iFixit's HTC One M8 teardown: Still very difficult to repair but not as bad as last year’s One

Last year’s HTC One **famously got a 1 point rating from self-repair guide iFixit for ‘repairability’** and one would have thought HTC would have made things much easier for those who prefer to take things into their own hands.   And it looks like things have improved, but that’s not saying much. This time around the HTC One M8 doubles the score, finishing with a grand 2 in terms of repairability. So besides adding better hardware, HTC has also made repairing the phone slightly easier, but not by that much.   Last year, the One was said to be impossible to open up without being damaged in the process. Now, iFixit says “It’s very difficult—although no longer impossible—to open the device without damaging the rear case. This makes every component extremely difficult to replace.”   To be fair, iFixit does say that the phone’s “solid external construction improves durability” so you may not need to repair the phone at all, even after a couple of falls. But even so it wouldn’t fill users with confidence knowing how tricky it is to get to certain common problem areas.   “The battery is buried beneath the motherboard and adhered to the midframe, hindering its replacement,” iFixit says.   The report goes on to add that the display assembly can only be replaced after tunneling through the entire phone, which makes a cracked display repair unnecessarily complicated. “This makes one of most common repairs, a damaged screen, very difficult to accomplish.” HTC has also used a lot of tape, adhesive, and copper shielding, which makes getting to and replacing many components difficult.