HP Pro x2 612 G2 Repairability Assessment

Front and back of device.

Plastic rear panel is rugged and should be able to take a beating without deforming or cracking.

SIM/SD tray removal.

Removable/expandable storage is good news for upgradability.

The rear panel is immediately removable without any tools; the kickstand need only be flipped up to reveal the notch for prying.

The cover is soft and secured with clips that are strong and flexible enough to endure many opening and closings.

Nothing is mounted to the rear cover to the inside of the rear cover, so there are no cables to disconnect.

The battery can be immediately disconnected, making for safer repairs, but cannot be immediately removed, which is unfortunate for a consumable component.

Components that can be accessed and removed immediately after removing rear panel:

Kickstand—simply secured with some T5 screws

SSD—standard blade-style, secured with a single screw

Wi-Fi module—secured with a single screw

Fingerprint reader and interconnect board—adhered to the midframe and connected via ZIF, fairly easy to remove, modular component

NFC antenna—adhered to midframe, connected via ZIF, fairly simple to remove

Rear-facing camera—including flash assembly, adhered with metallic tape that should be transferred to a new unit.

The display is pushed off of the midframe with a thin tool through small slots. No adhesive is used to secure the display to the body—instead a combination of clips and screws does the job.

The display and digitizer cables connect the display to the rest of the device, but are long enough to allow fully opening and folding the display over before disconnecting.

The display carries no real components other than some magnets, USB port strengthening bracket, and some display boards. This makes for a faster, cheaper repair, with fewer extra components to buy or transfer to a new display.

Battery can now be safely removed; it is only secured with a few screws. Also removable at this point:

Front-facing camera—lightly adhered with metallic tape

Microphone board—wedged into the top of the midframe, fairly simple to wiggle out.

Digitizer cable

USB-C strengthening bracket—secured with screws, good reinforcement for a common point of failure.

System board can then be removed, but only after disconnecting several cables that are accessible through cutouts in the other side of the midframe, and removing screws.

From the system board the following are removable:

Heatsink/EMI shield is attached with two screws and some clips and can be removed to reapply thermal paste.

POGO connector cable

Display cable, and attached Hall effect sensor cable.

The headphone jack, USB-C and USB-A ports, and SD card slot are soldered to the system board. Replacing these high-wear components is made more expensive by their permanent home on the system board.

Remaining components can be removed from midframe:

Speakers—the adhered antennas make removal a little annoying and may require replacement adhesive

Antennas—the adhesive securing them to speakers and midframe/card reader bracket is an annoyance, particularly because the copper tape should be replaced exactly, lest the shielding be compromised.

Smart card reader bracket—simple to remove from the board, but harder to remove the antenna adhesive from it.

Smart cardreader board—simply secured with screws, bare modular component.

HP Pro x2 612 G2 Repairability Score: 9 out of 10 (10 is the easiest to repair):

All screws are standard T5 Torx, Phillips #1, or Phillips #0.

Manufacturer provided repair documentation takes the guesswork out of repair.

The device is fairly modular, but complex construction makes common repairs more difficult than they should be.

The flash storage is a standard M.2 card and can be easily upgraded or replaced, but the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, not uncommon for mobile devices.

The display and digitizer are fused, simplifying repair but increasing the cost of an LCD or front glass replacement.