Over the years we've covered numerous devices that can be taken apart at home, replacing damaged components, combining parts from different handsets, and so on. Originally, I had great fun with the oh-so-easy to disassemble Nokia 808, then the Lumia 950 range also only needed a screwdriver, and I wanted to give a shout out to my latest 10 minutes with a screwdriver, the Android-10-powered Fairphone 3. In the video embedded below I take out the old camera modules and put in upgraded replacements. How cool is that? A whole new imaging experience and capabilities in minutes - Fairphone even provides the screwdriver!
As usual with videos, start playing and then click through to YouTube if you want full resolution and quality:
Pretty cool. My one regret in this case is that Fairphone also has a louder main speaker, but this needs a new motherboard (as it has an upgraded amp), so this isn't practical as a DIY upgrade. Oh well. The images from the new camera are up with the 2020 mainstream, plus I was very impressed by Fairphone's Camera software, very similar to Google's Pixel Camera in algorithms.
