Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Teardown Video Reveals Difficulty in Replacing Battery and Display

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra teardown video has been posted on YouTube, highlighting the difficulties in replacing its AMOLED screen. Changing the battery pack of the Galaxy S21 Ultra is also hard, as the teardown shows the requirement of quite an effort to pry the battery off. The teardown video also provides a detailed view of the components powering the latest Samsung flagship. The phone carries optical image stabilisation (OIS) support on three of its cameras. The Galaxy S21 Ultra also appears to have an enhanced thermal management.

The nearly nine-minute teardown video posted by YouTube channel PBKreviews begins with removing the back of Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra by applying some heat. The back features a glass construction, though the camera housing is made of metal.

Removing the back panel of Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is just identical to how one can remove the back of the regular Galaxy S21, that also received a teardown treatment by the same YouTube channel recently. However, there are some major differences between both phones in terms of internals and their assembly.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra's top speaker come without foam-ball insulation that's there on the Galaxy S21. Foam balls on the speaker assembly are believed to help produce louder sound with more coverage. Samsung, however, didn't provide that tweak on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

In comparison with the vanilla Galaxy S21, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra also lacks a detachable screen connector cable. The phone instead has a cable fixed with the screen.

“If you need to replace the screen, you would have to take the backplate off, remove the top cover, and disconnect the screen cable from the main board,” the narrator in the teardown video said. “And then you'd remove the speaker assembly on the bottom. You'd heat up the front of the phone where the screen is, and you pry your old screen off.”

The battery of Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is also fixed with adhesive and doesn't include any pull tabs to help you remove the battery pack.

“This battery is really difficult to pry off,” the narrator said. “I had to use some isopropyl alcohol to loosen up the adhesive underneath so I could pry it off.”

Samsung appears to have deployed graphite on the NFC antennae and motherboard to provide better heat dissipation. The Exynos 2100 processor and RAM also have a thermal paste on top, as per the video.

The YouTube channel has given the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra a repairability score of six out of 10 — given the struggle it requires in removing the battery and the screen. The repairability score is notably lower than the one given to the Galaxy S21 – 7.5 – as the Galaxy S21 Ultra comes with a glass back that is more difficult to remove, compared to a plastic back.

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