So it turns out I made a grave error while durability testing the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate.
I was notified that deep down in the software settings there was an easier way to open the
exhaust vent door. I guess it didn't occur to me that there might be other methods of entry besides
using violence. In light of this new information, I've decided to turn over a new leaf. ROG Phone,
take yourself apart. ROG Phone, take yourself apart please. Hmm. I guess
sometimes violence still is the answer. If you haven't seen already, we have two brand new colors
of JerryRigEverything Knives, and we've been shipping them all over the globe. And I'm going
to show you real quick how it works. Huge thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring this video. As soon
as an order is placed for one of my knives, I print the label here from my own computer.
And instead of using plastic bubble mailers to ship my stuff, I use these biodegradable paper
mailers. Because of these, over the past few years we've been able to keep almost
1,000 pounds of plastic out of the landfills, which is kind of fun to think about. And viola,
within just a few minutes the knives are ready to be dropped off at the post office.
Stamps.com allows small business like mine to do all of this from home or at a warehouse,
while comparing rates, scheduling pickups, and integrating with most online shopping carts.
You can try it out for yourself by going to Stamps.com/JerryRig to get a 4 week trial,
free postage, and free 5 pound digital scale. And remember,
anytime you order something online there's probably a real person at
the other end doing something just like this. Stamps.com/JerryRig. Now I'll get
back to shipping knives right after we finish the teardown. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Some people might say that a $1500 smartphone is overkill. Actually,
let me rephrase that. Pretty sure everyone and their dog knows that this smartphone is
already over the top and it's going to be extra fun seeing what makes it tick from the inside.
Heat is our best friend during the back glass removal. Even with all of its motorized doors,
loudspeakers, and external triggers, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate still is ip54 water resistant.
Unfortunately, due to that curved glass or extra glue, or just my eagerness to enter,
we did end up cracking the back glass. Oh no. Right over the top of that 2 inch rear
OLED panel. With now many cutouts and curves this panel has though, it was kind of bound to
happen. With how deep inside we are headed, this probably won't be our only accident.
With what's left of the back panel removed,
we can unplug the tiny display ribbon. Kind of looks like the rear screen itself is flexible,
just using the back glass for its structure. Kind of cool. The first look inside the Ultimate
confirms what we learned last year. Three separate circuit boards and two different batteries all
laid out and positioned in the phone for optimal balance and weight distribution. I'll remove 6
different length Phillips head screws from the lowest portion and the bottom plastics can be
removed. The top plastics have 4 screws and then the top loudspeaker can be taken out of the phone.
I have seen from other reviewers that these stereo speakers on the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate
are exceptionally loud. And we can see the do contain little white foam balls inside,
which gives the sound waves more surface area to bounce off of inside the box,
making the tiny speakers sound bigger than they actually are.
Now the rest of this teardown gets pretty crazy. The different segments of the phone
are all interwoven making it difficult to untangle. The center double stacked hub of
a motherboard has 6 screws holding it in place. The metal shielding can then come
off. It's too bad all the good looking thermals are all the way on the bottom.
Around this point is when we can start untangling the jungle of ribbon cables. We have an extension
that connects the middle and bottom boards, which interestingly has adhesive around the edges to
help the plug portion stay attached. I'll remove the SIM card tray and 4 more Lego-style ribbon
connectors before the bottom board can come free. This guy has a lower gold microphone on one side,
and then the headphone jack on the other. Thumbs up for that. There are 11 more ribbons to unplug,
and another 2 screws up in the top corner by the camera unit.
This is definitely not an easy phone to assemble or disassemble. It's also interesting that the
smallest camera, the 5 megapixel macro, doesn't even directly connect to the
motherboard. It has its own extension plug which looks like it has the same number of
pins as the port on the motherboard so it's not converting sizes or anything,
just elevating the plug so the camera sits where it needs to be...an inception plug. If this were
a high volume phone I imagine they would just lengthen the camera ribbon instead of plugging
a plug into a plug. It's also very interesting that on this $1500 device, both the 50 megapixel
main camera and 13 megapixel ultrawide do not have optical image stabilization. Kind of a big deal.
With the main cameras out, the front camera and its tiny circuit board can be removed
from the phone giving us a slightly better angle for which to approach the battery,
which unfortunately, does need to be pried out of the phone body. A little
alcohol helps dissolve the adhesive because this thing is indeed very securely attached.
And even once it's unstuck from the phone frame, it's still connected with a ribbon cable that runs
underneath the motherboard to the other battery. Another example of everything being intertwined.
There are two more screws, a Phillips head and a standoff sitting right below the motorized
aeroactive cooling flap. Even though we have all the screws on that motherboard removed,
the motherboard is still very much not wanting to leave the phone. I do, however,
remember that there are two screws inside of the flap. Unfortunately the phone is not turned on
anymore for us to motor it open. Fortunately though, that's never stopped us before.
The two screws inside of the aeroactive hole are T4.
And once they're removed, the whole motorized contraption comes up and away from the phone,
leaving us with some pretty cool looking internals. The fins that the trapdoor protects
and direct air over are rather substantial. Definitely aren't going to be bent around on
their own. Pretty solid chunks of copper. We can't yet, however, see what they're attached to though.
For all we know they could just be aesthetic decorations. Beautiful, yes, but functional?
Still to be determined. The trapdoor has an itty bitty motor running lengthwise along the bottom
edge with a series of gears that move the flap up and down. ASUS says this system is good for 40,000
flaps. Well, not my system specifically, no, this one has flapped its last flap. But in general,
40,000 is a very solid number. Going deeper to find the rest of the vapor chamber we can remove
the dual stacked motherboard, which surprisingly has a brilliant splash of blue color underneath.
ROG is using a luxurious slathering of blue boron nitride thermal compound to remove heat
from the surface of the chip to the vapor chamber. And judging by the thickness and
copiousness of the paste, that distance is rather far. Getting the rest of the battery out requires
a bit more alcohol, and of course, some prying. But we do finally get both cells fully removed
from the phone body. Each side is an equal 3,000 milliamp hours, making for a total of 6,000. The
two cells are wired in a very similar way to the 6 cells we found inside of Apple's MacBook Pro.
Finally, we are at a crossroads. We can reassemble the phone and possibly have everything still work
when we put it back together. Or we can destroy what's left of the phone in order to get a good
look at the vapor chamber. The only thing left in the phone frame besides the chamber
are the rectangular vibration motor and the bottom loudspeaker. Let's bust open the rest
of the phone. Vapor chambers these days are all usually set between the screen and the frame of
the phone. Samsung does this. OnePlus does this. Basically anyone using a copper vapor chamber
puts it behind the screen, because surprisingly, that's the best spot for heat to escape.
The thin OLED or AMOLED screen trap less heat than the thick plastic circuit boards
or batteries. With the screen out of the way we can push on the fins of the cooler and get the
vapor chamber unstuck from the frame. There's a large patch of graphite tape over the chamber.
Graphite is a very important aspect of cooling, but it doesn't look cool. So we're just going
to gloss over it on our way to the cooler cooler. And here it is. The cooling system on a smartphone
that costs $1500. The vapor chamber itself isn't abnormally unique or surprising, but the fins,
permanently affixed to the surface, are indeed a novel approach to cooling that we haven't seen
before, and indeed probably do help quite a bit with heat dissipation as long as airflow
is passing over those fins. ROG claims this system has improved thermal cycle efficiency
by 168%. Now you'd have to be throwing quite a lot of Angry Birds to get a phone that hot. Or
catching all the Pokemons at the same time. Or crushing candy or clashing clans. I really don't
know what the kids are doing on their phones these days. But it is cool seeing ROG push
the envelope of what's possible, and I think they should just keep on doing their thing.
F in chat for my particular ROG Phone 7 Ultimate though. He's now gaming with
the greats on the other side. Hit that subscribe button in his honor if you
haven't already. Grab one of the new black or orange razor knives. Link is
down in the description. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.