Now the goal of this whole video is to open up the Vivo X20 Plus and see what that in-screen
fingerprint scanner looks like from the inside.
Even though this phone survived my durability test, at the end the screen went black when
it got cracked over the top of the fingerprint scanner.
So now let's see how it's all put together and see what can be replaced.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
There are two visible screws at the bottom of the Vivo X20, both of which are a T2 screw.
I'll link the toolkit I use, and any replacement parts I find in the video description like
usual.
Once those screws are out I'll slip my metal pry tool between the plastic edge of the screen
and the metal edge of the phone.
I've taken apart several other phones with a similar build to this, and it's held together
with a series of clasps around the outside.
So a few strategically placed pry tools should be able to pop the screen out of the back
metal housing.
Luckily, since my screen is already shattered, I don't have to worry too much about being
gentle and keeping it in one piece.
There is a little bit of adhesive holding the back to the front panel, but there's nothing
special attached to that back metal.
So I'll set it off to the side and start taking out the 3 screws holding down the large C
shaped bracket, and then I'll set that off to the side next to the screws to keep things
organized.
This phone is pretty complex inside, unfortunately.
I'll unclip the battery ribbon cable first, and then the button ribbon.
And then the charging port ribbon unsnaps like a little Lego, which is actually super
interesting because the mirco USB charging port is only held in place by two little screws
down here at the bottom, then the whole port comes out.
This is literally the easiest charging port replacement that I've ever seen.
There are two screws holding down one more silver bracket over the two extension ribbons
that I'll explain in a second.
I'll fold those down gently, making sure not to kink anything.
And then grab the little green battery pull tab and remove it from the frame.
The 3900 milliamp power battery is actually pretty easy to remove and to replace compared
to other mainstream phones.
The motherboard has an incredibly small eccentric rotating mass vibration motor tucked over
here underneath the camera.
You can see how it rotates and spins around on it's little motor.
I'll remove 4 more screws holding down the motherboard, and unclip one of the two main
camera ribbons over here on the side, just like a little Lego.
Same here with the earpiece resting in the center of the motherboard.
There are two wire cables, a white and a black, one on either side of the phone.
Then the motherboard can pull up and away from the phone body.
Looking at the motherboard we can get a close-up view at the SIM and SD card tray, along with
the dual camera set up – both 12 megapixel.
Vivo doesn't advertise OIS so this little movement in the lens might just be the focusing
mechanism.
Moseying our way down to the bottom of the phone to look for that in-screen fingerprint
scanner, we find another 8 screws.
I'll keep these organized by setting them on the table next to me arranged in the same
shape they were while inside the phone.
The black plastic pops off revealing the loud speaker and protective plastics.
And then all we have left attached to the phone is the extension ribbon for the headphone
jack.
Then the headphone jack itself.
And finally, the last remaining ribbon.
Now, the screen is very permanently glued onto this metal frame, and by permanent, I
mean any attempt to remove the screen will end up breaking the display and the glass.
Luckily mine is already broken, so I don't have too much to worry about.
But it will all need to be removed in order for us to get a glimpse of how that fingerprint
scanner functions.
I've been warming up the phone with a heat gun, getting it barely too hot to touch.
This softens the adhesive under the screen, allowing my thin metal pry tool to slip in
between the glass and the plastic edge, cutting through the soft adhesive.
The display has the fragility of a potato chip underneath that glass, so this definitely
destroys the display.
And this is also why I only remove phone screens that are already completely broken when they're
glued in like this.
Once my pry tool has cleared all the adhesive around the edges, the whole thing can pull
up and away from the frame.
If I were to replace the screen right now, I would just clean up that frame and reuse
it with the new screen.
Finally, we get to see the backside of the display fingerprint scanner.
It's got a little latch style connector tying it into the screen ribbon cable.
I'll unlock that with my plastic pry tool and very carefully pull the fingerprint scanner
up and away from the back of the screen.
It's very lightly adhered to the slot that it's sitting in and it is pulling away with
some of the little bits of fragile AMOLED display attached to it.
You can see inside the slot, the screen has different layers.
The clear glass layer on the outside, and then that brownish display layer made up of
tiny LEDs that I compared to a fragile potato chip.
And then finally this little rectangular fingerprint scanner called the FS9500 made by a company
called Synaptics.
That little orange block in the center is the sensor that captures the image of your
fingerprint and turns it into an equation based off of the contrasting points of your
fingerprint ridges.
This sensor is designed to work pretty much covered and in close range, so it's not the
exact same as the colorful, normal camera sensor like the one we saw inside of the LG
V30 teardown.
Both of the cameras are designed for different tasks, but it's still interesting to see the
sensors side by side.
Thumbs up for that.
Let's take a closer look at the display panel since the fingerprint scanner essentially
takes a picture through the LEDs displaying the images you see with your eyes on the phone
display.
The shards are semi-translucent and you can see light through the rectangle where the
sensor used to be.
The only reason the rest of the display is as black as it is, is because of this black
layer of tape covering the AMOLED panel.
Without this black layer of tape, the rest of the panel becomes as translucent as the
little rectangle above the fingerprint scanner.
Confirmed by the translucentness underneath the tape that I peeled away.
Pretty fascinating stuff.
Like MKBHD said in his video, he really can put that fingerprint scanner anywhere and
make it as large as you want since it just works underneath the LED panel.
It will be interesting to see how the technology improves and progresses.
This is the first phone ever with an in-screen fingerprint scanner and I imagine we'll see
it more often in the future.
And I'll definitely be here to show it to you from the inside, so make sure you're subscribed.
Normally at this point I would put the phone back together, but I don't have the replacement
screen on hand yet, so it'll have to wait.
Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter, and let me know what other phones you want
to see the insides of.
Thanks a ton for watching, and I'll see you around.