iFixit

The display ribbon cable connector is in the way. Let's find a way to remove it.

We continue our quest of ridding the Bionic of its connectors with the help of our trusty spudger.

With stickers unstuck, screws unscrewed, and connectors disconnected, we lift the motherboard away from the display assembly.

First thing off the motherboard: the front-facing camera/ear speaker assembly.

• We're relieved to see that Motorola isn't using the same long ribbon cables found in some of their other devices.

Although Motorola/Verizon never divulged the exact megapixel count of the front-facing camera, its "VGA" quality suggests it to be 0.3MP.

The rear-facing camera simply pops out. Inscription on the component is this wonderful gem: "NCAABA 65161 0100698 2001 SH."

The Bionic sports an 8 MP camera capable of capturing video at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (1080p) along with a dual-LED flash.

The camera measures in at 7.1 mm x 9.3 mm (length x width) and weighs an astonishing 1.2 grams!

Much like the Droid X and Droid X2, the large camera seems to be the main reason behind the "hump" at the top of the phone.

After some slash-and-burn on the EMI shield forest, we found the big players on the motherboard:

• Elpida B8064B2PB-8D-F 1 GB DRAM and TI OMAP 4430 processor
• SanDisk SDIN4C2-16G 16GB Flash memory
• ST Ericsson CPCAP 006556001
• The Qualcomm PM8028 power management chip works in conjunction with the Qualcomm MDM6600 to provide CDMA connectivity.
• Hynix H8KCS0SJ0AER and Hynix H8BCS0QG0MMR memory MCP containing Hynix DRAM and STM flash
• ATMEL MXT224E-CCU Touchscreen Controller
• Motorola T6VP0XBG-0001, believed to be the (LCM 2.0) LTE baseband processor.

There's tons of chips on the front of the board. Other chips of interest include:

• Texas Instruments WL1271 chip that supports WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1, FM and GPS technologies (thanks Chipworks!)
• Kionix KXTF9 accelerometer
• ST Micro AGD8 2040 S6NBF gyroscope
• Avago ACPM-7868 quad-band power amplifier

What's this? Did we use Content Aware to remove all of the chips from the back of the motherboard? The answer is no; there just isn't much going on with the backside of the board.

• We find a microphone (red), proximity sensor (orange), ambient light sensor (yellow) on the back.

It is possible that Motorola placed all of the chips on one side of the board to keep the thickness of the device to a minimum.

Hello there, display assembly. It's time for your monthly checkup.

A little turn, a push, and a pop and the LCD is free.

The Gorilla Glass front panel houses the capacitive touch Android function buttons and the status LED.

The Bionic features a 4.3-inch 960x540 pixel qHD LCD, the same size found in the Droid X2.

The qHD display originally appeared in the Motorola Atrix earlier this year, and we've seen one in every Motorola Android phone since.

Motorola Droid Bionic Repairability Score: 9 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).

• No tools are necessary for changing the SIM and microSD cards.
• The battery can be removed in seconds.
• The phone is held together with a limited number of screws and plastic clips. Adhesive is minimally used in its construction.
• Many components can be replaced individually, and are not located on large, delicate ribbon cables.
• The LCD is separable from the glass front panel, making them independently replaceable.
• You must disassemble the entire phone to replace the LCD or front panel.
• Replacing the rear-facing camera requires removing one of the motherboard's EMI shields.