Amazon Fire Phone gets the teardown treatment, gets a low score in repairability

BY Evan Selleck

Published 25 Jul 2014

image Fire Phone teardown2

Amazon’s first smartphone, the Fire Phone, is now available on AT&T’s network. As is par for the course, the teardown team at iFixit has gotten their hands on the new device, and managed to tear it open to see how it ticks, and how easily it can be repaired if the situation calls for it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look too good in that particular category.

First and foremost, the team points out that if you open the case on the Fire Phone, a tab will indicate that the casing has been separated from the frame. Basically, that is an indicator to Amazon that your warranty has just been voided, so keep that in mind before you try this at home. Of course, hopefully you don’t have to try this at home, but it is certainly worth mentioning.

As far as the gritty details ago, iFixit found that the very construction of the Fire Phone makes it hard to repair for the consumer. Specifically, the way that the cables are placed, and the connectors installed, makes repairability very low. They even note that the glue can make repairability very difficult. The result? An astounding 3 out of 10 in repairability.

You can check out their full repair video below. Do you plan on picking up a Fire Phone?

[Via iFixit]