The outside is of little concern. I repair a lot of handsets (it's my sideline between contracts). There are three classes of handsets:
1. Glued together with proprietary screws and requires heat gun to get inside.
2. Screwed + taped together with Torx screws and requires no heat gun to get inside. Parts are heavily integrated.
3. Screwed together with any screws and requires no heat gun to get inside or any tape. Parts are loosely integrated and easy to replace.
iOS devices are all (1) and some Macs are now as well.
Nokia was a (3) but have moved to a (2) recently which is a step backwards in the war against throwing these things away every 5 minutes due to minor problems. I think that is my problem.
The size of the device is not affected by the above. Some of the smallest devices I've seen are perfectly servicable. It's all down to if they want it serviced or not.
Ultimately parts used to be really easy to get for everything. I'm even seeing shortages on iPhone 5S parts now.
+1 that is a nice classification, which goes for a lot of devices actually.
I also have a slight impression that 3 tends to come with higher reliability and quality in general? Maybe not for mobile phones and other things where fashion sometimes rules highly over function or is at least very important (like in, ugh those ugly screwholes on your phone), but definitely for tools, audio/video gear etc. E.g. my first rotary hammer was pretty much unmaintainable and died soon. The second, higher end one came with a complete parts list + schematics of every single bit in there + easy to get and complete service manual. Didn't need it yet though. And the same story goes for all kinds of devices ranging for walkmans to oscilloscopes I owned.
My (now backup) scope is a Telequipment D83. It was manufactured in 1976 in London in the UK. It is fully discrete (no integrated circuits), has a full service manual that comes with it, has not had a single part replaced in its lifetime and has never missed a calibration. After 38 years the tube is less bright but that's about it. One of these:
I can attest to Nokia's older smartphones being extremely easy to work on. I had a N8 till about 2 months ago. With 2 screwdrivers (Cant recall atm but it was either a t4 and t5 or a t5 and t6) I could completely tear it down and replace just about anything I wanted to in about 2 minutes. Charge port gone bad? No need to solder a new one in place just drop a new one in place. That phone was awesome to work on.
I have yet to dig into my 1020 seeing as it is still under warranty.
1. Glued together with proprietary screws and requires heat gun to get inside.
2. Screwed + taped together with Torx screws and requires no heat gun to get inside. Parts are heavily integrated.
3. Screwed together with any screws and requires no heat gun to get inside or any tape. Parts are loosely integrated and easy to replace.
iOS devices are all (1) and some Macs are now as well.
Nokia was a (3) but have moved to a (2) recently which is a step backwards in the war against throwing these things away every 5 minutes due to minor problems. I think that is my problem.
The size of the device is not affected by the above. Some of the smallest devices I've seen are perfectly servicable. It's all down to if they want it serviced or not.
Ultimately parts used to be really easy to get for everything. I'm even seeing shortages on iPhone 5S parts now.