. The underside is a greater location, since that is often the place your hand is, providing you with a stronger sensation from the haptic motor. Relying on region and carriers, some fashions of Pixel 6 have mmWave and a few don’t. When you get a mannequin with out mmWave, what you may discover within the mmWave spot is… a placeholder block of steel.
This teardown confirms what we have suspected of the Pixel 6’s 5G mmWave performance—it doesn’t appear very effectively thought out. For starters, mmWave just isn’t an incredible telephone characteristic. It will get outsized consideration as a result of carriers use mmWave to justify 5G velocity claims of their commercials. The reality, nevertheless, is that nearly nobody has dependable entry to mmWave. A recent OpenSignal survey confirmed that customers with appropriate units spend simply 0.8 % of their time on mmWave.
Even for those who may discover a mmWave community with the Pixel, although, the Pixel 6 has just one mmWave antenna, which sits alongside the highest fringe of the telephone (in a really seen plastic window). A lot of the justification for together with mmWave in a telephone revolves round its status for enabling excessive obtain speeds. Most of this velocity could be for media consumption, wherein case the telephone could be in panorama. However with the antenna on the high, mmWave sign will probably be blocked by your hand in panorama mode. Examine this Pixel design choice to that within the Galaxy S21, which has two mmWave antennas, every situated on an extended fringe of the telephone, and there is a larger probability that the Galaxy S21’s mmWave sign will function higher in both panorama orientation. Qualcomm’s authentic mmWave paperwork really useful four antennas, one on both sides of the telephone, as a result of it is really easy to dam a mmWave sign together with your hand. Most individuals will in all probability by no means discover a mmWave sign, however even for those who may on the Pixel 6, the antenna location makes it look like it is simply spec sheet padding.
Sadly iFixit appears to have deserted the Pixel line, with the final full teardown from the positioning being the Pixel 4. One factor I actually miss is iFixit’s investigation of the chips on the motherboard, which aren’t addressed in both video. It could be good to get a have a look at the Google Tensor SoC, that discrete Samsung Exynos 5G modem, and no matter different elements Google is utilizing, however this video is solely about changing elements.
As for repairability, the USB-C port is soldered onto the motherboard, which is able to make a generally broken element tougher to restore. As traditional the whole lot is glued collectively, which implies any restore may compromise the gadget’s water resistance. PBK Opinions additionally tried swapping out some elements to see if there have been any iPhone-style software lockouts that forestall repairs. Whereas changing the display screen went superb, they bumped into an error message when changing the fingerprint sensor. A later replace to the video description notes that they later obtained the sensor working by visiting Google’s official repair site, working some calibration software program, after which manufacturing facility resetting the gadget.
