Samsung Galaxy S10 Teardown Shows That It’s Difficult to Repair

Recently, Samsung announced 3 phones, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10+. Where the tear down of Galaxy S10+ was done not very long ago, the famous YouTuber Zack from JerryRigEverything did a teardown of the vanilla Galaxy S10.

It’s unpleasant to watch the teardown of such an expensive and high-end device, still, it revealed some interesting details about the hardware used.

The teardown not only provided the estimation of the bill of hardware used but also shed light on the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and the heat pipe used for thermal insulation on the Samsung Galaxy S10.

The wireless charging mechanism and the wireless power share feature is surprisingly done using the same wireless charging pad with copper wire loops used for induction.

Meanwhile, the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is glued to the screen and cannot be removed for replacement. Samsung seems to be going the Apple route with the repairability of the phone it seems, as Apple usually does this on their phones.

However, they still haven’t managed to match up to Apple’s astronomical repair costs for the iPhones.

Another discovery was the soldering of USB-C port to the motherboard. To a layman, this might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

Previously, the changing or replacing of a malfunctioning USB port on a Samsung flagship was easy and cost only $15 but since the new one on the S10 is soldered to the motherboard, replacing it without damaging the hardware is next to impossible. Which adds to the repair costs.

Still, the phone is built solidly and passed Zack’s durability test easily.