• Buy
• Buy
• Buy
• Buy
• Buy
• Buy

Introduction

Hot on the heels of our in-depth teardown of Samsung's Galaxy S7, we bring you another future teardown classic: the Galaxy S7 Edge.

With most dual-flagship releases, manufacturers have been trending toward sharing as many design elements as possible. We're expecting this teardown to be a challenging game of 'Spot the Differences.'

Join us as we tear and compare the S7 Edge. To keep up to date on all of our teardown exploits, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, use our service manual.

• Specs. Why do they seem familiar? No reason.

• Dual edge 5.5” Super AMOLED touchscreen display with 2560 × 1440 resolution (534 ppi)

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with 4 GB RAM + Adreno 530 GPU

• 12-megapixel rear camera with dual pixel autofocus, 4K video capture; 5-megapixel selfie camera

• 32 or 64 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 200 GB additional)

• IP68 water resistance rating

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow

• We just had to test out our Edge notifications to show off that curvy OLED. Unfortunately, nobody has our new number.

• A quick comparison with last year's Galaxy S6 Edge shows that bigger is in. The S7 Edge also adds that same IP68 rating and expandable microSD slot that we saw in the S7, absent from last year's offerings.

• The camera bump is noticeably reduced as well, which may just be a result of the rising sea level extra 0.7 mm of thickness on the S7 Edge.

• Here again, we have the continuing voyages of the NSEA Protector iOpener, heating up a galaxy near you.

• The procedure is identical to that of the standard S7: After liberal application of heat, our iSclack and pick combo is super effective despite some extremely stubborn adhesive.

• Do you remember the days when an easily cracked back panel was at least easily replaced? iFixit remembers.

• S7 and S7 Edge side by side to compare and contrast: Heavy on the compare, light on the contrast.

• Inside, the two devices feature the same camera, flash, general construction, and even antenna positions (although those squiggles are slightly different).

• Despite the startlingly similar layout, the curve-boasting Edge is actually less curvy from behind than its standard counterpart.

• The S7's back mimics the Edge's front, with a curvaceous rear panel glass. The result is a mirror-universe evil twin situation. But with glass curves instead of goatees.

Starting at $69.99

Buy Now

Starting at $69.99

Buy Now

• Good news, everyone! The battery is no longer trapped under the motherboard, like it was on last season's Edge.

• Looks like the standardization with the vanilla S7 means some good things for the Edge.

• We extract the whopping 3.85 V, 13.86 Wh, 3,600 mAh burner of a battery.

• That's 20% more capacity than the already capacious 3,000 mAh battery in the S7. It seems the tradeoff for a marginally thicker Edge will be longer battery life and less wear from frequent charging. Nice!

• By Grabthar's hammer, what a savings.

• We're deep in the belly of the curved-screen beast, but compared to its flat-faced sibling, everything looks.. the same.

• Unfortunately, in a step backwards from last year's model, this Edge has also adopted our least favorite design feature: soft-button LED cables that wrap around the midframe, to be glued down under the display glass. That daughterboard won't be coming out any time soon..

• Anyway, let's get that motherboard out.

• With that, it's time to digitally convey some chip ID. On the front side of the motherboard, we note:

• SK Hynix H9KNNNCTUMU-BRNMH 4 GB LPDDR4 SDRAM layered over the Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820

• Samsung KLUBG4G1CE 32 GB MLC Universal Flash Storage 2.0

• Avago AFEM-9040 Multiband Multimode Module

• Murata FAJ15 Front End Module

• Qorvo QM78064 high band RF Fusion Module and QM63001A diversity receive module

  

• Qualcomm WCD9335 Audio Codec

• Maxim MAX77854 PMIC and MAX98506BEWV audio amplifier

• With so many similarities to the standard S7's chipset, it almost feels like we're repeating the computer:

• Murata KM5D17074 Wi-Fi module

• NXP 67T05 NFC Controller

• IDT P9221 Wireless Power Reciever (likely an iteration of IDT P9220)

• Qualcomm PM8996 and PM8004 PMICs

• Qualcomm QFE3100 Envelope Tracker

• Qualcomm WTR4905 and WTR3925 RF Transceivers

• Samsung C3 image processor and Samsung S2MPB02 PMIC

• Oh, and one more thing.

• That whole 'liquid cooling' thing? Not really that big of a deal. In case you missed it, we detailed our findings in our S7 teardown, and it's no different here.

• The S7 Edge's tiny heat pipe is nigh-identical to one we removed from an S7. It should afford the same improved heat diffusion to the metal midframe, improving cooling for those extended Samsung Gear VR sessions.

• Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Repairability Score: 3 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).

• Many components are modular and can be replaced independently.

• Unlike the S6 Edge, the battery can be removed without first ousting the motherboard—but tough adhesive and a glued-on rear panel make replacement more difficult than necessary.

• The display needs to be removed (and likely destroyed) if you want to replace the USB port.

• Front and back glass make for double the crackability, and strong adhesive on the rear glass makes it very difficult to gain entry into the device.

• Replacing the glass without destroying the display is probably impossible.

Embed this guide

Choose a size and copy the code below to embed this guide as a small widget on your site / forum.

Preview