Android By Russell Holly Jul. 8, 2014 3:31 pm
Much like other smartwatch platforms, Android Wear is the latest toy on the market that is fun to play with but still kind of searching for a purpose. This isn’t a bad thing from a software perspective, but while Android Wear solidifies its identity it’s important that the hardware manufacturers bring quality design to your wrist so it still feels like a watch.
The folks at iFixit have passed the Samsung Gear Live through the teardown machine, and it’s cool to see how well it performed.
In a world where terribly expensive laptops and tablets from Apple and Microsoft prove to be almost entirely user-proof when it comes to self repair and upgrade, it seemed like smartwatches would just be a foregone conclusion. When iFixit took a swing at the Pebble, they found that accessing the battery compromised the water resistance of the device and the screen was destroyed in the process. Accessing the battery is one of those things that is kind of important on a device that you discharge and recharge several times a week.
Since Android Wear devices have shown themselves currently to have pretty poor battery life, needing to be charged every day or so, having access to the battery is a necessity. Samsung’s Gear Live, it turns out, makes accessing the battery a priority.
The same water resistant seal found on the Samsung Galaxy S5 is used to make sure the device is water tight when you close it back up, and the screws used to seal the backplate are the common T5 screws. By the end of the teardown, iFixit had given the watch an 8 out of 10 repairability score.
The only real downside to the Gear Live so far seems to be the fused display and reports of broken charging ports. The display being fused to the casing means replacing it will cost close to what you’d pay for a new watch, and the snap-in charging dock Samsung has provided with this design has apparently broken for several users already. Fortunately, based on what we’ve seen here, it looks like that will be easy to replace if something like that happens out of warranty.
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The folks at iFixit have passed the Samsung Gear Live through the teardown machine, and it’s cool to see how well it performed.
In a world where terribly expensive laptops and tablets from Apple and Microsoft prove to be almost entirely user-proof when it comes to self repair and upgrade, it seemed like smartwatches would just be a foregone conclusion. When iFixit took a swing at the Pebble, they found that accessing the battery compromised the water resistance of the device and the screen was destroyed in the process. Accessing the battery is one of those things that is kind of important on a device that you discharge and recharge several times a week.
Since Android Wear devices have shown themselves currently to have pretty poor battery life, needing to be charged every day or so, having access to the battery is a necessity. Samsung’s Gear Live, it turns out, makes accessing the battery a priority.
The same water resistant seal found on the Samsung Galaxy S5 is used to make sure the device is water tight when you close it back up, and the screws used to seal the backplate are the common T5 screws. By the end of the teardown, iFixit had given the watch an 8 out of 10 repairability score.
The only real downside to the Gear Live so far seems to be the fused display and reports of broken charging ports. The display being fused to the casing means replacing it will cost close to what you’d pay for a new watch, and the snap-in charging dock Samsung has provided with this design has apparently broken for several users already. Fortunately, based on what we’ve seen here, it looks like that will be easy to replace if something like that happens out of warranty.
More...
