hey everyone I'm Kelsey and this is Alex
we just finished our Apple watch Series
three teardown so I've had Alex come in
because he's our in-house Apple watch
expert
how many Apple watches have you taken
apart at this point I've probably gone
into around 250 to 300 Apple watches
either for tearing apart for parts or
just for repairs for friends so I've
really had a chance to do the deep dive
on these and see what's inside what can
we expect as far as the opening
procedure is it any different than the
previous model compared to now it's no
it's barely any different really
everything inside is basically the same
the only differences are the antenna got
much larger especially in the cellular
version and the touch gasket has a
slightly different positioning for the
connector so I'm actually going to
switch where I'm going to go in with my
blade so that I'm less in the way of all
of those delicate little things so what
tools do we need to get started so my
primary tool is going to be the reflow
station because there's a lot of
adhesive around the touch cascade and I
really want to get that softened up but
I also don't want to get it so hot that
I burn out the LCD or damaged anything
inside
so my reflow station allows me to go
very specific on the heat and the depth
and then I'm just gonna go at it with my
exacto knife and pry it open sorry let's
go for it
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all right so now that we have a cracked
open I can work the rest of my way
around and get the adhesive off all
right so the next step is to release as
if connectors they I have this little
adhesive strip covering all three of
them so I'm going to carefully remove
that so I can see all of my connections
one two and three all right so let's
take a second to compare cellular versus
non cellular screen anything doesn't
really look like no it looks like it's
probably going to be pretty
interchangeable the cables look like
then same place all the chips are tucked
in the same place and all the
connections are the same so as far as we
know they're probably interchangeable so
while the displays looked similar the
insides you said are a little bit
different what do you notice
as far as differences between the
cellular and on cellular the primary
difference that we see is the one that
we expect is gonna be the difference in
the antenna but you definitely see that
the LTE antenna that I'm pulling above
the GPS version is much larger and goes
around the side whereas this is the size
that we're much more used to and is in
the two previous series and now that we
have the display off we have a lot of
traveling screws to remove so I'm gonna
get going on that
let's liberate this battery that was
glued in place and compare it to the one
that we removed from the LT earlier okay
what did we see only a slight difference
between the two yeah it looks like
there's a nominal change in capacity
it's really not gonna be very noticeable
but it does seem to be enough to warrant
so an Apple number in both the Apple
watch and the iPhone 8 it wasn't so much
a larger battery as more efficient
processing so while the battery might
not be larger we're hoping that there is
still going to be much better battery
life even though there is a higher
demand for energy due to the more
cellular activity now that we have the
battery out I'm gonna go ahead and
remove this force hash gasket so that's
this connection fear I'm going to remove
I'm going to reach under it and slide it
all the way around the the LTE seems to
have two one connection and one chip I'm
not sure what that chip is but I'm sure
our fantastic team will tell us after
the fact well this one only has the
touch sensor this might be more
connection for the antenna because it's
more out of the frame but more news on
that later alright now that we have all
the sensitive stuff out I'm just gonna
start removing some of these screws in
the other watch we had 17 screws so
we're just gonna fast-forward through
most of these all right I now at the
last screw since we wanted to liberate
the flywheel bracket and we get to tear
everything apart and see what we can
actually remove so this allows us to
lift the taptic engine and get a look
underneath and it looks like this
antenna is going to be pretty easily
removable so I'm gonna go ahead and snap
that off
put it to the side I'm going to go
around to the side and I'm going to go
ahead and remove this button which is
gonna fall right out for us next we can
go ahead and remove this that's the
taptic engine and we get to see more of
what's underneath and making this
anymore so we're kind of at the last
point before destruction could occur in
the teardown and there seems to be a lot
of differences so far which we weren't
expecting at all very cool but share it
with us what do you what do you see as
you're going through the - so the most
exciting thing for me was I was
expecting just a change in the antenna
because that's really where the
differences are but with that change in
antenna there's a large change in
chipset there's at least six exposed
chips on the LTE version that we don't
see in the normal GPS version so that's
very interesting to me and because of
that there's also going to be some
design changes where there's some foam
to make up for the lack of chips and
connectors on the LTE lots of screws
lots of food is actually so there's 17
in the LTE and 19 in the other version
so it's really a massive amount of
screws and brackets and everything that
you have to get out of there which makes
getting anything past the battery really
difficult to get to I'm not gonna be
really consistent for repair okay now
that we have removed absolutely
everything from the top plate and
compared the two I'm gonna actually be
able to remove the plate from the non
LTE version because the LTE version is
soldered to the case so I don't want to
destroy that one but we should be able
to take a peek right behind this one and
see a very similar Turgeon assembly to
the previous series although the
connection does seem more removable
which is a very nice thing to see
alright so with the GPS version taken
all the way apart we noticed some
differences what was the most surprising
to you I think the biggest surprise for
me was really the topic engine there
were some things that we expect it to be
different there was that much larger
antenna and the chipset to support that
those are things that we expected going
in but the topic engine ends up having a
different type of connection to make up
for that change in space and that
chipset so I think it's really
interesting that they redesigned part of
to make up for that rather than the
extra foam that they added in other
places and then what about repairability
so we gave the LTE version to six out of
ten
did the differences impact repair
ability for the GPS I think I would keep
the score the same and there are some
changes deeper down but I think that the
there's really big three big things that
we want to repair in this watch it's
gonna be the display the touch gasket
and the battery and those things are
still going to be just as accessible and
just as repairable the display is the
point of ingress so that's the first
thing you want to remove and I did the
battery or the gasket our potential next
steps so I would keep it at six and then
after that though it gets pretty after
that doc because there's a deal them get
to you yeah definitely well thanks about
for coming on I learned a lot today and
I hope you guys did too if you have any
questions about the differences between
the two devices go ahead and comment
below and we'll be seeing you soon we'll
see you next time thank you so much for
having me yeah
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