Vivo Nex S Teardown - Battle of the Pop Up Cameras!
Vivo Nex S Teardown - Battle of the Pop Up Cameras!
2018-08-10
- phones the first flagships of their
kind with hidden motorized cameras one
that survived my durability tests and
one well one that didn't
today we'll be tearing down the survivor
the vivo NEX s and reviewing it from the
inside and comparing the internal camera
motor against its fallen comrade the
Oppo find X this is seriously one of the
coolest and most unique phones that have
ever opened up vivo is taking hardware
to the next level and the only place to
see it from the inside is here let's get
started I've already turned this phone
clear by removing that psychedelic back
coating under the glass which allowed us
a tiny glimpse or a preview of some of
the internal hardware it'll be a little
easier to remove the back glass adhesive
this time around since it's already been
done but of course the first step in any
dissection is putting the patient to
sleep we don't want him waking up during
what happens next I'm fairly confident
he'll survive the operation mostly cross
your fingers just in case heat is still
important and then the whole back glass
panel should pull up and away from the
foam body in one piece now we can access
the metal plate covering the motherboard
and see parts of the camera motor
mechanism after removing all of the
screws we can start accessing the good
stuff I'll unplug the battery first
which is actually pretty unique we'll
unburied the battery more in a second
the side button ribbons unplug and then
the two super long extension ribbons
unclip like little Legos the black blue
and white ribbons unsnap from their
circular connectors and the front
sensors up at the top also unplug the
dual rear cameras along with that
vibrating piezoelectric earpiece unclip
as well the earpiece is still under the
motherboard but we'll get to see it in
just a second the motherboard
unfortunately is still rather
intertwined with that front camera
mechanism so I'll remove the two screws
holding down the silver plate over that
camera ribbon one of the screws though
is the super tricky standoffs screw that
we've seen in some of the iPhones a
screw within a screw a little trick to
solving this is to take a thin flat head
and put it between the notches on the
standoff and twist it off axis allowing
it to rotate and then I can move that
metal plate and unclip the super long
front facing camera ribbon cable
releasing the motherboard and I can pull
it away from the phone body
nothing super cool to see on the
the board itself just the shape is
definitely unique everything else
interesting is still in the frame like
these dual rear cameras the 12 megapixel
main camera has optical image
stabilization but the top five megapixel
depth sensor does not have any hardware
stabilizing remember that this phone
doesn't actually have an earpiece
speaker or an earpiece grille instead it
uses a little contraption called a
piezoelectric vibrator that literally
turns the metal frame of the phone into
a speaker it sounds like everyone you
call is on speakerphone all of the time
so I'm not the biggest fan but it is
still cool and interesting technology i
showed an example of how it sounds
during my next esther ability test video
if you want to go back and get a taste
of that it's interesting to see it now
from the inside though getting the front
facing camera rails and motor out was
actually pretty complicated there were a
few hidden screws and little black
plastic contraption to keep the motor
from jamming too far down into the foam
body but eventually I was able to pull
out that stepper motor but the camera
was a different story on the left side
of the camera mechanism there's a little
metal stopper screwed into the camera
shaft once that stopper is removed then
the whole front camera can pull up and
out of the phone body from the top it's
super smart a vivo to include heart
physical stoppers at both ends of the
camera track now that the vivos
disassembled let's jump into the other
mechanical camera smartphone for a
second the Apple find X and we can
compare the motor side-by-side remember
vivo is just moving one camera in their
phones
Oppo is moving three cameras and the
whole top of the phone this guy's had a
rough couple days and didn't quite
survive my durability test so I can't
exactly turn it off either at this point
since the screen is shattered so we'll
just have to operate while the patient
is still awake this time there are quite
a few screws holding on the back plastic
panel but that's all we have to remove
to find the motor inside the find X
surprisingly it's smaller than the motor
inside of the vivo NEX
which is interesting because the find X
payload the whole top of the phone is
substantially larger and heavier than
the singular pop up eight megapixel
camera on top of the Nexus Oppo has said
their motor is good for 300,000
actuations which if you used your selfie
camera 100 times a day
would last you about eight years the
next s camera is rated by vivo to get at
least 50,000 lifts
which at the same 100 selfies a day
would last you 1.3 years each of these
claims of course are made by the
manufacturer so take that how you want
all we know for sure is that vivos motor
is bigger more secure and is lifting
less so ah pose claim of three hundred
thousand might be a little generous
either way I'm not going to count to
fifty thousand to find out I bet we
could talk Linus into it though remember
how the vivo battery is silver turns out
it's covered with a metal plate this
phone has surprises around every corner
down at the bottom of the phone we have
eight screws protecting our last bit of
hardware the black plastic comes up and
it's physically attached to the
loudspeaker nothing super-surprising
down here that vibration motor though
has got to be feeling pretty inferior
next to the camera motor he's much
smaller than we normally see in
flagships I know it might be
embarrassing to have your bits exposed
but there is one more thing we need to
look at the in screen fingerprint
scanner it's buried under that last
remaining board which has two ribbon
cables and of course the SIM card tray
which comes out of the bottom we'll set
that off to the side the charging port
board has the SIM card tray and the USB
C charging port which is all pretty
normal the only other end screen
fingerprint scanning phone we've seen as
the X twenty-plus also from vivo but the
one on this nexus is different it's
still glued against the glass so
removing it will be impossible without
cracking the screen but this time around
it looks like it has an extra sensor
under the screen it looks like a light
sensor or a camera I'm not totally sure
either way it's part of the in screen
fingerprint scanning technology and it
has changed since last year's X 20 plus
it does look like there's a little bit
of ingress protection around the
microphone hole and a rubber ring around
the charging port so water resistance
wasn't thrown entirely out the window
with this phone but I still wouldn't
trust it around water some protection is
always better than no protection though
speaking of protection the metal plate
covering this battery has six screws of
its own and once those are out the whole
four thousand milliamp hour battery
comes away from the phone body with zero
adhesive holding it down this is a
pretty incredible phone from the inside
as well as the outside I'll get that
charging port back into place and
believe it or not the goal of my channel
is to not destroy phones but actually
keep them working as long as possible I
do have my doubts about this little guy
coming back together in one piece though
our friend next
I never wake up again this guy is a
little bit more complicated than normal
the fingerprint scanner and screen are
clipped in and then all of our little
wire cable buddies get routed into their
positions before the loud speaker and
it's eight screws plop into place to
protect the phone's bottom components
and hide that eighty bitty vibrator
getting the camera contraption back into
place is like playing one of those brain
puzzles without any instructions you got
to kind of just put everything back into
place and hope you don't have any screws
left over at the end the important bit
is that tiny top stopper though once
that little guy is secure and as long as
all the screws are still organized from
the teardown the reassembly process
flows pretty smoothly after the motor
gizmo is tightened down the motherboard
can slip over top of the piezoelectric
speaker and the rear camera modules
taking special care of course to not
pinch any ribbon cables on the underside
of that board this time around
everything plugs into the top of the
motherboard including that super long
front facing camera ribbon which has
this little silver metal plate keeping
the ribbon from pinching itself or
coming disconnected as the camera moves
up and down I'll plug in the front
sensor ribbon along with the earpiece
vibrator both rear cameras and side
buttons and finally the extension
ribbons and the battery plug itself the
metal motherboard plate with its screws
are set into place and finally we can
see if our buddy NEX wakes up from his
full-body operation surprisingly enough
he turns on and even more impressive the
camera still works trust me
I'm just as surprised as you are this
phone is definitely not meant to be
repaired it's a premium high-tech phone
not built for the masses and really
meant to not be taken apart or fixed so
be gentle with it
I'll get my custom clear back glass
panel in place I still seriously think
this is one of the coolest looking
phones on the planet even more so now
that we've explored it from the inside I
know this video is a bit longer than
normal so thanks for sticking around all
the way through it should I try to keep
the video shorter from now on or are you
okay with projects taking longer than a
few minutes let me know in the comments
hit that subscribe button if you haven't
already and thanks a ton for watching
I'll see you around
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