Triple Camera P20 PRO Teardown – Are they all stabilized?
Triple Camera P20 PRO Teardown – Are they all stabilized?
2018-05-18
the triple camera smartphone from Huawei
the p20 throw it barely survived my
durability test the screen shattered
while the phone is being flexed
unfortunately but it still functions and
now it's time to tear it down review it
from the inside and see the hardware
behind those three camera units let's
get started heat is mandatory for
opening the back glass panel on the
Huawei P 20 Pro this thing is ip67
water-resistant and glued down pretty
tight
luckily heat softens the adhesive and
allows us to slip a metal pry tool in
there to slice under the glass and
remove the sticky stuff it's incredibly
tight though and a lot harder than it
looks the big suction cup does help out
and I'll link the tools that I'm using
in the video description one thing to
watch out for is to not slice too deep
into the phone the adhesive is only
around the edges and there is a fragile
ribbon cable next to the camera lenses
which I'll show you in a second it looks
like there might be some pull tabs
attached to the adhesive along the sides
but I'm not sure how you would access
these without removing a glass panel
first anyway
the tabs might be there just to help
during the installation procedure
instead of the removal I'll unplug this
small sensor from the motherboard with a
plastic pry tool the sensor fits right
between the two camera lenses and
probably helps with the autofocus
to get a better look at the triple rear
cameras we're gonna need to pull off the
protective plastic surround our
mainboard the top plastic section is
attached to this black NFC pad flopping
around similar to what we saw on the
translucent HTC phone this one just
isn't as aesthetic since it's not meant
to be seen except for by me and all of
you there are eight Phillips head screws
surrounding the top edge of the phone
and once those are off I can peel up the
plastics and the NFC pad to reveal the
motherboard I'll unplug the charging
port connector like a little Lego and
the smaller battery plug and the display
ribbon which I'll talk more about in a
second there's also two antenna wires
over on the right side and then the
whole motherboard can just lift out just
seen if you guys are paying attention
the SIM card tray obviously needs to be
removed first
nice catch guys it's got a red rubber
ring around the edge to help keep water
out goes hand in hand with that ip67
rating the motherboard is now free we
got some purplish thermal paste plopped
in the center of the phone
thermal paste uses the aluminum medal of
the frame to help keep the processor
cool it's time to look at these triple
cameras there's some copper shielding
tape over the connectors I'll peel that
off and unclip the two connectors going
to the three sensors and pull it away
from the board
and here we are an 8 megapixel telephoto
lens up top a 40 megapixel sensor in the
middle and a 20 megapixel
black-and-white sensor at the bottom it
looks like the only sensor with oh is
optical image stabilization is the top
telephoto lens the other two don't have
any hardware stabilizing the slight
movement of the lens is probably just
the focusing mechanism it's pretty cool
to see all three of these lenses
side-by-side you can see how far the
telephoto lens protrudes out the top
personally I think would be cool to swap
out the monochrome lens for a wide-angle
but I'm sure that'll come out soon
enough on a future phone I'll clip the
two camera connectors back onto the
motherboard and you remember that
circular earpiece grille I mentioned
during the durability test well the
speaker under that grill is actually
rectangular which is pretty normal for
inside a cell phone it's just
interesting that the decided to go
circular with the grille on the front
that's unique and I think kind of
cool-looking the charging port of the
p20 pro is pretty interesting I'll have
to remove ten screws along the bottom of
the phone to get access to it but once
the top plastics are off I can pull the
incredibly small USB C port from the
bottom of the phone it has that same
rubber sealing ring that the SIM card
tray has but it's not read I think more
things should be read personally the
little circuit board at the bottom pops
out next followed quickly by the loud
speaker this speaker doesn't have any
water-resistant meshing built into the
part itself it's actually down here at
the bottom of the phone on the frame we
get all the mesh and look red rubber
this time perfect
the circular vibrator motor seems to be
pretty small on the p20 pro it's
probably about one-fifth the size of an
iphone vibrator it still works though
you don't need a big vibrator to get the
job done for the battery this 4,000
milliamp hour beast is pretty large but
there are no magical pull tabs like the
ones we see inside of iPhones and the
adhesive is not gentle this stuff is
permanent which is unfortunate because
once you've been to battery like this
removing it it becomes incredibly unsafe
the internal layers of the battery are
wrapped up like a roll of paper towels
and if the layers touch or compress into
each other
it starts on fire like we learned with
the note 7 so it's super lame that
Huawei is using permanent at
under their battery because if you ever
need to do a screen replacement the
battery has to come out the only way to
access the screen display ribbon is
under the battery and now the battery is
unsafe to really reuse again because of
that vintage we inflicted earlier trying
to remove it
continuing with the screen it is glued
permanently onto the middle frame so a
screen replacement would require a lot
of heat and prying to get rid of the old
glass and display panel it's kind of a
pain but I'll link replacements in the
video description now it's time to see
if it all works when I put it back
together
I'll get the battery back into place
it's honestly probably gonna work just
fine even after the removal abuse but
still magic pull-tabs would have made
things way easier
I'll get the loudspeaker back into place
then I can flop the USBC port and do it
slot between the loudspeaker and the
little tiny circuit board then I can
plug the charging port into the circuit
board like a little Lego pro tip you can
magnetize your screwdriver bits on top
of the loudspeaker magnet inside of most
cellphones you can use an earpiece as
well I'll use that little trick to get
the tin Phillips head screws back into
place holding down the bottom plastics
and components it's kind of like a
rocket surgery for ants there's a whole
lot going on down here the motherboard
is next goopy side down I'm making sure
no wires or cables get caught under the
board as everything gets put back into
place once the board is secure and
clipped in I can plug in the black and
white wire cables the screen connector
next to the built-in LED flash the
charging port ribbon the front camera up
top and finally the battery connector
itself
I'll get the protective black plastic
shielding over the top of the components
and finish it off with those eight
Phillips head screws the last thing we
plug in is the laser autofocus and the
back panel can go back into place with
new adhesive of course the whole thing
won't be water-resistant anymore but if
any of your glass was cracked like mine
was that was already compromised anyway
and it works another successful teardown
it's always impressive how much abuse
these phones can handle and still
function this p20 Pro is a trooper
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