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After giving us a peek inside the internals of the vanilla Galaxy S21 and the Galaxy S21 Ultra, YouTube channel PBKReviews are back with another teardown video. This time around it is of the Samsung Galaxy S21+ and it shows repairing is a bit complex on this model.
To recall, the teardown video of the Galaxy S21 showed that there is not a whole lot of difference between the S21 and Galaxy S20 devices, at least in terms of internals.
Notably, both the devices shared almost the same placements of internal components. However, there are some obvious changes that are done in order to make room for other components.
Coming back to the Galaxy S21+ teardown video, PBKReviews also discusses the difference between single and dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy S21+ models.
The video begins with the removal of the SIM tray. Apparently, the single-SIM variant of the Galaxy S21+ has two sections to read two SIM cards, but one is disabled for obvious reasons.
You may be able to enable the second SIM tray. Because it is mostly related to the software, as all Galaxy S21 models have two SIM readers. Flashing a different firmware can make it possible. But you also need a metal SIM tray that can hold two SIMs.
The Galaxy S21+ Exynos version lacks mmWave antennas, meaning it supports sub-6GHz 5G
Moving forward, the video shows that the Exynos Galaxy S21+ model lacks the mmWave antennas. This clearly means that it supports sub-6GHz 5G.
The rear panel is detachable and yes, it is a glass panel unlike the plastic back on the Galaxy S20. In fact, the unnecessarily over-hyped “contour” design camera module is detachable itself. It is simply attached to the rear panel using some adhesive.
You need to unscrew 19 Philips Heads to see the NFC and Wireless charging coils. Moreover, there are ribbons connectors for speakers, bottom circuitry, NFC, etc. Once you have removed all the above components, you get the speaker unit and camera module separately attached to the motherboard.
Interestingly, apart from the LED flash and secondary mic, there is a third mic is embedded in the motherboard. This Exynos Galaxy S21 teardown video shows it is covered with a thermal paste and graphite pad combo sitting below a 3D graphene layer. After removing all the cables for the charging port, speaker, display flex connection, you get access to the 4,800 mAh battery.
One peculiar thing that makes Galaxy S21+ a bit complex to repair is that the flex cable for volume keys is sandwiched between the display and the phone’s frame. What does this mean? It means that you need to remove the display to repair the volume rockers if you get them damaged. You can watch the entire video below.