The new 2020 Motorola Razr is ridiculously complex. Yet also incredibly simple. I'll
explain. Today we're going to take apart the new flexible flip screen Razr. We've already
taken apart the other folding phone, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip. So we'll be able to compare
the two internal hinge mechanisms side by side. One side note before we get started:
when I was tearing down the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and looking for the bristles that help
keep out dust, I was so focused on finding the bristles inside of the hinge itself that
I didn't notice Samsung had positioned the bristles elsewhere across the bottom portion
of each half of the frame. Luckily you guys caught this pretty quick and I was able to
update the description and pin a comment in the tear down video so thanks for that. The
bristles look like strips of black tape at first. But I want you to see what they look
like close up. These bristles stretch all the way across the frame, and this is what
helped keep the dust out of the phone during my bend test, even after the phone was bent
backwards and had the frame snapped. I fix it to their own dust test and found that fine
particles still managed to get inside of the phone. But for normal size dust and sand particles,
I think it does a pretty good job of protecting the insides.
Now it's time to see if the Motorola Razr has any protections built into it's own hinge.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
So when I said the Motorola Razr was ridiculously complex, I was talking about the organization
of components inside. Everything is kind of helter-skelter until we get to the hinge.
But it's still super interesting. To get inside the phone I'll start by heating up the back
plastic cover. Then I can pry it away from the phone with my razor blade and shimmy it
down off the frame at the same time. The plastic housing is still attached to the phone though
with the fingerprint ribbon cable that's plugged into the base. There's not a good way to unplug
it at this point without removing these 4 T3 screws. I'll link the tool kit I use down
in the video description.
The inner plastic housing that I just pulled away is for the loudspeaker and the antennas.
I can unplug the speaker just like a little Lego. You can see the singular speaker itself
inside of the plastic frame. There is a water damage indicator down here next to the charging
port. You can see that it's white on one side and red on the other, so if the phone ever
gets wet, the red will bleed through and turn pink. Motorola has come up with some very
creative ways of making this phone water resistant though. All of this goop surrounding the ribbon
cable connection helps keep dust and liquid away from the important bits. This goo feels
exactly like you'd think it would.
Flipping the phone around I now have access to the fingerprint scanner cable, and I can
pop that out of its little connector. Now, the smaller glass screen that can be seen
when the phone is folded shut is glued on pretty tight. Much more solid than usual.
It's very difficult to separate the glass from the fame of the phone. Eventually, after
many rounds of heat and gentle slicing, I was able to separate the screen and fold it
away from the phone. Then I can unplug that OLED panel and release the 2.7 inch screen.
What makes this teardown complex is that there are actually four sides to the phone. These
two sides on the rear portion of the phone, and another two sides under the screen. We're
already pretty deep inside this thing and we still have yet to see the motherboard.
I'll reach in and unplug the bottom battery. There's two of these inside the phone. Each
half of the phone has it's own battery. Then I'll remove 4 more T3 screws and unclip the
folding screen ribbon and the NFC. Then the battery and motherboard sandwich can be removed.
This motherboard looks quite a bit different than what we're used to. I believe that's
because each of the little chips on the board has it's own cheese grater looking Faraday
cage shield thing over the top. These shields block electromagnetic fields. Most regular
phones, you know, the non-folding ones, are enclosed in a metal and glass sandwich. But
this motherboard only has a thin folding plastic screen over the top for protection and that's
why the cheese graters were added over the chips. Either way, I think Motorola gets a
thumbs up for how cool this looks.
The battery is a 1245 milliamp hour capacity. We'll find the top battery here in just a
second. Now here's where we run into some issues. Remember, my phone was accidentally
folded in the wrong direction which yanked the bottom of the screen out from it's normal
position and the whole thing is very much stuck. Now Motorola is offering screen replacements
for this phone for $299 which is pretty fair considering how this is a brand new futuristic
flexible technology. And it's already the same price as an iPhone 11 Pro screen replacement.
Even after aggressively trying to slide the screen down with some pliers, it still wouldn't
budge, so I'm sure I did this the incorrect way and just popped it out the top, then peeled
it up off the rest of the phone. It's still crazy how thin this is. You can physically
see the 4 puncture wounds in the back from my reverse bend. Phone yoga is pretty dangerous.
I found 8 screws holding the top portion of the phone to the frame. Once those were out
I could start removing the top battery. But everything is still very much connected. You
can see the long extension ribbon floating through the hinge mechanism, just like we
saw with the Samsung Z Flip. I'll unplug the side buttons and the large extension ribbon.
But before I can separate all the pieces. They're still held together with one more
T3 screw in this top little board, and a connector underneath. The phone isn't very well organized
inside. But what it lacks in organization, it makes up for in silly putty. There is a
slathering of clear goop all over these top boards. And if I had to guess, with how sticky
it is, it's probably going to be pretty effective at keeping dust and liquid off the board.
The rear facing 16 megapixel camera does not have optical image stabilization. We have
another water damage indicator here next to the battery, and even though I'm calling this
phone complex to take apart, there is probably a reason for it. Normally in cell phones,
all the connections are easy to access on top of the board. But on this Razr, the board
is screwed down and everything is attached underneath which does complicate things. But,
if you think about it, it probably helps keep everything plugged in tight while the phone
is being flipped 200,000 times over it's lifespan. So the complexity might be a good thing.
The battery is glued into place. It's a 1265 milliamp hour. So now we're just left with
the frame of the Razr and the hinge. And this design couldn't be more different than the
Z Flip. Let's check it out. After removing 2 screws we can see that the center of the
phone has two flappy bits. These support each half of the screen as it folds shut. Remember,
the Razr has a much more gentle curve inside with no crease in the center of the screen.
I'll remove two more screws holding down the silver chunk in the center. This heavy guy
is the culprit of our 4 damage marks in the center of the screen during the bend test.
If you remember, the 4 corners of this guy must have been what pressed outward into the
screen from behind. Hopefully that doesn't start to happen with normal use. The curved
back side of this metal chunk helps keep the extension ribbon from kinking inside the hinge
while it's folding.
I'll remove 2 more screws on either side of the hinge. These hold the exterior pins in
place. This is where we start to see how much more simple Motorola's design is over Samsung's.
This is going to blow your mind. If we zoom in close we can see that these side portions
on the Razr aren't just for decoration. They are the hinge. Like literally kind of the
whole thing. You can see that each half of the phone has little gear teeth to keep each
half folding equally. But these two little bars on either side of the phone is what keeps
the phone halves together and allows the hinge to bend. You can see that the left side has
the same dual pin design, and once both of them are popped out and removed, the whole
phone can just fall apart. Now all we have left are two metal flaps and the ribbon cable
that's stuck inside them and that's it. Really simple.
I can hold both halves of the phone together so we can see how the stationary gears line
up. There aren't any other moving parts inside of the spine of this phone. It becomes more
mind blowing when we hold Samsung's hinge up side by side to Motorola's hinge. Samsung
is over here doing rocket science and Motorola just pops a pin in there like a door and is
ready to rock. Door hinges have been around for thousands of years and Motorola's just
going to keep on using them.
You might be asking yourself, 'Hey Jerry, how does the phone spring open and shut though?'
And I'm glad you asked. It would be real embarrassing if I miss something important like that. Motorola
has very smartly concealed their spring loaded mechanism inside the phone frame, away from
rocks and dust. When the phone guts are in place, the springs are protected inside the
frame side walls and can be pressed up against the hinge pin to hold the phone open or closed
and provide resistance during the opening and closing process. Pretty solid design.
Overall I'm impressed with both phones. Both present new and unique ways of utilizing flexible
screen technology. And I'm excited to see where we go from here. I'm pretty happy with
my personal Note 10 Plus for now, but there's a good chance that my next phone might just
be a folding phone. The price is dropping quite a lot with each new version. And I'm
sure, eventually, they'll be as durable as the phones we have now.
Now that you've seen how both phones work from the inside, which one is your favorite?
Let me know down in the comments. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. I've
got some pretty cool videos coming up. And come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.
Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.