it is a huge AMOLED screen both an in
screen fingerprint sensor and the
ability to do face detection a stylus
that acts like a magic wand and it comes
in aura blue or like we like to call it
fancy iFixit blue it's the Samsung
Galaxy Note 10.1 we tore down a note it
scored a four to ten on our
repairability scale so how will the note
10 plus score there's only one way to
find out and that's to tear it down now
let's get this thing open if you guess
we need some heat gentle prying and some
opening pick action to get the rear
panel off the note 10 plus you get a
prize the opening procedure is pretty
much the same as most recent Galaxy
phones as is the internal layout we've
got two mid frames and a center panel to
remove which are all thankfully held in
place by standard Phillips double zero
screws with our first real look at the
internals of this phone we find a
somewhat radical change the motherboard
lives solely at the top of the device
which we also saw in the Google pixel
moving the motherboard to the top of the
device allows for a wider battery but it
also makes the connection between the
motherboard and the daughter board a lot
trickier since you have to get past a
ton of interconnect cables to access the
battery disconnecting the cables along
the bottom of the motherboard and
removing the front-facing camera allows
us to lift the motherboard right up and
out there are five cameras to be found
in a note 10 plus including a 16
megapixel ultra-white camera a 12
megapixel wide-angle camera a 12
megapixel telephoto camera a depth
vision camera and lastly we have a 10
megapixel selfie camera one more thing
about the motherboard
just like recent high-end iPhones it's
stepped after separating these boards we
can see the 12 gigabytes of Samsung made
lpddr4 X Ram layered over the snapdragon
855 system on chip and the 256 gigabytes
of also Samsung made EU SS 3.0 flash
storage the USBC connector is soldered
to a daughter board but the board itself
is small and there isn't much more on it
than the connector itself so repairs
shouldn't be too much of an issue next
we have the battery which is securely
glued noël using a good amount of
isopropyl alcohol some patience and a
suction cup we can lift the battery up
and out in the past we've used pics or a
plastic card to try to pry the battery
up
but since the ultrasonic fingerprint
sensor is directly below the battery
we'll stick with this method even though
it takes a little bit longer this
battery weighs in at 59 point 1 grams
which is almost 5 grams heavier than the
note 9th battery and it's rated at 16
point 5 6 watt hours more heat and
prying gets this giant display off this
is a six point eight inch dynamic AMOLED
infinity Oh display with the resolution
of 3040 by 1440 and a pixel density of
498 pixels per inch on the back of the
display you can see the in display
ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which uses
machine learning to distinguish real
from fake fingerprints with our Galaxy
Note 10 time to think about
repairability the note 10 plus scored a
3 out of 10 and here's why on the upside
equally-sized Filip fasteners means you
only need to bring one driver for
repairs most of the components are
modular and can be independently
replaced but no more headphone jack
means double duty for the USBC port on
the downside any repair you try is gonna
start with painstakingly unglue the
fragile rear glass cover replacing the
glue down battery is tougher than ever
especially with so many board
interconnect cables to work around and
lastly replacing the display requires a
complete teardown or replacing half the
phone if you're still craving more note
10 plus content head on over to our site
to check out the full teardown of the 5g
version including a look inside the new
s-pen