Gadgetory

this teardown is sponsored by North Vee PN watch tell Ian to get a 75% discount and a free month the me mix 3 is the unique slider phone with the physically hidden from facing cameras one thing I did notice while charging the phone up for this video was that the cable in the box is specifically designed and formed for this phone allowing the screen to slide while charging but when using a third-party cable the screen is stuck in the closed position kind of interesting it's time to take apart the mean x3 and see what kind of magic is holding the whole contraption together let's get started since the me mix 3 isn't water-resistant we can always hope it won't be glued shut quite as tight as some of the other watertight phones a little bit of heat gets the phone hot enough to soften the adhesive between the glass and the frame of the phone I can use my suction cup to pull up on the glass slap and slide my razor or metal pry tool underneath to slice away the adhesive holding the two portions together kind of makes you miss the good old days when all you needed was a screwdriver but it is what it is the back glass panel does pull away easy enough I'm taking special care not to put any stress on the fragile ribbon cable connecting the fingerprint scanner to the board I'll reach my plastic pry tool in there and unsnap it like a little Lego then the back glass can fold away from the phone it kind of looks cool inside with the black plastic and gold antennas the wireless charging coil is still connected to the rear glass and covered with black plastic on both sides so it's not quite as aesthetic as Google's copper colored coils on the pixel 3 and we also have what's probably the NFC pad up here at the top attach the back glass Shammi does have not one but two warranty void stickers which means we better stop the teardown just kidding with nine normal Phillips head screws holding down the top protective plastics we can finally unplug the battery and make our way down to the magical pull tabs poking up from the bottom I'll get to show you how exactly the magic happens with these pull tabs because one did end up breaking there are unfortunately silent but do their job for the most part hypothetically allowing the battery to release without putting any stress on the pouch itself if the fragile pull tab doesn't break during the pull of course now that the battery is out you can see how the adhesive reacts when tension is applied to the white strip it loses its stickiness and pulls out from underneath the battery easily while leaving no residue behind the longer the battery has been installed though the more brittle T's become and the easier they break but still pull tabs are better than the permanent adhesive alternative inside the mean mix three is eight thirty two hundred milli amp hour battery after the batteries removed we get our first glimpse of how the sliding mechanism works two rather large rectangular magnets you can see how it pulls the metal screw into the center with its magnetism ik force I don't really know how magnets work the screen ribbon flexes with the motion of the slide kind of like we saw with the Aviv on excess motorized camera from last year we got to go deeper though so the seven Phillips screws surrounding the bottom plastic plate are next the plastics that pulled away include the include the loudspeaker with the two square golden contact pads these are allow for communication with the motherboard I still think the black and gold accents are kind of fun I'll remove the one silver screw from the charging port board and unplug the white wire cable then unclip the bottom extension ribbon this allows the small board to fall out of the phone frame it's got the standard USB C port along with the microphone but no headphone jack those are getting more and more rare these days all that's left in the bottom part is the cute little coin style vibrator motor but we'll leave that in place for now the motherboard up top is where some cool stuff is happening basically all the connectors have this copper grounding tape over the top I imagine that with the sliding motion of the phone the internals are constantly feeling sharp jewels as the screen jerks up and down so the tape probably help keeps the ribbon intact and plugged in each of the four camera connections are unclipped and there are three little silver Phillips head screws holding down the motherboard the two front facing cameras come away next a 24 megapixel and a 2 megapixel sensor that allow for the blurry background portrait mode thing both housed in the same metal housing the dual SIM card tray comes out next this would also probably make a good step number one if you like doing things in order finally I'll unclip the screen ribbon surrounded by red rubber which I assume helps support the cable as it constantly flexes and moves with the sliding motion of the phone Xiaomi has said that they've tested the sliding motion over thousand times with no ill effects on the hardware and it does look like they have taken extra precautions from the inside which is nice great dollops a thermal paste on the back of the motherboard transfer heat to the metal frame of the phone there is also a white hexagon shaped water damage indicator sticker next to the SIM card tray this will turn pink if the phone ever gets wet and now the rear-facing camera both with different functions the normal 12 megapixel sensor does have optical image stabilization but the 12 megapixel telephoto camera does not both are mounted in the same metal housing we didn't come all this way to stop here though that sliding motion still needs to be explained underneath the long black extension ribbon we reveal a third set of yellow tape covered screws which I'm pretty sure I'll attach the screen into the body I'll peel away each of the three yellow tape strips and unscrew the eight super flat Phillips head screws similar to the same sidewall screws we saw back in the iPhone 4 the me mix 3 has 28 screws inside so I'm definitely keeping them all organized off to the side so I can hopefully put the phone all back together again when I'm done after the last two top screws are removed I can very gently slide the screen ribbon out through the hole in the phone housing and we've successfully removed both halves of the phone the design of this thing is so simple it's brilliant little trick I saw on márquez's channel was this Magnum a pur that shows us where magnets are hidden inside of electronics two large rectangular magnets in the main body of the phone and down here we can see it's also picking up the little tiny magnet inside of the vibrator motor then over here on the screen half of the slider we have another two main magnets the silver sliding rack itself on the screen side is completely free-floating no Springs or resistance it slides up hitting the large rectangle and then slides back down and locks out with their little silver tabs bent up hitting the ends of the plastic rails these blocks keep it from extending too high up and too far down obviously the thin AMOLED screen is glued into the other side of this thin piece of plastic and it is replaceable with enough heat the little gold screen ribbon just pokes through the hole in the back of the plastic now you might be thinking to yourself hey Jerry don't magnets spend all their time attracting each other how does the slider stay open if the magnets are the only thing inside of there well I'm glad you asked as you can see when the slider is in the closed position the Magnus lineup directly over top of each other with a large amount of attracting force but when I slide up the magnets moved from the initial attracting magnetic field into a position where the magnets are actually repelling each other and pushing away from each other holding the screen in the upward extended position this is pretty brilliant because there are no motors Springs or crazy complicated hardware to get jammed or misaligned just simple magnetic fields let me show you I have two super-strong magnets here strong enough that they want to attract through my finger I'll put them on either side of my metal pry tool the north end of one magnet is currently very strongly attracted to the south end of the other magnet but let's say I move the two magnets so that they're next to each other they start to repel pushing away just like the position of the magnets in the phone when this slider is open but when the slider is closed the magnets line back up again and attract each other into the down position keeping the slider tightly closed the fun sliding effect you feel with the me mix three is that feeling of magnets passing from one attracting magnetic field into the repelling magnetic field it's pretty smart of show me I mean so far this is the only phone I've taken apart in 2019 but with this kind of ingenuity we're off to a good start I'm definitely gonna need y'all to collectively cross your fingers now in hopes I can put all 28 screws back into place with everything still working I'll make sure the yellow tape is back on top so the screws won't jiggle loose with the jarring motions of the slide the motherboard can set back into place with its red rubber protecting the screen ribbon cable and all four of the camera units get plugged back in with the three silver motherboard screws holding everything down then I'll set the charging port board down into the frame next to the small vibrator the rest of the install is super straightforward with the super long extension ribbon cable running under the battery which also then gets set into place and then the camera lenses and all the plastics get screwed down with all those screws I kept organized earlier the last step is the fingerprint scanner ribbon and the back glass panel getting set back onto the phone and lucky for us the whole thing does still turn on and slides up and down just like it did out of the box this is partially due to the pure simplicity of the design and also because you had your fingers crossed the whole time thank you I agree with Xiaomi that the sliding mechanism is indeed secure and with no moving mechanical parts there's probably gonna last for very long time speaking of secure things huge thanks to Nord VPN for sponsor this video and making the teardown possible you've probably heard of a VPN at this point since you're on the internet right now a virtual private network allows you to encrypt your Internet traffic and change it from one location to another super important that all your personal information is unobtainable and untrackable especially when using public Wi-Fi at hotels or restaurants or even at home with over 5,000 servers in 62 different countries Nord VPN is rated the number one virtual private network by PC Magazine and can secure six different devices like cell phones and computers all at the same time for a free month and a seventy-five percent discount off a three-year plan use the discount code jerry-rigged it ends up costing just a few cents a day Nord VPN comm slash jerry-rigged I'll put the link in the description would you ever use a slider phone or would you rather everything be in one solid piece let me know in the comments come hang out over on Twitter and Instagram and thanks a ton for watching I'll see you around