iFixit

Big players on the back side of the motherboard:

• The Qualcomm PM8028 chip works in conjunction with the Qualcomm MDM6600 to provide wireless data connection to the phone.
• Hynix H8BCS0QG0MMR memory MCP containing Hynix DRAM and STM flash
• ST Ericsson CPCAP 006556001
• WL1285C 13M1HH3
• 6792A 1113 T3971

What's this, a secret Mario Kart track? Sadly, no; it's just the headphone jack assembly.

The Droid 3 sports a 3.5 mm headphone jack, compatible with just about every headphone set available today.

The power/lock button is also found on this squiggly cable, as well as the secondary microphone for noise cancelling and clarity during phone calls.

Some careful prying with a spudger easily removes the Wi-fi antenna.

• Droid 3 supports b, g, and n Wi-Fi signals. Wow!

We politely evict the vibration motor from its home with some "convincing" from a plastic opening tool.

More prying with a spudger gives us unbridled access to the sliding plate of the Droid 3.

One of the most important features on the Droid 3 is its 5-row slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.

• We like the offset keys on the Droid 3, a feature that was frustratingly absent in the original Droid, but added in the Droid 2.

As with its predecessors, the display assembly in this Droid is very difficult to access.

Peeling off the keyboard reveals a handful of teeny tiny T3 Torx screws that secure the display assembly to the slider mechanism and keyboard.

After some cringe-inducing maneuvering of the display data cable, we can separate the two pieces.

With a little encouragement, the qHD LCD lifts out of the Gorilla Glass-equipped front panel.

• The screen in the Droid 3 is 0.3" larger than the screens in both of its predecessors, measuring in at a total of 4". It also has a higher resolution, at 960 x 540 pixels.

The ribbon cable attached to the rear of the LCD holds the earpiece speaker, the front-facing camera, the ambient light sensor, and the notification LED. Phew!

• All of these components on one ribbon cable makes disassembly easy, but repair costly.

An Atmel MXT224E capacitive touchscreen controller can be found within the front panel.

The Motorola Droid 3 (Droid³) earns itself a repairability score of 6 out of 10.

• There were no security screws in the entire device.
• The battery was not soldered to anything and was easy to replace.
• Many components are mounted to a single ribbon cable, meaning that replacing one requires replacing them all.
• There is a lot of adhesive holding things together, making disassembly and reassembly difficult.
• To get to the LCD, the entire device has to be taken apart.