In Fallout 3, we were told that we could not remove the PipBoy because of some biometric things. This is not exclusive to Vault 101, as in Operation Anchorage DLC, we saw a dead Gary with a missing arm and a saw, implying the BoS tried to take it from him.

And then, in New Vegas, Doc Mitchell gives us his own PipBoy, implying he managed to take it out.

In Fallout 4's E3 Conference, we see the player finding the PipBoy on a skeleton, and he just wears it using a simple "belt buckle" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H86cZwjdGwU)

So... What about the PipBoy now? Can we, according to the lore, take it off that easily or not?

That was the 3000A model. These are different.

The Pip-boy 3000 was different than the Pip-boy Mach 4. Also maybe the overseer lied to us so we wouldn't take it off in 101 as a means of control.

Pip-boy lore in a more broad sense, they showed us the first Pip-boy ever during the E3 presentation. I would like to see all the Pip-boy's from that one up to the Pip-boy M4. We can asume they stopped making new Pip-boy models when the bombs fell so there will be a limited number of designs to use in future Fallout games. Oh and it would be cool to see different NPC's wearing different Pip-boys.

Ah, makes more sense then... Thank you very much!

I would hope we can go back to a hand-held version of it. Nothing but a Vault suit looks good with that hunk of metal on the wrist

Non-removable Pipboys made no sense in Fallout 3--most of the clothing didn't look like you could pull the sleeve over that thing! Clipping it on and off makes a lot more sense. I also like how it doesn't show on the outside of power armour anymore.

By now the wrist strapped one is so iconic having any other would be like having a Mario game with him not wearing his cap by default.

Would be nice to choose though. New Vegas had the Pimp-Boy so it's clearly possible to swap them out, but that was just a reskin. Judging from the amount of animation that has gone into the Pip-Boy in Fallout 4 I'd imagine a drastic change from wrist mounted to handheld would be a fair chunk of work to implement to the same quality.

Well like every "new" feature we have seen is taken directly from popular mods for NV and FO3 so hand-held Pipboy would fit in just as well

But neither of those features affects some of the iconic things about the game, a hand-held pip boy would.

I was a little too young at the time, but I imagine the original Pip-Boy 2000 was the Fallout equivalent of the PDAs that came into use in the late 90s. Personally, I feel that the wrist mounted version fits in better now. It just has a better feel to it than whipping out a clunky tablet.

The original Fallouts did not have wrist-mounted Pipboys, also i know i am not alone in my being annoyed with the wrist-mounted variant detracting from every armor-set in the game's look. Seems like more than enough reason to allow the player to choose what they want

So far as I know it was never actually pointed out how the pipboy looks in the old games, just a vague "its a portable computer" there to explain all the menu stuff in game.

My personal favorite is the Pipboy 2500 mod for Fallout 3, based on the Readius. Looks like the old 2000 with all the functionality of the 3000+. I'd love to see that route taken in the future.

Apparently the original Fallout games did have a wrist-mounted Pip-Boy: Thehttp://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Pip-Boy.

as an option

An option that was used by the protagonist in the first two games, according to the wiki.

except that in the olden days there was no visible pip-boy on the player's arm, it was a HUD+Menu and in-game there was never an indication that it was wrist-mounted

Well yeah you never saw it at all, held or otherwise.

I think the original Pip-Boy 2000 was a hand held device you carried around, according to some concept art I found. Like a big bulky 1970's era style PDA. Though it's never represented in-game, and...no one ever really talks about it in those. It's just a menu hub.

According to the original Fallout's manual, the Vault Dweller's Survival Guide, the Pipboy is wristmounted.

Quoting from a post AwesomePossum made in another thread

Well there you go, though you would THINK the old character models would have at least represented that. But that's nitpicking on my part.