Samsung Galaxy Fold Teardown! - How does it even work?

Today we are going to take apart the Galaxy Fold. This is Samsung's phone that opens up to reveal a full internal screen hidden inside the two halves as my internal screen was damaged during the durability test and is now a bit delicate. My question. Can I take the phone apart and keep half of it as a functional device because technically there is a still

work

ing screen on the outside? Should be an interesting little experiment. Let's get started, so there are three surfaces on this phone, the big one. The square inner screen and then the two long rectangles found on the outside of Samsung phones are usually disassembled by removing the back glass and this Galaxy Fold appears to be no different with a little heat from my hika and a bit of elegant refinement from my razor blade along with the suction cup I can gently move around the back glass panel cutting the adhesive it's a little difficult since the glass is curved but not impossible after cutting most of the adhesive I can rotate the only piece of this phone that It

does

not have a screen attached and we remove it from the phone, there is no tape or anything sensitive attached to the bottom of the glass, we see the wireless charging coil for the first time, which I

even

completely forgot about this phone.

If we now have two sides left, I'll assume that this phone has more components under the smaller screen, so I'll take my suction cup heat gun and razor blade and go around the glass once more, being especially careful not to do this. I put my razor blade too deep into the phone because if the screen gets punctured from the bottom, it will be dead. The screens are very fragile, as we learned from the

fold

able screen inside this phone, after heating the adhesive and cutting it, I can tilt the screen up and away from the hinge side,

fold

ing it open, allowing access to the thin ribbon cable Attached under the black plastic lid once I unzip it, like a little lego, the front screen and glass panel can be removed, it's a super slim little compact.

The designer OLED screens are as thin as they come, it's the same style of screen we saw on the back of the Nuvia Because you can't complain here, there are 19 visible screws holding the phone's rear internal plastics and three more screws hidden under the wireless charging cover. Once they are removed, the wireless charging can be removed. It has the circular wireless coils in the center. with what looks like nfc coils all of which can communicate via the gold contact pads that rest against the motherboard, i can now remove the black plastics from the right side, the top section has a built in speaker along with a headset style speaker separate.

It's interesting that they are both side by side, then we have a piece of black plastic that clips around the battery and lastly we have the bottom plastics that contain the speaker. One interesting thing about this little speaker, as we saw inside the iPhone 11 pro, are these little white foam dots that fill the space inside the speaker box. Lightweight specifications are added to the speaker housing to cushion the speaker as the speaker moves. The air inside the speaker box has to pass through the foam points that cause air. to disperse and act less dense, allowing the speaker to sound larger than it actually is.

People have been adding foam to subwoofer enclosures for years, so it's interesting to see the same concept applied here in this ant subwoofer. Someone should count them for us. You may have already noticed that this phone has two batteries inside a smaller one on the left and then a relatively proportional battery on the right side. I will unplug each one of them as if they were little Legos. Removing the battery is the same tedious and dangerous process as it always is with Samsung,

even

in this futuristic

galaxy

. Bold Samsung has yet to update its battery adhesion practices with two pry tools, gently lifting the battery.

I can finally remove it by hand, but any accidental container would cause the battery to slowly expand. over the next few months or exploding immediately is a fun little game that keeps you on your toes. I'll remove the extension tape over the top of the small battery and then begin the same gentle prying procedure while waiting for nothing to spontaneously combust the small battery. one milliamp hour and the largest is a 2135 for a combined total of 4235 milliamp hours. Something I hadn't noticed before is that both motherboards inside the Galaxy Fold glow with a rainbow effect, like a drip of gasoline in a wet parking lot.

It must be some kind of treatment they use while assembling the plates, it looks great. I really think that sometimes the inside of cell phones looks cooler than the outside. Kudos to Samsung for that, speaking of internal parts, here's a close-up shot. Of the guts for those of you with a Galaxy Fold, you can take a screenshot, crop it and turn it into a wallpaper. Back to business, it's time to see how this hinge performs and how it was able to hold up to my container test. The SIM card tray has a rubber ring around the edge, but there is definitely no ingress protection rating on this phone as dust can still easily get in at other points.

I'll remove the three large ribbon connectors on this half of the motherboard. Remember that this is also half of the motherboard. phone that the smaller rear screen attaches to there is one more Phillips head screw holding the motherboard down and then I can lift up and unclip the last little tape on the bottom before releasing the motherboard, the shiny motherboard comes out with the outside camera still connected. a 10 megapixel camera without optical image stabilization. There is also a large magnet along the side and in the corners. This helps keep the phone closed, but is fairly well balanced without being too loud or noticeable.

I will remove the two large extension ribbons from the motherboard. the other half of the phone along with the side button connector and I can take out the two internal front cameras. Remember there are six cameras here. These little guys are the 10-megapixel main camera along with its 8-megapixel depth-sensing companion, neither of which. which have optical image stabilization after disconnecting the bottom two signal cables, the motherboard can start to lift up from inside the phone and once it comes out, we can see for the first time the copper cooling pad under the board, The motherboard

does

not have thermal paste, but does have a foam pad to help transfer heat.

The triple camera setup on the Galaxy Fold is very similar to the Galaxy Note 10 with its 12-megapixel 2x optical zoom camera at the bottom and then the 12-megapixel main camera here in the center. it also has optical image stabilization, the main camera also has a small variable aperture device that can magnetically adjust the amount of light that can enter the sensor with its small circular shutters, very interesting, the 12 megapixel wide angle camera on the back top does not have any optical image stabilization, remember How I was going to take this phone apart and see if the half fold could still function as a full phone.

Well, both sides have a battery and half has an extra screen, so it was a good theory, but the problem is the small screen. It's on the opposite side of the USB-C charging port, so the Galaxy Fold definitely needs both halves of the phone to continue

work

ing. Who would have thought that the copper vapor chamber can come out of the phone quite easily? This little guy simply dissipates heat from the processor allowing the phone to run a little cooler, we have seen this type of copper inside many phones at the moment so let's move on, it's time to look at the huge 7. 3 inches and the complex hinge contraption that holds it all together Now you probably remember that this is the second time the Galaxy Fold has been launched.

When it was first released there was what looked like a screen protector on top, but it was actually part of the screen. Samsung has since extended that screen protector. I'm looking at the plastic screen component under this plastic bezel so people now won't be tempted to take it off. My temptation to take off the screen is still quite strong, so let's proceed, this time the screen is paper thin and well, you know. foldable, it feels like a giant piece of thick packing tape peeling off the body of the phone and is quite satisfying. Samsung has added a metal plate under each half of the phone in this new version and this is supposed to add a bit of structure to Samsung has said that anyone with a foldable Samsung can replace that internal folding screen for the first year with one of one year. time rate of 149. which seems more than reasonable, but if the screen breaks more than once or after the first year, it will be 599 curious how Samsung can replace the entire screen for the same price that Apple charges to replace the part later. glass from an iPhone 11.

Now let's take a closer and personal look at this hinge. This flexible guy survived my durability test and I think it's time we found out how and why there are some pieces of long, thin black tape covering the internal screws. I'll take you out of the galactic fold so we can see more of the impressive engineering. We can also see some of the sand that slid into the fold. This still causes a squeaking noise when the phone is opened and closed. Let's take things. One step further, the galactic fold hinge is made up of three main components, the first of which is the massive rear metal spine of the fold and is held in place by ten screws.

Once they are removed, the spine can be removed from the center of the fold. phone its metal design has chambers or ridges on the inside to help guide the other components of the hinge, prevents them from bending too much or turning out of place here in the center we see the internal gears inspired by watch mechanics along with three From the four spring-loaded latches that lock the fold in the open position, feeling extremely well balanced within the fold, we get these interlocking metal scoop contraptions, two large ones in the center with two smaller versions of both the top and From the bottom, there are a lot of moving parts inside this thing, which makes it feel very balanced and natural, while also being incredibly sturdy, but with all the precision these moving parts require, there's not a lot of room for specks of sand and currently sand and dust can still get in. and polish to your little heart's content, so while this hinge design was inspired by watch mechanics, I hope Samsung can also seal it like watches do in future versions of the fold, I think it's an innovation amazing and it's nice that Samsung takes care of their I offered my clients replacement screens for so little money for the first year.

I look forward to seeing what other versions of the pleats come out next. Personally, I want to see a smaller fold that opens vertically to become a full-sized cell phone, like the old-school flip. cell phones, it will be fun to see what happens. Do you think foldable phones will ever catch on and become commonplace? Let me know in the comments, hit the subscribe button if you haven't already and post me on Instagram and Twitter, thanks. by looking I will see you there