iPhone Duo teardown reveals it is fairly repairable but its complex hinge is worrying

The iPhone Duo is the hottest thing in tech right now and iFixit have published their signature teardown. It addresses the recent reports of malfunctioning hinges on some early units while also giving us an in-depth look at the internals of the first folding iPhone.

Let's start with the positive – the Duo earned a 5/10 repairability rating, which puts it in a class of its own when it comes to foldables. For reference, Samsung’s Z Fold8 got a 4/10 score while its predecessor earned a 3/10 rating.

As per the folks over at iFixit, most of the components inside the Duo are fairly easy to remove without having to go too deep into the device. These include the cover screen, which is pretty simple to take out with a suction cup clamp and a pry tool. You can see the process around the 4:20 mark in the video.

The dual batteries inside the Duo can be released via the clever anodic delamination process. It involves hooking up a low-voltage power supply like a 9-volt battery to the silver tabs on the battery cells, which releases the cells from the phone. This part of the teardown is shown at the 5:50 mark in the video.

iPhone Duo battery removal process (source: iFixit)

We also get a microscope look at the main display’s matte nano-texture cover layer at the 3:00 mark. It actually features a clever light refraction approach that scatters reflections and hides the crease in the middle of the OLED panel. The screen protector features thousands of microscopic bumps that actually break up the reflections. It works in tandem with the main display’s altered RGB sub-pixels, which are arranged at varying angles to help mask the crease.

Clear vs nano-texture surface on the Duo's main display (source: iFixit)

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a highly complicated hinge mechanism, which appears to be locking itself in on some units. Several early Duo users reported that the hinge would feel unusually stiff at some points, which would require more effort to open the folding display and resulted in an audible popping/cracking sound accompanied by permanent display damage.

iPhone Duo hinge (source: iFixit)

One of the theories is that some components inside the hinge aren’t descending properly and are getting stuck. There’s also an “accordion-like” flex cable going through the hinge, which could be the other main factor.

Apple iPhone Duo

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