Take a full take a look at Samsung’s spectacular engineering
Earlier this month, Samsung’s latest foldable flagship smartphone duo — the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Fold 4 — went by way of Zack Nelson’s grueling sturdiness checks on the JerryRigEverything YouTube channel. Each telephones managed to ace their exams with out breaking into smithereens, with the Flip 4 performing significantly properly. Curious if Samsung had really made the cellphone higher each inside and outside, for his newest take a look at Nelson is cracking open the Z Flip 4 — so you will not need to.
After getting some plastic bumpers out of the way in which, somewhat warmth helps peel the show off, revealing an attention-grabbing element: Samsung says it has ditched the under-display steel backing on the Z Fold 4, however we nonetheless see these plates on the Flip 4. Skinny steel slats and a rubbery-looking sheet additionally assist reinforce the display screen close to the hinge. Regardless of this, the show panel continues to be fairly fragile, and care is required throughout removing to keep away from pinching pixels and killing the display screen.
With the show safely eliminated, the again panels come off with the assistance of somewhat warmth, a suction cup, and a few extra delicate razor blade motion, revealing the cellphone’s cut up battery configuration. The higher half homes the smaller battery beneath the duvet display screen, whereas the decrease half is just about all battery, full with the 15W wi-fi charging coil that additionally helps 4.5W reverse wi-fi charging. Down right here can also be the place the wired charging daughterboard lives, and we see water ingress safety seals across the charging port, speaker, and microphone.
Samsung’s hinge design has improved considerably for this era. Nelson factors out using machined channels to information each halves of the cellphone to fold evenly, in contrast to its predecessor which used advanced gears within the hinge. Surprisingly, the hinge would not exhibit any indicators of bodily put on or injury, even after going by way of a reverse bend take a look at that noticed it pop loudly when bent backwards (and refuse to remain folded shut thereafter). Curiously, Samsung has used a coin-shaped vibration motor within the decrease half of the cellphone for haptics on the Flip 4, as a substitute of the same old rectangular one we see on most gadgets these days. The corporate additionally makes use of plain outdated graphite pads between the show and motherboard to chill the SoC mounted to the latter — we do not see any vapor chambers or thermal paste right here.
Attempting to extricate the selfie digital camera reveals one other curious choice to attach the optics in place, rendering the digital camera ineffective if eliminated incorrectly, as a result of the sensor separates from the lens stack when tugged. Studying from experiences damaging the battery on previous Samsung telephones throughout removing, Nelson leaves the Flip 4’s batteries in place.
In the end, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 comes throughout as impressively engineered and properly constructed, and repairs do not even look like an enormous problem (with the suitable instruments at hand). Nonetheless, the method is time-consuming and doubtless finest left to the professionals at a restore facility close to you.
