iFixit teardown shows iPhone X has 2 battery cells in it despite having worse battery life than 8+

[AlTech]

IFixit's teardown of the iPhone X has shown it has 2 battery cells in it and a weird logic board.

 

The total battery capacity is 2716 mAh which is larger than the iPhone 8 Plus's 2691 mAh and yet despite this, the iPhone X has worse endurance than the iPhone 8 Plus. Probably due to the higher res display.

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As iFixit notes, though, Apple seems to have doubled up in order to be flexible with how it could allocate space for the rest of the device’s components, not to explicitly beef up the iPhone X’s overall battery power. The battery capacity here is 2,716mAh, which is slightly larger than the 2,691mAh unit in the iPhone 8 Plus despite the former being about a half-inch shorter. Still, the X’s 5.8-inch display appears to have taken its toll on overall battery life—our iPhone X review found the device to fall well short of the 8 Plus in terms of longevity, albeit it's still decent on the whole.

 

 

 

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Also worth noting is how Apple has shrunk the iPhone X’s logic board despite packing in more connectors and components than past iPhones. According to the teardown, Apple effectively folded the X’s board in half and soldered the two sides together. The result is that it fits components that take up roughly 35 percent more space than the iPhone 8 Plus’ logic board area when fully laid out into something that is 70 percent the size of that board on the whole.

 

iFixit also complimented Apple and their miniaturization of the logic board.

 

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iFixit calls this level of miniaturization “unprecedented” but notes that the design makes any repairs to the logic board next to impossible. In general, it gives the iPhone X a “repairability score” of six out of 10, praising the relative ease with which someone can replace the device’s display and battery but lamenting how the glue-heavy, all-glass back would force a user to remove additional components like the rear camera if it ever broke and needed a replacement. Apple has never been the most proactive manufacturer when it comes to making easily repairable devices, so the middling grade isn’t a huge surprise.

 

What's interesting to note is that the iPhone X has a sandwiched PCB (multi-layered PCB)

 

So yeah, the iPhone X has 2 battery cells and still does worse than the 8+ in terms of durability.

 

I can't remember which techtuber said the X was more akin to an 8 replacement than an 8+ replacement but this definitely feels more true now.

 

Sources:

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/11/ifixits-iphone-x-teardown-finds-a-major-redesign-on-the-inside-too/

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975

 

[79wjd]

8 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So yeah, the iPhone X has 2 battery cells and still does worse than the 8+ in terms of durability.

That's to be expected since the resolution is 30% higher, as you mentioned. Plus, it's also possible that FaceID utilizes more power than TouchID. And it's also possible that the OLED uses more power than the old LCD did considering that most of iOS is light.

[Silentprototipe]

Now thats just sad 

[dcgreen2k]

2 minutes ago, silentprototipe said:

Now thats just sad 

Why's it sad? The batteries are of nearly identical capacities, and the iPhone X has a larger screen and other features. I don't really find it surprising that the X has a shorter battery life.

[shermantanker]

The split battery is interesting, and that trick with the PCB is pretty cool. Now if only verizon can get mine to me before thanksgiving.

[King_of_Oz]

Yay.

[Trixanity]

The battery highlights why internal layout is so important and why not every millimeter of space can be used for battery: it needs a certain structure. So to maximizing battery life it seems they crammed two smaller batteries in there.

 

Stacked PCB seems to be the 'next big thing'. Rumor has it that many flagship devices will have it next year including the Galaxy S9. Apple did do it first though so kudos to them although I'm sure the only reason the Note8 didn't have it was that they probably reused the same board.

 

I must say though that the device looks really looks well put together. Especially considering some of the tear downs we've seen in the past.

[Commodus]

Yeah, I'm not exactly going to fault Apple here: it's technically the largest display Apple has ever put into a phone, with the highest resolution, and in a design smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus.  Go figure that they'd need a bigger battery and wouldn't get as much battery life as a larger phone!

[79wjd]

20 minutes ago, Commodus said:

and wouldn't get as much battery life as a larger phone!

The battery in the X is bigger than the Plus. So that's not the reason here -- it's the screen/resolution, and my guess is that FaceID is also playing a role.

[ashypanda]

would it kill them to make it 1mm or even 0.5mm thicker just to try at least attempt to get close or surpass 3Ah, that said a 2.7Ah battery can last a full day with moderate to heavy use.

[mrchow19910319]

This is to be expected. 

 

Also with apple's endless effort to shrink the size of the logic board, I wonder what it will come up with for the next gen mac mini. 

 

 

[79wjd]

10 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

This is to be expected. 

 

Also with apple's endless effort to shrink the size of the logic board, I wonder what it will come up with for the next gen mac mini. 

 

 

It will just be an iPhone X glued to the bottom of the Apple keyboard. 

[mrchow19910319]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

It will just be an iPhone X glued to the bottom of the Apple keyboard. 

=.=

 

[Drak3]

3 hours ago, silentprototipe said:

Now thats just sad 

Is that really shocking?

 

Also, Big Nepsy is top Nep.

[BuckGup]

3 hours ago, silentprototipe said:

Now thats just sad 

Lol Androids have much larger batteries and don't last as long. Optimization beats brute force.

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, BuckGup said:

Lol Androids have much larger batteries and don't last as long. Optimization beats brute force.

Unfortunately, you made the error of lumping in all phones with Android OS into the same category. Different hardware, different power management schemes, even different flavors of the OS. Many lower end phones last longer on a smaller battery than any flagship today on account of lower power hardware. Skins such as Touchwiz, ZenUI, and others can also take differing tolls on the battery.

 

Now, if individual brands such as Samsung were singled out, I'd be more inclined to agree.

[Zodiark1593]

9 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

It draws more power as noted.  Your battery life is going to go downhill when you use more power.

iOS also tends to use blurring effects in the UI. These run on the shaders, and higher resolutions are provably more expensive as a result, at least compared to the more visually simplistic Android UI. Could explain why Apple is conservative on the resolution game as of late.

[Bcat00]

2 hours ago, Trixanity said:

The battery highlights why internal layout is so important and why not every millimeter of space can be used for battery: it needs a certain structure. So to maximizing battery life it seems they crammed two smaller batteries in there.

 

Stacked PCB seems to be the 'next big thing'. Rumor has it that many flagship devices will have it next year including the Galaxy S9. Apple did do it first though so kudos to them although I'm sure the only reason the Note8 didn't have it was that they probably reused the same board.

 

I must say though that the device looks really looks well put together. Especially considering some of the tear downs we've seen in the past.

Makes me wonder if they are gonna start stacking CPU chips after they hit the limit of die shrinking

[Zodiark1593]

2 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

I meant the screen on the new phone compared to the 8.   

Well, that too...

[DildorTheDecent]

It's an extra 25 mAh  That's not going to translate into massive gains considering what the iPhone X has over the iPhone 8+.

 

Wouldn't really fret over 97 minutes of "lost" WiFi browsing. 

[NinerL]

It's smaller than the 8 plus, and lasts two hours longer than the iPhone 7. The iPhone X is almost the same size as the iP8.

[GOTSpectrum]

35 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

Makes me wonder if they are gonna start stacking CPU chips after they hit the limit of die shrinking

I think silicon stacking such as HBM is going to be the next big thing, especially in the low power market. And further down the line maybe even the enterprise Market, imagine a 256 core, 1.5ghz x86 processor with cooling baked right into the layers! Or a similar ARM based system! 

[Mooshi]

Apple is disappointing. They kill it in battery life for notebooks vs a similarly priced Windows gaming one and yet when it comes to cellphones..they are more greedy than a millennial having to actually give Mom and Dad money for living with them.

[potoooooooo]

8 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Apple is disappointing. They kill it in battery life for notebooks vs a similarly priced Windows gaming one and yet when it comes to cellphones..they are more greedy than a millennial having to actually give Mom and Dad money for living with them.

I'm so baffled by the thought process that might go into thinking this. How does this statement make literally any sense to you?

[atrash]

10 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

That's to be expected since the resolution is 30% higher, as you mentioned. Plus, it's also possible that FaceID utilizes more power than TouchID. And it's also possible that the OLED uses more power than the old LCD did considering that most of iOS is light.

depending on how the phone was set up prior to doing the battery test, the os indexing could have contributed to the shorter battery life. I know my 6S took several days to calm its tatas down on the the battery life after the iOS 11 update