LG G5 teardown shows it's an easy fix

LG’s latest flagship, the LG G5 is something different when it comes to modern smartphones, thanks to its modular design, but how does that affect the repairability of it?

The LG G5 features a removable bottom section to allow access to the phone’s battery that can be used to insert LG Friends modules. The team over at iFixit took it into their hands to give the LG G5 the teardown treatment past the normal module swap-out, to understand just how easy or difficult it is to take apart.

During the teardown, iFixit found the following components powering the LG G5:

• Samsung K3RG2G20BM-MGCJ 4 GB LPDDR4 RAM with quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SOC layered beneath
• Samsung KLUBG4G1CE-B0B1 32 GB MLC Universal Flash Storage 2.0
• NXP 54802 NFC Controller
• Qualcomm SMB1350 Quick Charge 3.0 IC
• Analogix SlimPort ANX7816 Ultra-HD Transmitter
• Analogix SlimPort ANX7418 USB-C Switch/Controller
• Qualcomm WSA8815 Audio Codec

What is particularly interesting about the teardown is how easy the LG G5 is to take apart. Simply remove the battery, take out the screws and everything can be accessed, which gives the LG G5 a good repairability rating. There is no glue used and standard Phillips #00 screws means no specialised tools are required.

iFixit gives the LG G5 a 8/10 rating, with 10 being the easiest to repair, and this is helped by the modular design since a faulty battery or charging port can simply be swapped out.

Is high fixability something you look for when buying phones?