Google's Nexus 4 offers a pure Android
experience on an unlock device add a
great no-contract price it's also fairly
easy to disassemble and hides a bit of a
hardware secret inside let's find out
what it is I'm Bill Detweiler and this
is cracking open with its 4.7 inch IPS
display quad-core CPU two gigs of RAM
and an 8 megapixel main camera the LG
Bilt Nexus 4 holds its own among
high-end smartphones and given its
support for NFC and wireless charging
it's even a step ahead of many it's also
well-built feels sturdy in your hands
and as I'll show you fairly easy to take
apart first remove the SIM card and the
two Torx t5 screws along the bottom edge
then using a thin tool gently pop off
the back cover now attached to the
inside of the back cover are both the
NFC antenna and wireless charging
induction coil the 3.8 volt lithium ion
battery is held to the motherboard by a
pair of screws and to the internal frame
with a lot of adhesive removing it takes
quite a bit of patience the speaker
enclosure comes out next followed by the
plastic frame covering the motherboard
the phone's vibration motor and earpiece
speaker are attached to this frame after
detaching a few connectors and cables
you can remove the motherboard and
separate the front and rear facing
cameras we can now remove the metal
shields from the motherboard that
concealed most of the phone's chips
prominent chips include the RAM chip
that's likely stacked on top of the
Snapdragon CPU as well as a Qualcomm
modem now what's really interesting
about this modem is despite the Nexus 4
not officially supporting LTE this chip
actually does and I've read online
reports of people connecting to some LTE
networks that operate on band 4 in the
1700 and 20 100 megahertz spectrum but
there's no guarantee it will work for
you
in your area or that the functionality
won't be disabled at some point so even
with this modem there's still no real
LTE support now turning our attention
back to the disassembly we can now
remove the smaller circuit board which
contains the phone's microUSB port a
microphone and several speaker contacts
as well as the 3.5 millimeter headphone
jack assembly which also houses the
ambient light sensor as the front glass
panel LCD and internal frame are all
fused together our teardown is complete
the Nexus 4 may not have the stylish
design of Samsung's Galaxy s3 or the
outstanding battery life of Motorola's
Droid RAZR MAXX HD but it's a solid
phone and one that's not too difficult
to crack open and at 299 dollars
unlocked without a contract
it's definitely priced right now for
more information on the nexus 4
including real world tests and pricing
check out Lin laws full CNET review now
to see more tear down photos and read my
full card warehouses go to TechRepublic
comm forward slash cracking open I'm
Bill Detweiler thanks for watching
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