The Google Pixel 7 Pro will be available to buy from Thursday (October 13), but you may be interested in checking out this teardown by PBK Reviews before making your purchase.
Not only is it interesting to see inside what's likely one of the best phones of the year, but the video also shows how Google's made the design both better and worse than the Google Pixel 6 Pro.
As PBK opens up the phone and shows off parts like the cameras, circuitry and the many, many screws, a lot of it looks like the Pixel 6 Pro from last year. However, one noticeable change is that there's more thermal tape spread across the Tensor G2 chipset and the top part of the battery, which will hopefully mean the phone stays cool when the chip is working at full capacity.
This could come in especially handy when gaming or making use of 5G for an extende period of time, which can make a lot of phones get rather warm and sometimes uncomfortable to the touch.
Annoyingly, Google's once again committed what should be cardinal sins of phone repairability with the Pixel 7 Pro. For instance, the USB-C port is soldered to the main circuit board, containing the chipset, SIM tray, and main microphone. Since the charging port is one of the most easily damaged areas of the phone, a replacement will therefore mean a whole new main board, increasing the expense and parts required to swap out what could have been a simple fix.
A lot of the phone's body is taken up by the battery, which includes pull tabs for easy removal. But it’s also firmly glued in, requiring dissolving with isopropyl alcohol before PBK's able to remove it from the phone. The battery's another often-replaced component, so it's a shame to see it's also tricky to take out.
After taking apart as much as he can, PBK rates the Pixel 7 Pro a 5.5 out of 10 for repairability, before reassembling the phone and turning it back on without a hitch. Looking at PBK's other scores, the Pixel 7 Pro loses out to the iPhone 14 Pro Max (rated 6.5/10) and the Galaxy S22 Ultra (rated 7.5/10). That's also lower than what PBK rated the Pixel 6 Pro (which scored 6/10), although in this case, it's not clear what made the Pixel 7 Pro half a point worse in comparison, given the two phones are so similar.
In our Pixel 7 Pro hands-on, we weren't able to break open the phone to assess its innards. However, our initial impressions are that it's a handsome-looking phone with top-quality cameras and display, plus that it's got some handy software features like Photo Unblur. You can expect our full thoughts on this and the regular Pixel 7 very soon.
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