It may be the most expensive OnePlus Phone yet, but with a huge notchless AMOLED display,
a triple rear camera system, an in display fingerprint sensor AAND a front facing camera
that pops up, the OnePlus 7 Pro seems to be earning that price increase.
But will all this added tech effect the OnePlus 7 Pro’s repairability?
Let’s tear it down and find out!
It just takes a little heat and some prying with our opening picks to start lifting away
the rear panel.
But to get the panel all the way off we need to disconnect a cable that’s home to the
laser autofocus module and the flash.
Once we’re in, we’re greeted with some very secure mid frames.
There are a total of 24 screws holding the top and bottom mid frames in place including
2 screws hiding behind white stickers.
Now we can finally see the guts of the OnePlus 7 Pro including the fancy lead screw mechanism
that moves the front facing camera up and down.
Pretty cool!
To get the motherboard out we disconnect the battery first, and then a whole bunch of other
cables and finally remove a couple of screws.
This mostly frees the motherboard, but we still need to remove the bracket covering
the front facing camera cable, and disconnect it.
Then the motherboard lifts out.
We disconnect the camera cables next and set the rear cameras free.
This is a 3 camera system that includes a 48 Megapixel main camera, an 8 Megapixel telephoto
lens and a 16 megapixel Ultra Wide angle lens that boasts a 117 degree field of view.
The motherboard is home to the 6GB of Samsung made RAM with the Qualcomm® Snapdragon 855
Octa-core processor likely layered underneath, and this thing must run hot!
This is the most thermal paste we’ve seen in a phone in a long time.
We also see the 128 GB of UFS 3.0 2-lane storage.
Getting the front facing camera out of the phone is some tricky business.
First we remove the lead screw mechanism, then we have to remove the pin that drives
the camera, THEN we have to remove the bracket securing the front facing camera to the case.
Finally we can pull the front facing camera out the top of the phone.
Down at the bottom of the phone we find a daughterboard that’s home to some microphones
and the SIM Card port.
It only takes disconnecting a few cables and removing a couple of screws to remove.
Next we turn our attention to the battery, and let’s just take a minute to thank OnePlus
for the handy battery removal tab.
These tabs make battery replacements super easy.
This battery has a typical capacity rating of 3880 mAh which is an increase over the
OnePlus 6T’s 3700 mah capacity.
With the battery out of the way we can remove the modular USB-C cable.
We love to see modular components like these, it’s just kind of a bummer that the battery
and daughterboard have to be removed before you can get to this frequently used and replaced
part.
Last out is the in-display fingerprint sensor.
This in-display fingerprint sensor is the same type of optical sensor found in the OnePlus
6T.
This sensor uses green light from the OLED display to illuminate you fingerprint so the
optical sensor can see it and register it.
We’re left with the 6.67 Fluid AMOLED display that has a 90 hertz refresh rate, a resolution
of 3120 by 1440 and a pixel density of 516 ppi.
Incredible display, too bad it’s strongly fused to the phone’s case making replacements
very difficult and time consuming.
With our OnePlus 7 Pro disassembled it’s time to reflect on repairability.
The OnePlus 7 Pro scored a 4 out of 10 and here’s why
One the upside, the battery can be removed first, once you open the phone.
It’s only lightly adhered and comes with a pull tab for easy removal.
Many components are modular and can be individually replaced.
But on the downside, display replacements, which are the most common repairs, are not
prioritized in the design.
(You have to completely disassemble the phone to swap out your screen.)
While the Front Facing Camera’s new pop up ability is really cool, the added mechanical
element makes it more likely to wear out and more complicated to replace.
The primary access point for all repairs, the rear panel, is firmly glued in place.