iFixit does Motorola a favour, refuses to tear down a defective Razr

Motorola had asked for the damaged phone back from Input for analysis but Input asked experts at iFixit to check instead. The screen on the device Input had purchased started breaking and the lamination layer started peeling off in a week

Motorola had asked for the damaged phone back from Input for analysis but Input asked experts at iFixit to check instead. The screen on the device Input had purchased started breaking and the lamination layer started peeling off in a week (Jhinuk Sen/HT)

Foldable smartphones are having a tough time avoiding controversy but manufacturers don't seem to have any plans of dropping them off their lists. Understandably, the first lot of foldable phones have been under scrutiny for their durability, hinge, display and of course, the price.

The latest foldable smartphone to land in some hot water has been the Motorola Razr. The 2019 Razr tanked the CNET durability test when the hinge on the smartphone failed after 27,000 folds. CNET had performed the same test on the Samsung Galaxy Fold last year and it had survived almost 120,000 folds.

Input reported that display on the Razr they had purchased began to break when the lamination layer began peeling off after only a week of use. While one of the theories for this was cold weather, Motorola issued a statement saying that the Razr "underwent extreme temperature testing" and the company has full confidence in the display.

Motorola requested that the damaged device be returned so as they could analyse the faulty device, which is not unusual. Any company would be interested to inspect a damaged device and analyse it for defects. However, Input had a different idea. They wanted to send the damaged phone to experts at iFixit to do an impartial analysis.

Input spoke to iFixit and CEO Kyle Wiens said that the company would be "happy to take a look". Input got back to Motorola with the plan only to hear back from the iFixit team that Motorola had asked as a personal favour for iFixit to not inspect the Razr.

Weirdly, Motorola asked iFixit not to analyse the damaged Razr and then replied to Input saying that it was ok for them to contact iFixit.

"If you'd like to reach out to iFixit, that's up to you. I do want to note that, while iFixit is a partner of ours, they typically defer to manufacturers for root cause analysis," Motorola said.

Instead of asking Input to not send the device to iFixit, Motorola asked iFixit to refuse. iFixit CEO followed this up with a statement to the Input team stating - "As a favor to Motorola, we opted to pass on the opportunity to assess your device on the record".

"We decide to tear down devices independent of phone maker wishes. We bought our Razr at retail and tore it down of our own volition without consultation.

Watch:  Unboxing the Motorola Razr 2019: Here's our first look at Motorola's new foldable smartphone

To the question of our consultation: We work directly with Motorola selling parts and toolkits for repairing their phones. Motorola is the only major smartphone manufacturer that sells repair parts and supports consumer repair of their products. Our mission is to enable everyone to fix their things, and we are trying to bring parts and tools for all smartphones to consumers. The serviceability of smartphones is a paramount environmental issue.

As a favor to Motorola, we opted to pass on the opportunity to assess your device on the record. We're not trying to pull punches, after all, we awarded the phone a one out of ten on our repairability scale. We do not 'defer to manufacturers for root cause analysis'," the statement read.

However, this is not the first time iFixit has had to do a favour in an issue dealing with a faulty device and the manufacturer. They did a teardown of the Galaxy Fold last year and pulled it off the site when Samsung requested.