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Alongside expanding its self-repair program to more markets, Samsung is also seemingly improving the repairability of Galaxy devices. Last year, its Galaxy Z Flip 4 received a repairability score of just 4/10 in the YouTube channel PBKReviews‘ teardown video. But the succeeding model, the Galaxy Z Flip 5, has almost doubled that score to 7.5/10. Let’s find out what has changed.
Galaxy Z Flip 5 teardown video reveals one key change
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 features a much bigger cover display than its predecessor. The upper half of the foldable is mostly the screen this time around. The lower half is also made of glass, and both panels come out fairly easily with a pry tool after applying some heat to loosen the adhesive. Samsung has pasted graphite film and copper tap underneath the glass panel to help transfer heat.
Once the rear panels are gone, we can see 16 screws holding everything together. Removing those and disconnecting a few cables frees up most of the internal components. They can be lifted one after the other fairly easily. The main board, which has a multi-layer design, comes off along with the two rear cameras. However, you can flip it around and disconnect the cable to separate the cameras.
Unsurprisingly, the main board also has graphite film and thermal paste to dissipate the heat from the processor. Samsung has used thermal paste on top of the batteries as well. And speaking of batteries, there’s the aforementioned big change that has helped the Galaxy Z Flip 5 get a higher repairability score. Samsung has finally provided pull tabs to make battery removal easy.
Both the top and bottom battery units have pull tabs. A forceful pull and they leave their housing and come off without much effort. No need to apply isopropyl alcohol or use pry tools, which can be dangerous. If you mistakenly poke the battery, it can catch fire or even blast. Many other OEMs already offer pull tabs for batteries, and it’s nice to see Samsung catching up.
It’d have been icing on the cake if Samsung hadn’t soldered the charging port onto the secondary board. Repairing the charging port would be much easier that way. Nonetheless, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a fairly repairable phone. The inner folding screen is still very complex to repair, but a knowledgeable person can repair most other components at home if they have the necessary tools and parts. You can check out the full teardown video below.