In this video I’m going to take apart the Galaxy S7 Edge and talk about reparability.
Plus we’re going to cut open the heat pipe which they’re calling 'liquid cooling',
and at the end, I have some interesting stuff to show you with the camera so buckle up.
The easiest part of this whole project is removing the SIM card/SD card tray from the
phone so set that off to the side. Make sure you keep all your stuff organized. And we
are going to use a heat gun to heat up the back glass panel of the phone. Basically what
we’re trying to accomplish here is to soften the adhesive underneath the glass panel so
the glass panel will come off in one piece without cracking. I’m heating up the phone
to just hotter than I can touch, where I don’t want to leave my finger on there for longer
than a second. Then I’m going to take a large suction cup. I’m using a car windshield
mount. Suctioning it to the back of the glass and lifting up ever so slightly, just relieving
some of the pressure on the glass between the frame and the glass itself so I can slide
a thin metal pry tool in-between the two layers. Once I have that pry tool in, that is the
hardest part. Then I can take my heat gun and heat up the glue again. I can slice away
the glue a little bit with my pry tool but I can’t get along the edge of the phone
or else I’m going to crack the glass. This is where the business cards or playing cards
come in because they can curve along the edge of the Galaxy S7 Edge without cracking the
glass. I’m going to speed this part up a little bit. You can see I’m just cutting
through the adhesive with my playing cards all the way around the outside and that’s
all there is to it. Don’t go too deep or you will cut into the Qi charger; I imagine
most of you want to keep that. Move the back glass panel. You can see here the camera lens.
You can just push those through, that’s how those are replaced. Then there are 12
screws holding down the back the back frame. I will link all the parts and tools down in
the video description right below that “like” button. There’s this nifty little piece
of gold tape. I have no idea what it does but it’s probably important so set that
off to the side where you can remember where it is. Then there are a bunch of little plastic
pieces around the edge of the phone. They’re locked together like little puzzles. So I’m
going to snap off this top piece and set that off to the side next to the screws. Then the
Qi charger, panel and plastic will lift off from the back of the phone as well. It just
unsnaps from the bottom plastic piece. You can see here the contact points of how the
Qi charger charges the battery through the motherboard. I’m going to unplug the battery
now so that there is not any electricity coursing the board. Here’s the power button cable,
the screen ribbon cable, and then here’s the volume rocker cable as well. The bottom
loud speaker pops off and then here are the two contact points that rest on the motherboard
so it gets its signal. Here’s the fingerprint scanner and then here are some signal wires.
So I’m just going to pop those off with my plastic pry tool. You can also lift them
off with a pair of tweezers. Here’s the earpiece ribbon; it’s just like a little
Lego, just unsnap it. Then here’s the 5 megapixel front camera. It’s a cute little
guy. Set that off to the side. Here’s for the front sensors I’m going to pull that
off. And then there’s one more ribbon cable down at the bottom of the phone for the charging
port. I’m going to unsnap that from the back of the motherboard. And then here is
the motherboard itself. Once I flip it over you can already see some discoloration where
the processor has melted into the back plastic. The 820 is a pretty hot running processor.
Here is a 12 megapixel rear facing camera. I have some cool stuff I’m going to show
you with this towards the end of this video. I’m going to put it back into place, just
snapping it in like a little Lego. For the battery removal process it is fairly difficult.
I’m going to use my heat gun again to soften the adhesive between the battery and the frame
of the phone. And then using a metal pry tool very very gently and very carefully prying
it out of the metal frame. You want to make sure not to slide or slice your metal pry
tool at all because if you puncture the battery it could smoke or explode. You know, and we
try to avoid doing those things. Now down by the charging port there are three screws.
You can also remove the headphone jack. Now here is the disappointing part of this phone.
The charging port has these two side ribbons that go around to the “back” and the “menu”
buttons for the Galaxy S7 Edge. And these are tacked underneath the screen. So in order
to remove the charging port you will have to remove the screen and the bad thing about
that is that the Galaxy S7 Edge has the Edge on the amoled and that is near impossible
to remove from the frame without damaging it permanently. So a charging port repair
is pretty impossible with this phone unless you are doing a screen repair at the same
time. So remove the screen from the frame you’re going to use the same process that
you use for the back of the phone with playing cards and heat. It w will destroy the old
screen though so make sure that you do have a working replacement. A glass only screen
repair for this phone would honestly be the best option with this phone, but those liquid
nitrogen machines cost thousands of dollars. My dry ice trick only works with iphones and
not Samsung devices. Hopefully the screen on the regular Galaxy S7 is easier to replace.
We’ll find out when I do my tear down this week. So let’s do something fun. We’re
going to jump in and take apart that heat pipe that sits on top of the snap dragon 820
processor. I’m going to take my razor blade and slice into it and lift up the copper so
we can see the insides. So a heat pipe basically has some vapor inside. This particular heat
pipe there isn’t any visible liquid like there was with the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium.
We could see a little bit of liquid inside of that one. This one is more similar to the
Lumia 950 XL where there’s no liquid inside. So here’s poll question for you. There’s
going to be a little icon that pops up in the corner of this video. Should a heat pipe
inside a cell phone be called liquid cooling when there isn’t any visible liquid? Go
ahead and respond to that quiz and we’ll see what the consensus is. Inside the heat
pipe there are these little copper strands that essentially wick the vapor inside of
the tube from one end to the other as it heats up. So it does work as a glorified heat sink.
I’m going to put it all back together and it is as good as new. Hit that subscribe button
if you’ve enjoyed this video so far. I’m going to put the tape back on top with the
little foam heat transfer bits and then we can start putting the phone back together
again. I’m going to put the headphone jack back in by the charging port and then snap
the charging port ribbon cable back into the bottom of the motherboard. Set that back into
place making sure to get all the wires and stuff out from underneath it; that includes
the two up by the earpiece, the volume rockers, and the power button connector as well. I’m
going to snap all those back into place, making sure that I can feel them click in underneath
my finger just like a little Lego snapping in. Same thing with the fingerprint scanner
and all three signal wires. Battery goes into place and before I connect that I want to
make sure everything is plugged in. So I’m going to get the charging port screwed back
into place with the loud speaker set down on top of that. 5 megapixel front camera goes
in, and then I can plug the battery in. Once the battery is plugged in I can turn on the
phone and I’m going to do that to test the screen and to show you guys the camera. Now
this is pretty cool. It’s called optical image stabilization. The camera itself is
stabilizing while I move it around. And this is what is going to keep your videos and images
clear while you’re walking or holding your phone. There are two ways to stabilize images:
there’s optical image stabilization and there’s digital image stabilization. The
digital is just a software where it takes the megapixels and kind of cuts off the corners
of it and can stabilize it that way. I prefer the optical stabilization where it’s actually
a mechanical part of it with the little gyros and magnets and little rubber balls inside
the camera unit. Pretty nifty stuff. Once all the screws are back into place you can
take your double sided tape and put it around the edges that way your new back will sit
in place and stay on. I will link all the replacement parts and stuff down in the video
description below just like all my other videos. If you have any questions leave them in the
comments. Don’t forget to “like” if this video helped you and subscribe. It does
help me out a lot. Thanks a ton for watching, hope to see you around.