ⓘ Apple
The Apple iPhone Duo has been taken apart on camera for the first time. Videos show not only how easily the protective film, which is not officially user-replaceable, can be peeled off and how clearly visible the crease underneath is, but also what the inside of the most expensive iPhone to date looks like.
Hannes Brecher (translated by Hannes Brecher), Published 🇩🇪
The Apple iPhone Duo is one of the most exciting smartphones of the year, not least because it is the first Apple product with a foldable OLED display. Even before the expensive foldable officially starts shipping to customers on Friday, Kingmi Mobile was able to take the device apart.
As this video clearly shows, the iPhone Duo's display is just as glossy without the matte protective film as the screen of the similarly sized Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 ($1,699 on Amazon). The fact that the crease in the middle of the display is much more visible without this matte film likely explains why Apple opted for this design. For users, this has at least one advantage: This film can be replaced relatively inexpensively at an Apple Store if the display gets scratched.
The teardown video shows what was already expected – there is a battery in each half of the iPhone Duo. Replacing the batteries therefore requires removing both the back panel and the secondary display, making battery replacement relatively time-consuming. Kingmi Mobile primarily criticizes Apple's use of thin, folded ribbon cables to connect components such as the selfie camera to the mainboard, which increases the risk of damaging them during a repair.
The good news is that many components can be replaced individually, including the two selfie cameras, the dual camera and even the mainboard. As with most foldable smartphones, replacing the hinge and the foldable display is extremely time-consuming, which explains the very high repair costs of $999 for the display, and $1,499 for the hinge.
Editor of the original article: Hannes Brecher - Senior Tech Writer - 22679 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2018
Since 2009 I have written for different publications with a focus on consumer electronics. I joined the Notebookcheck news team in 2018 and have combined my many years of experience with laptops and smartphones with my lifelong passion for technology to create informative content for our readers about new developments in this sphere. In addition, my design background as an art director at an ad agency has allowed me to have deeper insights into the peculiarities of this industry.