Teardowns are a must if you want to see how an OEM designed and organized the components inside a device especially if it’s a premium offering. After seeing the OnePlus 5 Teardown, here is one from IFIXIT prying open the new Samsung Galaxy Note Fan Edition. In case you’ve been living under a rock the past few months, this Note is simply the refurbished Galaxy Note 7. This is more interesting because the smartphone was unfortunate to have gone through a crazy fiasco of overheating and exploding batteries. The rumor that refurbished units will be sold became a reality and now those unused Note 7 phones are being given a new lease on life, at least, in South Korea where it was launched earlier this July.
The Samsung Galaxy Note FE is introduced as the “Fan Edition”. No, we don’t think there is a fan inside but we’re guessing it’s a special offering for all the remaining “fans” of the brand out there. IFIXIT managed to get a hold of one and tore it down to see how it is different from the old Note 7. It’s already considered an old phone but new in the sense that the battery is new and improved.
To review the specs, the phablet sports the following: a curved 5.7-inch Super AMOLED screen, 2560 × 1440 resolution, Gorilla Glass 5, Exynos 8890 Octa Core processor, 4GB RAM, 12MP rear camera, 5MP selfie camera, fingerprint scanner, iris scanner, headphone jack, USB-C, 64GB onboard storage, microSD card slot for expansion, IP68 dust and water resistance rating, and the S Pen stylus.
Heating the phone took some time but the rear glass panel was first to be removed. Upon opening, there was the antenna easily revealed. We’re just curious about the battery as it is brand new. It has a lower capacity of only 3200mAh compared to the 3500mAh battery on the original Note 7. We know this one is already safer having gone through the 8-Point Battery Safety Check. Processor installed was an Exynos 8890 Octa Core CPU which is the same as the Galaxy S8. The phone is easily repairable as a lot of components are modular.
The Samsung Galaxy Fan Edition is really just a refurbished Galaxy Note 7. IFIXIT did a teardown analysis of the Note 7 almost a year ago. What Samsung did to the old Note 7 was actually impressive because they didn’t allow the phones to go to waste.
SOURCE: IFIXIT
