Ron Amadeo

iFixit

iFixit

Google's new flagship smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, are out today. In the life of any major smartphone, there comes a time when it must hit iFixit's workbench for a teardown, and for the 2 XL, today is that day.

The site found a few surprises inside the Pixel 2 XL. First up is a magnesium mid-frame, which should make the phone extra stiff. The mid-frame is also housing a heat pipe for better cooling, which seems to be showing up more and more in smartphones. Under X-Ray, you can see that, like the smaller Pixel 2, the Pixel 2 XL does have antenna bands, but they're invisible on the 2 XL. It is also nice to see the "Active Edge" pressure sensors, which allow you to squeeze the phone to call up the Google Assistant.

Google surprised everyone at the last minute with an announcement that the Pixel 2 contains two SoCs. One is the Snapdragon 835, and the other is Google's first-ever self-designed consumer SoC: The Pixel Visual Core . The chip is currently dormant, but Google says it will eventually enable the Pixel 2 to process HDR images "5x faster and at less than 1/10th the energy" than the Snapdragon 835 can. iFixit dutifully found the Google SoC hiding in the Pixel 2, and it's one of the more sizable chips on the motherboard. The chip is labeled "SR3HX X726C502," in case anyone can make sense of that.

The Pixel 2 XL is an LG-made phone, so it's fun to compare it to other LG devices like the V30. Of course, the camera setup is different, and the mid-frame in the V30 is plastic, but I think there's a clear LG-foundation present in the Pixel 2 XL.

If you're the type to rip a phone apart and try to fix it yourself, iFixit gives the Pixel 2 XL a 6 out of 10 for repairability. iFixit applauds the use of the 2 XL's use of modular components and normal phillips screws, but it doesn't like the glued-in battery and difficult-to-remove cable covers.

Listing image by iFixit