iFixit declares Watch Series 4 Apple’s most ‘thoughtfully laid out’ wearable yet

The do-it-yourself heroes at iFixit published their latest device teardown, this time taking on the Apple Watch Series 4.

iFixit came away impressed with the wearable, noting that it features “radically different insides” that are “much more thoughtfully laid out.”

In fact, iFixit even went so far as to compare the Apple Watch Series 4 to the iPhone 5.

“Pundit John Gruber rightly likened this new watch to the leap in design brought by the iPhone 4, but we’d go so far as to call it an iPhone 5: A device that knows its priorities, and wants to look elegant inside and out,” writes the website in its teardown guide.

Gushing aside, the team at iFixit shared a couple of interesting tidbits about Apple’s latest smartwatch.

First, the Watch Series 4 features a new, larger 1.12 Wh capacity battery. That’s approximately a four percent increase in battery capacity over the Series 3’s 1.07 Wh battery source. What’s more, Apple was able to increase the size of the Series 4’s battery while making the wearable six percent thinner.

Second, in a nifty piece of engineering, iFixit discovered that Apple was able to integrate the Series 4’s barometric sensor into the wearable’s speaker grille, thereby reducing the number of unsightly holes the Series 4 features.

After completing its teardown, iFixit awarded the Watch Series 4 a six out of 10 repairability score. That’s the same score iFixit awarded the Series 3 and Series 2.

As before, the components users will need to most likely replace — the band, display and battery — are relatively easy to access. However, Apple’s generous use of resin, tiny tri-point screws and flex cables makes accessing and replacing other components significantly more complicated.

Source: iFixit