Pixel 4 XL Teardown—Soli Chip Close up and Motion Sense Explained By iFixit

It’s got an oddly familiar camera bump, the ability to use motion control, and super fast facial recognition. It’s Google’s latest version of it’s Pixel phone, the Pixel 4 XL and today we’re going to tear it down. The adhesive holding on the rear panel is no match for our iOpener and opening picks. Compared to some other phones, getting this panel off is a breeze. Opening the rear panel reveals a booby trap! There is a delicate camera sensor cable connected to the motherboard underneath a metal bracket. Speaking of brackets, if you like them, this is definitely the phone for you! Pretty much every cable connector is covered by a metal bracket of some kind and there is no shortage of cables to disconnect.

We count 15 cables connected to this motherboard. With all the cables disconnected we’re left with just one screw holding the mother board to the mid-frame. With the board out we can spot the 6 GB of Micron LPDDR4x RAM layered over the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, and the 64 GB Universal Flash Storage The dual camera system hitched a ride out with the motherboard and a closer inspection shows the 16MP telephoto camera and the 12.2 MP wide angle camera. The 16 MP telephoto sensor might sound superior to the 12.2 MP when counting megapixels alone, but the wide sensor should handily win most image quality contests with its wider aperture and larger 1.4-micrometer pixel width. If you’re looking for the front facing camera, it comes out with the front-facing sensors, which besides the camera includes two well-separated Near Infrared (NIR) cameras, a Near Infrared flood emitter, and a Near Infrared dot projector.

This unassuming square of sensors is actually home to an earpiece speaker, mic, an ambient light sensor AND the Soli chip which is what interprets your magical hand waving using the power of radar. Motion Sense works by emitting precisely tuned waves of electromagnetic energy. When those waves bounce off of something like your hand, some of them reflect back to the antenna. The Soli chip then studies the reflected waves and analyzes their time delay, frequency shift, and other data to learn the characteristics of the object that reflected them—how big it is, how fast it's moving, in which direction, ect. Soli then runs that data against its known gesture database to determine what action, if any, needs to be performed in the OS.

Once we’ve dispatched the speaker we get to work on getting the battery out. Google has thankfully provided us with adhesive pull tabs, but unfortunately they’re rather fragile and broke for us during removal. So, it’s down to our isopropyl alcohol and some gentle prying to get the battery all the way out. This is a a 14.24 Watt hour cell which is a bit of an upgrade from last year's 13.2 Watt hour battery. Even with the spec bump, the first round of Pixel 4 reviews revealed poor battery life.

Which is disappointing in a new phone. But if your older Pixel needs a new battery, we've got a kit for that. ;D We’re left with the 6.3" OLED display which is firmly glued in place. This display has a resolution 3040 x 1440 and a 90 hertz refresh rate which for now is only active when brightness is set to high, but Google is promising a software fix sometime in the near future. With our Pixel 4 XL fully disassembled it time to talk repairability, the Pixel 4 XL scored... You guess it 4 out of 10 and here’s why.

One the upside All screws are standard T3 Torx fasteners. The stretch-release adhesive securing the battery may not be foolproof, but its inclusion is repair-friendly. Waterproofing measures complicate repairs, but hopefully make them less common. But on the downside Display repairs continue to be difficult, requiring complete disassembly of the phone. All repairs require access through the stubbornly-glued back panel.

Glass on the front and back doubles potential drop damage. Hey Pixel lovers, before you go, you can see how the Pixel has evolved over the years by watching our other Pixel teardown videos. And don’t forget to hit subscribe so you can be the first to see what we teardown next. Happy Fixing!.

Source : iFixit