And yes, the battery has two cells for better use of the internal space, and they're placed in an L-shaped layout

Nov 3, 2017 10:51 GMT  ·  By

iFixit has just published its own in-depth teardown of the iPhone X, confirming that the battery indeed features two cells placed in an L-shaped layout, but also revealing some very interesting details about the facial recognition system.

First and foremost, opening the iPhone X might prove to be a bit more challenging than it was on previous models, as Apple has used an unusual pentalobe at the bottom of the device that is substantially longer. iFixit speculates that this could be a decision related to the new display.

“Our best guess is that this allows the display a bit of flexibility, while also allowing it to move its mounting bracket toward the interior of the phone, incidentally making room for a beefed-up Lightning connector,” the engineers say.

The internals of the iPhone X are similar to those on previous iPhones, but in addition to the battery, there’s one big change: the logic board is substantially smaller, about 70 percent of the size of the iPhone 8 Plus sibling, which allows Apple to use the additional space for the battery.

“The dual-cell design is more of a space-utilization measure than a capacity-changing one. Two cells allows for more creative shapes and placement, to best take advantage of the space left over by shrinking the logic board,” iFixit explains.

The iPhone X uses a longer pentalobe
The iPhone X uses a longer pentalobe

Face ID more like Kinect

While there’s lot of waterproofing inside the iPhone X, which makes repairing or replacing some components a pretty difficult job, iFixit rated the device with 6 out of 10 points in terms of repairability, with 10 being the easiest to repair.

One important feature of the iPhone X is the Face ID assembly, which the teardown shows it was clearly inspired by Microsoft’s Kinect.

The system uses a flood illuminator embedded in the display that illuminates the face with infrared light, a front-facing camera that confirms the presence of the face, an IR dot projector to create a 3D map of the face, and a IR camera to read the map and then send data to the phone to either unlock the device or block the attempt.

While the glass body makes the iPhone X prone to cracks, the good news is that a cracked display can be replaced without actually removing Face ID modules. On the other hand, if the back glass breaks, iFixit says every single component needs to be removed and the chassis has to be replaced entirely.

The Face ID camera assembly on the iPhone X
The Face ID camera assembly on the iPhone X

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The internals of the iPhone X
The iPhone X uses a longer pentalobeThe Face ID camera assembly on the iPhone X
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