Stefan Mileschin

Many folks who've torn down an HTC One agree that it's practically impossible to do so without damaging the body, hence iFixit's low repairability score of 1/10. That said, as we found out from HTC's Frequencies Asia event earlier today, there's apparently an elegant solution to this problem. This little surprise came from none other than Justin Huang, the man who personally sketched the phone's conceptual designs.

"During the development [of the One], there was another team inside HTC who looked at the repair process," said Huang, who's also the Senior Manager of the One's design team. "So every phone sent to HTC, they have a special tool to disassemble the back cover, to let us have the ability to access all the components inside."

Huang added that his folks can even put everything back together neatly, as you'd expect. But the problem is that only HTC has this tool, and our man wasn't keen on revealing the magic behind it. This is bad news for those who want to do a bit of DIY repair or modification -- especially with different colors.

"Don't try it," teased Huang with a smile. Fine, we'll just have to keep an eye out for this oh-so-precious kit in the Huaqiangbei markets. Or we can just tickle Peter Chou when we next see him.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/10/h... ign=Engadget