So you've already seen my transparently clear knife...you've also seen my red and blue razer
knives. You've also seen my metal knife, but you have not seen my neon pink and neon green knives.
All colors are back in stock like some kind of dysfunctional rainbow. All of them have a solid
metal design, except the clear one obviously. And I think for the next little bit I'll be
rocking the pink one in my pocket because real men wear whatever color they want...or woman...you
know...anybody...anybody can wear whatever they want. JerryRigKnife.com. I'll leave a link down
in the description. Now back to the task at hand – the Samsung Z Fold 4 tear down. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Samsung says that this new Fold 4 weighs 8 grams less than the Fold 3. We'll see where
that weight was lost as well as Samsung said they completely redesigned the internal hinge.
The mechanism is now gearless. Personally, I think that folding phones are super cool.
If my 3 year old Note 10 Plus ever kicks the bucket I definitely consider
considering a folding phone as my next daily driver. Let's clean things up a bit.
Like any reputable surgeon I only work in the most pristine of environments. If I'm honest, during my
last few folding phone teardowns, I have given a valiant effort towards removing the folding
screen in one piece and thus far I have not been very successful. Samsung has again inlaid rubber
bumpers around the inner portion of the rim. This keeps dust and objects from damaging the edge of
the display, as well as keeps the screen from getting damaged itself if it ever slams closed.
There are ribbons under the display that connect it to the motherboard as we see
from last year's Fold 3. I'm going to try to avoid these as we pull away from the screen.
The screen is flexible of course. That's kind of the whole point.
And it's extremely good about folding in one plane, one direction over and over again. Samsung
estimates that it's good for about 200,000 foolds, which is about 110 folds a day for 5 years.
First, what rookie only checks their phone 100 times a day? And second, the screen only survives
that folding motion if it follows the singular plane. The display doesn't last very long at all,
with simultaneous bi-directional flexes. And once again, as you can see, we are unsuccessful
in removing the inner screen. Maybe next time. F in chat for our friend.
The screen is made up of quite a few different layers,
the coolest of which is probably the golden S pen layer at the back that can sense the location of
the Samsung stylus. Pretty neat. The other notable part of this new Fold 4 display is that there is
no metal back plate. Samsung trimmed these 8 grams of weight by shedding some protection
and rigidity on the back side of the display. They did add some fiber reinforced plastic
which they say is just as durable, but time will tell. We can also perfectly see here
the pixel density of the under display cameras from the backside. Substantial improvements on
the Fold 4. I mean, the camera peering through each of these holes is still only 4 megapixels,
but it'll be interesting to see where this technology ends up. With the inner display
now gone, we get our first look at the hinge that holds both halves of the phone together,
and all of its intricate little components that we'll get to in just a second.
To reveal the rest of the Fold 4's guts we have to remove the glass display.
We know it's made from glass by the way it cracks during removal.
Samsung does make things difficult by inlaying the glass inside of the metal frame,
not leaving much room for removal tools. The frosted back panel removal is a bit easier.
It flexes more, enough to get my razor blade underneath, and we can pull it off in one piece.
The rear wireless charger can be removed without any screws,
it's just a Lego style ribbon connector. This thing charges at 15 watts, a 4 watt improvement
over last year, and it's able to reverse wireless charge at 4.5 watts, using the same copper coils.
We can remove 6 phillips head screws from the top left plastics. I can unplug the battery,
and 9 more screws holding down the top right plastics give us access to one of the stereo
loudspeakers. I'll definitely not be counting the balls inside no matter how many likes this
video gets. With the right battery unplugged we can move over to the power button ribbon,
and the upper 4 megapixel hidden selfie camera.
A few more ribbon cables that join up the halves can be popped off, while we also find one of our
5G antennas. Just a heads up if you're looking to be the trendiest person in your facebook group,
it's almost time to start dreaming up 6G conspiracies. Six more screws hold down the
bottom right plastics, which brings our total to 21. We have quite a few more balls inside
this lower loudspeaker as well. The balls help the speaker sound bigger than it actually is.
We can unsnap a few more ribbon cables and pop out the SIM card tray before removing the super thin
secondary board that has the 10 megapixel front camera and removable SIM card slot still attached.
The bottom right plastics just have 3 screws, with 3 more screws holding down the board itself,
bringing us up to 27. The bottom board contains the 25 watt USB-C charging port with its red
rubber ring. We'll get to some more of the water protections here in a second.
The power button and fingerprint scanner has a ribbon all of its own,
along with a hefty built in white gasket to help keep water out from this orifice. There are a
few more ribbon cables and three additional screws holding down the main motherboard.
We also get a close up look at the 3 main rear cameras. Up top we have the 123 degree ultra wide
with no OIS. We have the 50 megapixel main camera in the center with OIS.
And at the bottom we have the 10 megapixel telephoto camera,
which also has the optical image stabilization, all very normally attached to the board
using lego style ribbon connectors. Samsung also placed a second 5G antenna inside the frame rail.
The main things we have left to remove before getting access to the newly redesigned hinge
are just the batteries. Now, Samsung battery attachment methods have been historically
annoying. And this new Fold 4 is no different. Smart smartphone manufacturers use pull tabs,
which is much easier than dealing with adhesive which requires extreme heat,
alcohol, or extreme cold. Since heat is dangerous around batteries, I'm opting for the alcohol
which helps dissolve the sticky goo holding the battery in place...kinda. Force is still required.
I'm taking special care not to bend or damage the exterior pouch of the battery. This first
unit is a 2,340 milliamp hour capacity. There is a very distinct smell that comes with puncturing a
battery, almost like burnt Skittles. And it's the second battery where this smell of burnt Skittles
come into play. This was a bit harder to remove, and I did nick the outer protective layer. Not
enough to cause sparks or start a fire, but enough that now my office smells of burnt Skittles.Torn
or bent batteries are very unpredictable and I disagree very much with Samsung's adhesive
addiction since there are many other better and safer ways of attaching a battery. All batteries
eventually need to be removed for recycling. So it's nice if Samsung would have some foresight.
This second battery is a 2060 milliamp hour which brings us to a total of 4400. Same as last year.
Finally, with the battery rant over we can get a better look at the hinge. Samsung is
again using the rubbery goop that keeps liquid out from the internal components. Kind of the
same we saw last year. Just like bathroom caulk and will definitely get the job done.
We also have waterproofing mesh screens around the loudspeaker openings on bottom and top,
as well as the microphone openings of which there are several. There is quite a bit going
on inside of this thing. If you've been keeping track, we've already removed exactly 30 screws
and when we flip over the Fold 4 to see the refreshed hinge design,
we find another 40 screws holding the two halves together. With all those screws gone we can see
that the new hinge is sectionalized with metal plates connecting 3 separate hinge components.
Last year and each year before that, Samsung gave us a complex construction of miniscule
little spur gears that help guide open and close uniformly. This time around the metal halves are
guided through little channels using grooves and joints instead of gears. The center hinge
constrains and locks the motion of the two halves as it rotates into itself. It looks like there is
a darker graphite looking lubricant in here as well, which is important for the metal on
mental stuff. The top and bottom pieces are rather similar, although I assume these are constructed
to provide the resistance or holding force to keep the phone open or partially closed. But there is
still a much smaller channel keeping the whole operation straight. Either way, neither of the 3
hinge components this time around have any gears. The hinges do look a bit dirty, kind of the same
color of dirt that I put on the phone during the durability test, but it could also be something
from the factory. Either way, most importantly though, there are no large pieces of sand or
rocks rattling around after the durability test, since those would be what caused the real issues.
After having handled both sets of gears from the inside, I do feel like the geared hinges from last
year feel a bit better when manipulated on an individual basis. I doubt people will be able
to tell the difference between the two styles though and we'll just have to see how this new
design holds up over time. It is nice having no gears or rotating parts, but we are now also
sliding metal on metal. A squeaky folding phone would cure anyone of their smartphone addiction.
A few last little tidbits. The magnets are very securely glued into the frame.
And of course, Samsung still left us with the little brushy sweepy bristles
that line the inside of the hinge. Overall I think it's fun seeing the
insides of what probably is the world's most technologically advanced phone at the moment,
and I'm glad you're here to join me. Next time though Samsung, I think it would be nice to see
some innovation in the battery adhesion department since we do have to plan for end of life.
If you want to see the insides of your own phone without it ending up looking like this,
you can grab one of my Teardown Skins. Link in the description. Dbrand and I cover pretty much every
major phone and tablet with the exact images of what's on the inside – no screw removal required.
Are you going to get a folding phone someday or do you already have one? Let me know your
thoughts down in the comments. I'll leave a link for my two new Jerry Rig Knife colors next
to the Teardown Skin as well. As the great Ash used to say, “Gotta catch them all.”
Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.
And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.