Samsung Galaxy S21 series is the talk of the town these days and reviewers are going crazy getting their hands on the premium flagship phones, reviewing them for an unbiased verdict. Some however, have gone beyond the superficial reviewing and dissected the devices to see what’s on the inside. Yes, we are talking about PBKreviews and already they’ve torn down the Galaxy S21 and the S21 Ultra to reveal their repairability scores. Now it’s time for the S21 Ultra to get the teardown treatment.
The S21+ 5G model here being ripped apart is the SM-G996U Exynos 2100 variant (sub 6Hz sans mmWave antennas) and initially PBKreviews talks about Single-SIM version of the S21+ although the phone can read dual SIMs. One of them is disabled and to enable it you’ll have to enable it via firmware and get a metal dual-SIM tray that can fit.
Like its big brother, the S21+ also has a detachable camera panel that is glued strongly to the main body that’s plastic as compared to S21 Ultra which has a glass back vulnerable to breakage. After removing the screws the NFC and Wireless charging coils are visible – under them lie the ribbon connectors.
After removing more components the camera module on the inside is accessible housing the 12MP ultrawide lens, along with OIS enabled 12MP and 64 lenses. The battery is securely glued to the main plate so removing it requires heat and a bit of brute force.
One disappointment as far as easy repairing goes is the flex cable for volume keys between the display and mid-frame. If they need to be repaired, the display will have to be removed which is a bit startling.
Overall the Galaxy S21+ is still a tedious set of hardware to repair in case of some issue to the components but a bit easier than the S21 Ultra. The components inside also reveal the middle child nature of the phone – somewhere between the S21 and the S21 Ultra.