This is my personal OnePlus 7 Pro.
It started out as the Nebula Blue colored version, but in the last video, I stripped
the color from underneath the glass panel so we can get a better look at the sweet internal
mechanical pop up camera.
In this video, I'm going to take the rest of the phone apart and see how much water
resistance, if any, OnePlus has added to the phone.
Without an official IP rating, the only way to tell for sure if it's water resistant or
not, is with a review from the inside.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
From my original removal of the back glass panel, we found a ton of adhesive, which holds
the back glass in place and effectively seals the back side of the phone making it water
tight.
But there are plenty of other holes we need to look at, especially the large pop up camera
hole at the top.
If anything is vulnerable to liquid, it's going to be that motorized camera.
To get to the camera, we'll remove the 14 black Phillips head screws holding down the
back plastics.
I'll set the plastic panel off to the side, and then unplug the non-red battery.
I'm not mad at OnePlus, I'm just disappointed.
There are 8 screws holding down the bottom plastics.
I'll remove those and then pull off the loud speaker bottom plastic combo.
It's a normal loudspeaker that gets it's power and communication from the gold contact squares
on the motherboard.
The battery is easily removed.
Thumbs up for that.
With it's little red pull tab, it comes away from the phone body without any prying or
bending.
I'd even vote that this system of battery removal is better than the magic pull tabs.
The battery's a 4,000 milliamp power capacity.
I'll unplug some more ribbon cables, each unsnapping like a little Lego.
And I'll remove some of the wire cables on the bottom right side, with two more wire
cables over on the left.
Three more screws hold down the motherboard, but before I can shimmy the board out of the
phone frame, we need to unplug the super long front facing camera extension ribbon that
folds and unfolds itself with each protrusion and retraction of the pop up camera.
Now that the motherboard is out, let's take a look at the rear cameras.
The motherboard does have thermal paste on the back which connects to this copper square
looking thing.
This is unusual because OnePlus claims to have a heat pipe and ten layer liquid cooling
system in the OnePlus 7 Pro.
We'll have to analyze that more in a second.
In this triple camera system all mounted together in the same metal housing, we have an ultra
wide 16 megapixel camera with no OIS and no video capabilities.
Then a 48 megapixel main camera in the center with OIS.
And on the bottom we have a 3x 8 megapixel telephoto zoom lens, which also has optical
image stabilization.
It's a solid camera setup.
My Galaxy 8 Plus that I've been using for over 2 years now, has a single lens.
So these triple cameras are definitely appealing.
This is the first phone in a while that's tempted me into upgrading.
I'll have to see what else comes out this year because I probably will upgrade soon.
The bottom board has three more of the Lego style ribbon connectors, and then of course
I can remove the SIM card tray with it's water resistant red rubber ring around the opening.
There is one last connection for the fingerprint scanner ribbon in the center of the board.
Then the whole thing can pull away from the phone.
The little USB-C charger has two more Philips head screws holding it in place.
This time it has a green rubber ring around the tip.
When the charging port is smashed into the hole in the frame, that rubber ring keeps
water from coming in.
Here in the center of the phone, we also have the little optical under screen fingerprint
scanning camera.
You can see the light from my phone shining back through the fluid AMOLED display.
It's pretty cool seeing how everything comes together from the inside.
I might be a little biased, but I appreciate mobile technology so much more after seeing
the internals.
As far as water protection goes, we have the mesh and rubber seal protecting the bottom
loudspeaker port, which we've seen on other phones, along with dual white microphone opening
seals.
And then a water damage indicator next to the SIM card tray opening.
All pretty standard.
OnePlus might not have paid for the official IP certification, but it does look like every
opening is protected.
But what about the super large opening up at the top for that pop up camera?
Is it water resistant?
We'll have to remove the camera to find out.
OnePlus stuck a large stand off screw in here.
It's made from a very brittle metal alloy.
I actually broke this screw into tiny little bits during the live tear down at the OnePlus
event in New York.
The screw is not very sturdy.
The motor itself though, is very sturdy.
The gold contact pads are glued into the frame.
There's one more screw up at the top of the motor, and then the whole thing can pull out
from the phone.
This little stepper motor is fascinating.
Good for about 300,000 lifts, it has a threaded shaft that spins around each time the camera
is activated.
Then the camera unit rides up and down the shaft each time it gets turned on.
It's pretty awesome.
The camera itself has one last silver bracket holding it in place with two screws.
This bracket keeps the camera from being pulled up and out of the top of the phone from the
outside.
But now that the bracket is gone, the camera can pull up and out of the phone from the
outside.
And this is it – a 16 megapixel motorized pop up camera, which just like the charging
port, has a rubber seal around the base, and it's red.
So whether the camera is opened or closed, the red rubber seal should be in contact with
the side walls, effectively keeping the water from getting inside the phone.
It's splash proof.
Pretty ingenious design.
I'm a fan of these motorized pop up cameras.
I don't think motorized components are the long term future proof solution for the bezel-less
no notch displays, but I'm sure going to enjoy them while they're here.
Now normally I really like to assemble the phone at this point, but OnePlus has put me
in a predicament.
They've claimed in their advertising that they have a 10 layer liquid cooling system
in the phone, and right now all I can see is a square piece of copper.
It's not exactly the same thing.
Under the thermal paste and copper pad, we get a glimpse of the heat pipe, but we didn't
come this far just for a tease.
The conundrum is that the heat pipe is under the aluminum frame, so in order to unbury
the heat pipe, we need to remove the screen, which kills the screen.
It looks like this phone isn't going back together.
Feel free to ignore the screen cracking.
The screen of the OnePlus 7 Pro is impressive all by itself.
With the 90 Hertz refresh rate, it rivals even the gaming phones on the market right
now.
When I finally get the screen separated from the phone body, it's interesting to note that
the AMOLED layer is not glued to the underside of the glass like we've seen previously on
smartphones, it's a separate unit and is extremely flexible, kind of like paper.
But we do finally get a glimpse of the rest of the heat pipe with it's subtle curve horizontally
across the phone body.
Cutting it open does reveal the copper threads that wick moisture from one end of the pipe
to the other.
I don't see any evaporation but with the super small amounts of vapor inside of these pipes,
it probably disappeared pretty quickly.
It is super clean inside, unlike the dirty pipes inside of Samsung and LG.
So now we've found the heat pipe, but OnePlus has been calling this a 10 layer liquid cooling
system, but even if we count the metal over the processor, the thermal paste weird copper
square, and the heat pipe, that's only 4 layers.
We can try to include the internal vapor, copper wick, and other side of the pipe, which
brings us to 7, and maybe toss in the aluminum frame of the phone, which takes us to 8 layers.
But from my perspective, this ten layer verbiage sounds like marketing jargon.
Keep in mind that manufacturers don't hand out hardware repair guides with their phones,
so I kind of just call it how I see it and maybe I'm missing something.
What do you think?
Speaking of missing something, I almost forgot about the vibrator.
This time around it's a haptic motor, like we've seen inside some of the iPhones, which
supposedly puts out superior vibrations over rotating mass motors.
But I personally don't think there's a whole lot of difference.
A notification is kind of a notification.
As a whole though, I'm pretty impressed with the OnePlus 7 Pro.
All the bells and whistles installed in this thing for the price point that it has is amazing.
Plus water resistance at every opening.
I'm impressed.
Other manufacturers charge hundreds of dollars more for the exact same thing.
I'm pretty sure this OnePlus 7 Pro will work again once I get a new screen for it, since
all the rest of the parts are fine.
I was going to mention dbrand's new Grip case at the end of this teardown and how good it
would be at protecting a cellphone, but now that I don't have a cellphone to put inside,
I can't really mention it anymore.
If I did happen to mention dbrand's new Grip case though, I'd put a link in the description.
I'll be thoroughly testing the Grip in the near future, so hit that subscribe button.
Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.
And thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.