HOW IT’S DONE
Samsung’s new flagship laid bare.
Samsung Galaxy S8+
Samsung is back, baby! The world’s biggest smartphone maker has launched what is very nearly the world’s biggest smartphone — with its monster 6.2-inch display, the Galaxy S8+ packs a visual wallop. But how will it fare on the teardown table? Let’s get the exploded view.
MAJOR TECH SPECS
6.2-inch, dual-edge, Super AMOLED display with 2,960 x 1,440 resolution (529ppi) Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, with 4GB RAM 12-megapixel rear camera with dual-pixel autofocus, and 4K video capture; 8-megapixel selfie camera 64GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB additional) IP68 water resistance rating Android 7.0 Nougat
KEY FINDINGS
Enough delay — we’re eager to see inside. Luckily, by now, we know the drill. Plenty of heat from our iOpener softens the adhesive enough to pry the rear glass up, and start battling our way in. But for all our talk, this rear panel does present something new. The fingerprint reader lives in the rear panel, with a very short cable tying it to the motherboard. It looks as though Samsung designed the cable to safely pull free with the rear panel. With almost no slack, the gentlest lift of the panel yanks the cable right out from its tiny pop connector. This makes it decidedly less damage-prone than certain fingerprint sensor cables we’ve ≠ seen before. Let’s hope that Samsung’s improved testing procedures are what the Note 7 was missing, because this design looks about the same to us. And it’s still a bear to pry it off that adhesive. Even with the battery fully removed, the glue won’t let go. The S8+ features a 13.48Wh (3,500mAh at 3.85V) battery — the exact same capacity as the Note 7, and a little less than the S7 Edge’s 13.86Wh. Samsung continues to beat Apple in the battery capacity wars, with the iPhone 7+ weighing in at 11.1Wh (2,900mAh at 3.82V). We extract the I/O daughterboard. There’s lots of ingress proofing in evidence, including the speaker grille surround and the seals on the USB Type-C connector and headphone jack, with a collection of gaskets that help earn the phone its IP68 rating. The headphone jack itself remains modular — good for repairability, ≠ as this is a high-wear component. On a hunt for the mysterious home not-button, we dig into the display, despite previous difficulties. Luckily, this fused display/digitizer peels up from its frame with a decent struggle, but no damage. Hoping to find some hidden detail under the display cabling, we peel it up and find — zilch. No model information, and no visible pressure sensor. Better luck next time. Repairability Score: 4 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair). Many components are modular and can be replaced independently. The battery can be replaced, but tough adhesive and a glued-on rear panel make it unnecessarily difficult to achieve. Front and back glass make for double the crackability, and strong adhesive on both makes it tough to access the internals for any repair. Because of the curved screen, replacing the front glass without destroying the display is extremely difficult.