News

Video Overview

Step 1 Samsung Galaxy Note7 Teardown

It's a mix of new and familiar as we peruse the Note7's specs:

• Curved panel 5.7" Super AMOLED display with 2560 × 1440 resolution (518 ppi) and Gorilla Glass 5

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with 4 GB RAM + Adreno 530 GPU

• 12-megapixel, ƒ/1.7 rear camera with OIS, dual pixel autofocus, 4K video; 5-megapixel/1080p selfie camera

• 64 GB internal storage, with an additional 256 GB available via MicroSD expansion

• Iris scanner, fingerprint scanner

• S Pen stylus, USB-C, and headphone jack(phew)

• IP68 dust and water resistance rating

Step 2

• As we boldly go where no tinkerer has gone before, we come across some starports hiding out near the bottom edge. From left to right we observe:

• Headphone jack

• USB-C port

• Microphone port

• Speaker grille

• That last one's not a port at all, it's the illustrious S Pen. Removing the S Pen is as smooth as slicing warm butter.

• Building off the Note5's mid-production design modification, the S Pen doesn't fit into its slot backwards. Now that's progress.

Step 3

• Our teardown hands are itching to get down to business, but we take a moment to test out the S Pen.

• First impressions: this stylus stacks up pretty well against Microsoft's Surface Pen and Apple's Pencil.

• The S Pen is smaller (and more stow-able) than either, but still has a scan rate of 360 Hz and senses 4,096 levels of pressure compared to the Pencil's 240 Hz and the Surface Pen's 1,024 levels of sensitivity.

• In an additional level of customization, the S Pen comes with two interchangeable tips: a soft tip for writing on smooth glass, and a hard tip for use with screen protectors.

Step 4

• If opening stubbornly adhered Samsung devices was an Olympic sport, our teardown room would be filled with gold medals.

• We take a minute to stretch while the iOpener works its magic, softening the adhesive under the rear glass.

• Bang! The gun sounds. We fly off the starting blocks, iSclack and opening pick in hand. Pop! The rear glass dislodges from the chassis. Whoosh! The rest of the adhesive didn't stand a chance.Ka-pow! We're in.

• And the crowd goes wild. Okay, but really. This is something of a delicate procedure, and we still miss the days of plastic peel off rear cases.

Step 5

• Tinkerers love Phillips screws. Seeing these good ol' familiar screws draws our focus down to what they're securing: a sweet wireless charging coil.

• Samsung states that "once you've had wireless charging, there's no going back." It's like having the event horizon of a black hole right in your phone, with all the convenience that entails.

• We suspect the NFC antenna is also bundled into this wafer-thin assembly. NFC is no stranger to Galaxy Phones.

• With that, we get our first full reveal of the Note7. [Cue oohs and aahs]

Step 6

• We come across an unusual battery cable design. At first glance, this is most definitely a slide. We're getting a little motion sick just looking at all of those winding curves.

• Fortunately for us, a flick of a spudger is all it takes to pry the (off-kilter) battery connector cable off the motherboard.

• With battery disconnected we delve deeper.

• First victim: the single speaker, with built in antenna.

• Of note, the speaker pass-through has a gasket and mesh liner, in addition to the grille punched into the case (likely a waterproofing measure).

Step 7

• We could almost hear the battery laugh in our faces when we tried to pluck it out bare-handed—but our inner Hulk emerges as we muscle with all the might our spudger can muster.

• This 3500 mAh, 13.48 Wh battery is significantly more powerful than the 10.45 Wh one found in the similarly sized iPhone 6s Plus, but it falls just a bit short of its smaller sibling, the Galaxy S7 Edge, which comes in at 13.86 Wh.

• Curiously, the Note7's battery is fortified by walls carved from the rear case, providing extra structural integrity, and maybe even some water protection.

Step 8

• Out comes the motherboard, with three little cameras in tow.

• Front and rear cameras are familiar fare on smartphones, so what's the third camera for?

• That would be the Note7's trick iris scanner. It's actually a two-part system: a nearby infrared blaster invisibly lights up your eye, while the sensor captures an image that's said to be more secure than a fingerprint.

• For comparison we have the iris scanner (right) with the Note7's 5-megapixel, ƒ/1.7 selfie cam (left).

• And for the X-ray comparison, here we have the two cameras still in the device.

Step 9

• With the motherboard deftly extracted, we take our tweezers to the hefty main camera and line him up for closer look.

• It's déjà vu all over again as we pull out what appears to be the same Sony IMX260-based main camera that we uncovered in the S7 and S7 Edge.

• ... And the similarities go further, all the way down to:

• the Winbond Q32FWXGIG serial flash memory

• and OIS-enabling gyroscope, likely the next generation of the one found in the S7 Edge

Step 10

We're down to the meat and potatoes of this teardown, and it seems like Samsung unified more than their product numbering—this chipset is nearly identical to that found in the S7and S7 Edge.

• Samsung K3RG2G20CMMGCJ 4 GB LPDDR4 SDRAM layered over a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820

• Samsung KLUCG4J1CB-B0B1 64 GB Universal Flash Storage 2.0

• Avago AFEM-9040 multiband multimode module

• NXP 67T05 NFC controller

• Qorvo QM78064 high band RF fusion module, TQF6260 front-end module and QM63001A diversity receive module

• Qualcomm WCD9335 audio codec and DSP DBMD4 audio/voice processor

• Murata FAJ15 front-end module

Step 11

More note-worthy chips hide on the backside:

• Samsung 3420S7 G707A3 Wi-Fi module (most likely contains a Broadcom Wi-Fi SoC)

• Wacom W9018 touch control IC

• ZF10 110630 0625

• Qualcomm PM8996 and PM8004 PMICs

• Qualcomm QFE3100 envelope tracker

• Qualcomm WTR4905 and WTR3925 RF transceivers

• IDT P9221S wireless power receiver (likely an iteration of IDT P9220) + MPB02 603PD9 1625ELn + MAX77838 power IC

Step 12

• Heading south, we hit the modular headphone jack—ready to let the music flow while keeping water out, with a nice sealing gasket.

• This phablet ships with an IP68 water resistant rating, meaning it is dust tight, and can survive under 1 meter (or more) of water.

• The USB-C port is new to the Note line—and while reversibility is handy, change is hard. Samsung kindly includes a micro-USB-to-C adapter to keep your cables relevant.

• Out goes the daughterboard array! Unlike the one found in the S7, this board used rigid PCB interconnects. This keeps the spidery cable from being flimsy. No one likes flimsy.

Step 13

• If you like tiny heat pipes, Note7 has you covered. This looks like the same "liquid cooling" copper heat dispersal apparatus we pulled from the vanilla S7 and S7 Edge.

• Nearby, a note-able amount of glue secures this plastic cover over the S Pen chamber. It's probably there to help ingress-proof the stylus' slot.

• We're not normally fans of glue—but this waterproofing effort doesn't seem to hinder repair much.

• Inside, a simple clip grabs the S Pen notches, and a gray rubber bumper protects the nib.

Step 14

• The volume buttons look pretty complicated, but that doesn't slow us down. Braced with years of experience plucking our unibrows, we dive in, a pair of tweezers in hand.

• First out are the microswitches, followed by a reinforcement bracket full of rubber gaskets. Not quite the same, but similar to another waterproofing approach we've seen.

• But...what's this? The button covers are oddly trapped within the outer case. We can't pop them out!

• Could this mean the case is double-walled? Is this a waterproofing feature? Perhaps a structural feature? Your guess is as good as ours.

Step 15

We're down to slim pickings, and the last component to surrender is this front-facing sensor array containing:

• Status LED

• IR blaster to enable iris scanning

• We saw the iris scanning sensor earlier—this component provides the infrared illumination to really make your eyes pop.

• Proximity sensor

Step 16

And here's the moment you've been waiting for—the exploded (edit: no pun intended) diagram of the Note7.

Products Sort