Following its live streaming of a full teardown of the iPhone 13 on Friday, the cool cats at iFixit have offered additional details of their in-depth teardown of the iPhone 13 Pro handset.
One of the notable internal changes this year is a new Face ID array that combines the flood illuminator and dot protector into a single module. This, along with moving the earpiece speaker to the top bezel, is what allowed Apple to reduce the size of the notch in the iPhone 13.
The company explained that the dot projector in the front-facing camera has “moved from the edge to the center of the module this year.” The flood illuminator has previously been housed in the display, but has been integrated into the new model. iFixit also confirmed that any display replacement could disable the Face ID function from working.
Per iFixit:
Face ID works even when we disconnected the front sensor assembly. However, any display replacement knocks out Face ID.We tried transferring the sensors from the old display and porting over the Face ID hardware, but no dice. It looks like the display is serial-locked to the phone.
The teardown also offered the opinion that Apple is using a new touch-integrated OLED panel in the iPhone 13 Pro:
Thanks to some expert knowledge from our new friends at Instrumental, we think the iPhones 13 are using “touch-integrated OLED panels,” which, like their name suggests, combine the touch and OLED layers of a display — reducing cost, materials, thickness, and the number of cables you can accidentally tear. Neat!
Apple has also apparently moved the earpiece speaker to the top bezel, meaning that there’s now one screw to be found under the logic board.
iFixit gave the iPhone 13 a repairability score of 5 out of 10, and noted the following points:
- Once again, double glass means double drop damage, and despite the improvements to durability over the years, there’s still no easy way to replace the rear glass.
- Software component pairing needlessly complicates many repairs, undermines credibility of third party repair, and reduces critical functionality of the device when repaired without Apple’s proprietary calibration tools.
If you’ve gotten your hands on the new iPhone 13, please let us know what you make of it in the comments.