Rumor has it there are a few secrets waiting inside of this Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. A
few secrets that we've been waiting nearly 80 years to find. Secrets so secret they can only
be unsecreted by a complete teardown, which is exactly why we're here. Let's get started.
[Intro]
For
the past 8 whole years Samsung's phone design has stayed relatively simple. Two slabs of glass
and enough glue to survive the singularity of a black hole. It's made repairs rather difficult.
And any person attempting one for the first time would probably end up cracking the back
glass during their first attempt. And I get it. Waterproofing sensitive electronics is
much easier with copious amounts of adhesive. So glue here around the back glass is totally
fine. We've got to keep those beautiful internals as moisture free as possible.
The back panel is a simple slab and rather inexpensive to replace. Replacement parts
are usually less than $20 on Amazon. Very reasonable when compared to the $500 back
glass replacements from Apple. With our glass gone we can find 16 silver phillips head screws
holding down the rest of the internals. And here is where I almost make a $1200 dollar
mistake. Unplugging the wireless charging coil and starting to lift up the bottom edge of the
flap I realized what I was lifting wasn't just the flap but actually the paper thin extension
ribbon cable coming from the screen. One nick in this ribbon would have rendered the screen
inoperable. And without a screen I would have to communicate like our grandparents
did back in the '50s – face to face. From now on I'll be significantly more careful.
The copper coils inside of the wireless charger are pretty cool. These aren't the only coils
in the phone by the way, but we'll get to the secondary wireless charger in a second.
First I can pop off the bottom loudspeaker and unclip the three extension ribbons just like
three little Legos. You'll notice that each ribbon says SUB on the bottom and this is
because Samsung wants you to 'subscribe' to my channel. And there you have it,
lady and gentlemen, with the ribbons gone we see the secret. The best looking battery Samsung has
ever installed in a smartphone. With the best advice, Samsung could ever give written right
there on the flap pull out. Saumsung has finally added a removable battery to their smartphone.
[Choir singing “Hallelujah”]
After 8 long years Samsung has either finally run out
of glue or maybe they are finally taking repariability seriously.
That was amazing. Samsung's massive 5,000 milliamp battery can now be removed in
seconds by a regular person with no pry tools or alcohol – just my own fingers
and a few tears of joy for lubrication. Nice work, Samusng. Almost makes me want
to take back all those mean things I said in the durability video. Almost.
Looking underneath the battery pull tab sheet we can see the bottom edge of the copper vapor
chamber as well as the underside of the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. The second hidden wireless
charging coil is actually over here, right by the s-pen parking garage. When the s-pen is
parked these coils of copper interact with the coils surrounding the s-pen tip and charge up a
capacitor at the other end of the pen to act as a remote shutter for the camera. It's pretty nifty
technology. The lid of the s-pen parking spot is made from plastic since plastic and glass
allow for the wireless charging coil's energy field to pass through where a metal lid would
not. And minor mistake, but it looks like I was demonstrating using the stylus from the Kindle
E-Ink tablet instead of Samsung's s-pen. Probably some really confused people over at Samsung for a
second, but the concept is still the exact same thanks to our buddy Mr. Tesla, the inventor
one and not the Twitter one. The S23 Ultra can charge itself and its stylus without any cables.
You might have noticed that the S23 Ultra does not have a vibrator inside and that's because
Samsung has built it into the earpiece. And this earpiece can't tell if it has a red or
pink gasket. Let me know what color you think it is down in the comments. Both of the stereo
speakers do have foam balls inside which help give the speakers more internal surface area,
making the sound sound bigger than it actually is. Another incremental perk
Samsung has given us this year is with the cameras. One more black phillips head screw
holds the camera array in place, and the whole thing can come out with the
motherboard. Each of the 4 cameras can then unplug from the board like a little Lego.
Up top we have the 12 megapixel ultra wide with no OIS. Below that we have the 200
megapixel normal camera with 2x the normal optical image stabilization that we normally
see on a flagship. Huge improvement in video stabilization. I'm not sure how it'll compare
with Apple's censorship technology, but both are pretty epic. If you've
ever found yourself needing to take a selfie with a jackhammer, this camera has your back.
We also have the 3x telephoto and another 10x periscope telephoto camera down at the bottom.
A very solid chunk of the S23 Ultra is dedicated to the camera real estate. The front selfie camera
is still permanently glued into the frame of the phone. It is 12 megapixels. And as we make our
way down to the charging port, you can tell by the circular markings inside the housing that
the S23 Ultra was milled from a solid block of aluminum. One of the questions I get the
most often, especially when someone buys a new phone and is unfamiliar with the layout,
is what happens if I accidentally put the SIM card tool in the wrong hold? Samsung has inconveniently
placed both the microphone hole and SIM card tray hole very close together, and I imagine there's
a good chunk of people who have accidentally slipped it into the wrong hole. It happens.
With the bottom board out you can see the gold box that contains the microphone. It's
positioned between the charging port and the SIM card tray that's mounted on the back side. The
microphone is positioned above the shaft it is receiving sound from and it is receiving that
sound through a waterproofing membrane which is also located on the side of the shaft. So
not only is the SIM card tool too big to even reach the waterproofing, even if it
could the waterproofing mesh would still not be punctured since it's not at the end of the tunnel,
it's off to the side. So no worries, the mighty S23 Ultra will not be brought down by a rogue SIM
card tool. Overall, while this S23 Ultra might look the exact same as the S22 on the outside,
there are definitely some good improvements to be had internally. With our new removable
battery the repairability and longevity of the phone has now gone up considerably. When your
current battery dies after a few years, instead of getting a new $1200 phone,
you can now just bring it back to life with a $30 battery replacement. I'm a huge fan.
I bet you thought I reassembled the whole phone....but did I? [Snap]
The only thing cooler than Samsung's replaceable battery is my Teardown Skin which shows all the
insides of your phone on the outside without voiding any warranties. I even added a few
Easter eggs of my own. I'm a hardcore advocate for always wearing protection,
which is where dbrand's scriptcase comes in. We have a flat matte skin, or a glossy Teardown Skin,
which is what I'm still rocking on my 3 ½ year old Note 10 Plus. So if you've bought a phone
in the past 3 or 4 years, there's a good chance we'll have you already covered with one of my
Skins. I'll leave a link down in the description so you too can have the coolest phone in the
room. No screwdriver required. And as always, thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.