Man assembles an iPhone from parts


built a like-new(but really refurbished) iPhone 6S 16GB entirely from parts I bought in the public cell phone parts markets in Huaqiangbei. And it works!

I've been fascinated by the cell phone parts markets in Shenzhen, China for a while. I'd walked through them a bunch of times, but I still didn't understand basic things, like how they were organized or who was buying all these parts and what they were doing with them.

So when someone mentioned they wondered if you could build a working smartphone from parts in the markets, I jumped at the chance to really dive in and understand how everything works. Well, I sat on it for nine months, and then I dove in.

Interesting video He said he spent about 2 months looking for parts and spent $1000 on tools and parts that didn't go towards the final build. He said he figures the cost of the parts he actually used was about $300. He also purchased assembled recycled components, so it was completely built from scratch.