Gadgetory

Samsung's Galaxy mega may look like an oversized version of the s4 but is it well no as I'm going to show you looks can be deceiving I'm bill Detweiler and this is cracking open at nearly three and a half inches wide and over six and a half inches tall the Galaxy mega is a monster of a phone or a small tablet or a phablet or whatever now luckily like the s4 and most Samsung phones and tablets have cracked open disassembling the mega is relatively easy and doesn't require any special tools just a Philips triple zero screwdriver and maybe a thin blade now thanks to a user replaceable battery the back cover pops off with just a fingernail after removing several Phillips screws you can remove the lower speaker assembly and then the circuit board cover with a thin tool or again your fingernail the Megas overall internal design is similar to the s4 the main board is located at the top and a smaller board at the bottom now after detaching the lower boards connectors it can be removed and after removing a single screw and detaching its connectors the mainboard and rear camera come out the last few components to be removed are the headphone jack earpiece speaker and sensor assembly and the front-facing camera like the s for the Megas front panel display and internal frame are fused together if one part breaks you'll likely need to replace the whole assembly so this is where our teardown ends now if the mega is so similar to the s4 in appearance and overall construction why did I say it's looks we're deceiving well it all comes down to hardware the s4 has a quad core processor two gigs of RAM a 13 megapixel camera and a screen resolution of 1920 by 1080 the mega is a step behind with a dual-core processor one and a half gigs of ram and 8 megapixel camera and twelve eighty by seven 20 screen resolution the only component that's actually bigger is the battery but then again the Megas larger screen likely necessitates the bigger battery so why would you want a device that's really too large to be a phone in my opinion and has hardware that's less than cutting edge well price at release the mega is a hundred and forty nine dollars compared to the s4 which is still $1.99 although some carriers offer slightly better deals and even when Samsung releases the Galaxy Note 3 which will likely have much better Hardware it will likely cost around $300 so if you're in the market for a mid-range phablet the mega is worth a look now for more information on the Galaxy mega including real world tests and pricing information check out Jessica Dole courts full CNET review and to see more tear down photos and read my full Hardware analysis go to TechRepublic comm forward slash cracking open I'm bill Detweiler thanks for watching