00:00Well, the Samsung Z Flip 7 survived my durability test, but I highly doubt it'll survive the
00:06teardown. It's time we expose what adamantium studded reinforcements Samsung has added to the
00:11inside starting, of course, with the larger main screen. This means we'll need a fresh new mini
00:17razor blade. See, the reason the Z Flip 7 has bumpers around the exterior edge of that large
00:226.9 inch display is because the screen is made of layers like an onion or an ogre. And if those
00:29layers don't have a wall keeping dirt and debris from coming in sideways, it'll destroy the display.
00:34And I kind of got to come in sideways to remove the folding screen, which means the bumper needs
00:39to be taken off. The bumper also keeps the two halves of the phone from touching each other while
00:43the device is closed, so is pulling double duty protection. It is very securely attached and
00:49won't ever be falling out on its own, that's for sure. With the plastic bumpers taken completely off,
00:54I'll swap to a fresh blade again and stab my way in from the side. I am trying my hardest,
00:59to remove this flexible screen in one piece, which is a near impossible endeavor. Thankfully,
01:04Samsung has included a metal backplate behind the pixels, so if I can keep the removal pressure
01:10on the metal and make sure not to touch the edge of the soft plastic, we just might be successful.
01:15I'll add some heat to hopefully help soften any glue holding the metal sheet to the aluminum frame
01:19of the Flip 7, and I'm going to switch to a much longer and thinner pry tool. Since any crease or
01:25fold too abrupt, we'll crack the pixels and the ultra thin glass that is included in one of the
01:31internal layers. Little jump scare there, I thought she was gone. We must be shorting something out,
01:37but so far everything still looks like it's working. The trick to removing these fragile folding screens,
01:42as someone who's done it successfully only once, is to remember that it can only fold in one direction
01:47at a time. As soon as you throw a multi plane bend in there, it's curtains for the pixels. You can hot dog
01:53or hamburger, but not both at the same time. And it's dead. I was so focused on not hot dogging,
02:00I forgot the ribbon cables along the lower edge. And that's kind of the problem with being the
02:04first person to take apart new devices. However, if my own device dies so that others might live,
02:10that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. See, we know the top layer is plastic, and the layer right
02:15beneath that is plastic as well. But under that there's an ultra thin glass layer. And Samsung,
02:21as far as I know, is the only company that's been able to perfect this ultra flexible glass.
02:26It is glass since as you can clearly see, when I hot dog the hamburger it cracks and shatters.
02:32It's pretty impressive stuff, so thumbs up for that. And hopefully Samsung can make it thicker
02:38someday. Now that we have the folding screen out of the way, rest in peace, we can see that Samsung
02:42has added a little loin cloth of sorts between the back side of the screen and the hinge. A quick
02:47peel reveals that quite a lot of dust has made it inside, so I would recommend keeping your pockets
02:52as clean as possible. Now for the exterior glass. This one is going to be almost just as hard as
02:58the folding screen. Even with my smaller knife, Samsung has inlaid the glass inside the armor
03:03aluminum with not even enough room to slip a razor blade between the two materials. However, if you
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04:12back to shipping my mini jerry rig knives right after this teardown. To keep the screen in one
04:16piece, I'm going to try all my tricks. First, dripping isopropyl alcohol into the non-existent
04:21seam. I don't think this is going to help too much. So second, I'm going to heat up all 4.1 inches of the
04:27exterior display until it starts melting my fingerprints off. We already lost one display today and I don't
04:32think I can bear it if we lose the second. Finally, I'm going to jam that uber thin pry tool between the
04:38glass and the metal and hopefully drizzle some more alcohol into the cracks to dissolve the adhesive
04:42holding that thin border of the glass to the phone frame. Alcohol dissolves adhesive because of science,
04:48and that's all I know. Apparently, if you go slow enough and gently work your way around the entire
04:53edge of the glass several times, it does indeed lift up and away in one piece. Congrats to myself.
04:59The internal ribbon cable sits slightly inside the left edge of the screen and is long enough so that
05:04the whole edge to edge display can pull away from the Flip 7 body. Unfortunately though, I still don't
05:10see a way to turn off the phone from this exterior little screen, so we'll just have to continue the
05:15autopsy while the patient is awake. No complaints on my end. I'll remove the 8 Phillips head screws from
05:20the upper protective bracket. And since he's awake, we can also get an inside peek at how much travel
05:26the optical image stabilization on the main camera lens has. As I tip and shake the phone,
05:31you can see how steady that image remains while the tiny electromagnets inside the camera body
05:36physically stabilize the lens. With the screws gone, the back metal can pull away. It's still
05:41attached to the upper loudspeaker and earpiece. And if we look very closely, we can figure out which
05:46wire goes to the battery, which finally puts our Flip 7 to sleep. Then the exterior display unplugs just like a
05:53little Lego. Historically, the bottom piece of glass has also been really hard to remove since
05:58it's equally embedded into the aluminum housing. But with copious amounts of heat and my new ultra
06:04thin pry tool, it's not too bad. I don't know if the isopropyl is doing anything with a gap this tight,
06:09but again, it definitely doesn't hurt. I'll remove two screws that pin down the extension ribbon.
06:16Then I can pop off the 15 watt wireless charging coil. This also has a 4.5 watt reverse wireless
06:22charging capability, so I can't complain too much about that. OnePlus though is knocking out 50 watt
06:28wireless charging, which is 3 times faster. But you know, who's counting? Pulling up the lower plastics
06:33over the charging port board. This still has the loudspeaker attached to it. And at first glance,
06:38there does not appear to be any balls inside. But cracking it open, they explode all over the place.
06:44They're definitely in here. Anyway, the lower charging port board has the 25 watt USB-C port,
06:50and it's surrounded by the circular coin style vibrator motor. I'll lift up the lower extension
06:55ribbons and grab the battery pull tabs. And thankfully, Samsung has been listening and has
07:00kept the removable batteries. For years, Samsung was the most egregious offender permanently gluing
07:09in their batteries. But now it's not too bad. I'm glad they've learned and I'm glad they've changed.
07:14This 3075 milliamp hour battery does say it's a secondary battery, which is interesting. Maybe
07:20the other battery in the top half is the primary. Moving up the phone, we have the SIM card tray near
07:25the motherboard, which with the screen off, you can see how that little hole presses on a lever,
07:30which pushes the SIM card tray up from the bottom. Kind of cool to see that for the first time. I'll
07:35unplug a few more ribbon cables just like little Legos. These go to the power buttons and lower half of the
07:40phone. The upper battery is definitely the smaller of the two, but pulls out just as easily.
07:47It's interesting though that both batteries say secondary. And if they both say secondary,
07:51then I assume Samsung is using the word secondary in the rechargeable sense,
07:56since primary batteries can only be used once. Like double A's or the battery inside my Casio F91W,
08:03which gets replaced once every 7 years. With the smaller batteries, 1225 milliamp hours,
08:09we get a total of 4300. There's a large copper vapor chamber that we've revealed sitting under the
08:14battery and motherboard. And now that the battery is gone, we can pull up on the motherboard,
08:18clearing it from the Flip 7 frame. You can see that it's a double stacked unit by the green
08:23motherboard on top and the blue motherboard on the bottom. The main 50 megapixel camera does have OIS,
08:28while the 12 megapixel ultra wide does not. There's also no thermal foam or thermal paste bridging the
08:34gap between the motherboard and the copper vapor chamber. I'm not sure why not, since it would cost
08:39next to nothing to implement and only improve thermal performance. But maybe we'll find some
08:44in the Fold 7 when we take that apart. Finally, it's time for the hinge. Samsung has redesigned this
08:50thing again this year, this time calling it the Armor Flex hinge. Samsung says it's more drop resistant
08:55than the previous design while having a tighter folding radius and dual rail architecture.
09:01Removing the 4 screws along the spine and 8 screws along the upper half of the phone,
09:05I can pull the upper half away from the hinge. Assembling this in a factory has got to be a work
09:10of art. There are so many more moving parts and complex procedures than a normal smartphone.
09:15I'll remove 8 more screws holding the lower half of the phone to the hinge. The ribbon cable kind of
09:20looks like a little man who has his head buried in the folding mechanism. Anyway, since we removed
09:26the spinal screws earlier, the Samsung logo can fall away, revealing the new design. We still have
09:31springs and gears like we've historically seen, just this time around we have 4 sets of everything.
09:374 gears and 4 screens on the left side, and 4 gears and 4 springs on the right. Still slathered in dust
09:43though, but then again I haven't gone through much effort to keep the dust out either. Like always I have a
09:49teardown skin for this device as well. And if your business ships stuff regularly, check out Stamps.com.
09:54Link is down in the description. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.
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