back to article Now that's what I call a sticky situation: Repairability fiends open up Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, find the remains of Shergar

iFixit has published the long-awaited results of its Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G teardown. And what did the amateur gadget surgeons find? Poking its innards like a Crimean War medic, did iFixit stumble upon the Holy Grail nestled behind the accelerometer? When looking through their magnifying glass, did they see the meaning of …

  1. djstardust

    It matters not one jot

    To me anyway.

    £1200 for a phone is insane, and especially for one that has camera bugs and a fast draining battery when used as advertised.

    P30 Pro is far cheaper and probably has a better camera overall if photography is your thing. The battery life on it is amazing.

  2. Kennelly

    legislate! legislate!

    For the sake of the planet's dwindling resources, It's time to make repair-proofing, and deliberate obsolescence, illegal IMHO

    1. jgarbo
      Pint

      Re: legislate! legislate!

      These defiant gestures might salve your conscience but the end-of-the-world is nigh, whether you reuse chopsticks or batteries or not. Your carbon footprint is a smudge on the landcape compared to industrial, unstoppable demolition of the world. Relax, have a pint, and read your email.

  3. Peter 26

    Samsung Repair not that bad

    The fact Samsung has its own repair centre's is actually a selling point for me. It's the only flagship phone manufacturer that provides genuine replacement batteries at a reasonable price. If you buy a 2nd hand battery anywhere else it will be fake and have nowhere near the storage capacity of a genuine one (you might as well have stuck with the dud one). I used to repair phones myself and gave up on genuine replacement batteries bought from third parties.

    I recently had my Samsung S8+ battery replaced in the Kingston store for £50 all inclusive. It's made my phone like the day I bought it. Looks like I'll get another couple of years out of it now, which is quite clearly why other manufacturers don't want to sell replacement batteries.

    1. JohnFen

      Re: Samsung Repair not that bad

      There's nothing wrong with a manufacturer having its own repair center. There's a lot wrong with making the devices such that using the repair center is effectively mandatory.

    2. legless82

      Re: Samsung Repair not that bad

      Oneplus score well here too, albeit without a physical UK presence.

      I dropped my 3 year old Oneplus 3T and smashed the screen. I opened up a web chat with their support team and they arranged for it to be shipped to their service centre in Poland. While they had it, I asked if they'd replace the battery with a new one too.

      I was without my phone for a total of 3 days, and for a OEM-original new screen and battery I was charged only £90. They also replaced the camera free of charge because it was reporting a hardware fault.

  4. Vulture@C64

    Well, this won't be popular here as you're all a bunch of apple hating andoid fan boys :) but Apple battery replacement for the iPhones is very reasonable. £69 for the very latest phones and £49 for older phones.

    https://support.apple.com/en-gb/iphone/repair/service/battery-power

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and samsung:

      and samsung s10 battery replacement is £59 https://www.samsungrepairs.com/shop/repairs/samsung-galaxy-s10-repairs

      1. H in The Hague

        Re: and samsung:

        "https://www.samsungrepairs.com/shop/repairs"

        Thanks for the tip. Looks like they're cheaper than my local independent repair shop! (Fortunately that assessment is based on a sample of 1 repair.:)

    2. DavCrav

      Screen and battery for my Samsung for £84.

      1. BebopWeBop

        Similar for my iPhone 6.

    3. JohnFen

      And what's the cost in terms of time and hassle? Is it as cheap as with devices that actually anticipate users will swap out batteries?

  5. Hans 1
    Joke

    Sam sung Sticky Fingers

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    * Although, in fairness, that comes with a replacement battery.

    Makes sense - it sounds like a pig to get in, so may as well change at the same time.

    Or is it just because it gets trashed when getting the screen out?

    1. Quarak

      Re: * Although, in fairness, that comes with a replacement battery.

      The batteries in recent Samsung phone are aggressively glued into place. They are not rigid units but foil packaged and quite flexible. By the time you have managed to get it out it's inevitable that you will have bent it enough to have damaged the electrodes and reduced battery life . Fragmented electrodes are the main caused by charge / discharge cycle expansions are the main cause of reduced battery life. Your bang on right at the end. You need to remove the battery to get the screen ribbon cable removed and you've likely trashed the battery doing that so whilst the phones in bits you might as well fit a new one or risk complaints about reduced battery life.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    2 year cycle

    Samsung assumes you will replace your phone within two years. That's all the time they support the upgrade of the phone's OS. They figure the replacement charges are not a revenue stream but an extra incentive to upgrade early.

  8. First Light

    I only clicked on this because of Shergar. Poor bugger.

    I wasn't happy with the reason for his inclusion either. For shame, El Reg!

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      I think animal glue would be a bit niffy, to say nothing about its effects on the vegans out there.

  9. cantankerous swineherd
    Headmaster

    note for the young people

    shergar was a race horse stolen and held to ransom in 1983 (my, how time flies). the ransom wasn't paid, the horse was never seen again, presumed boiled down for glue.

    1. Sgt_Oddball
      Headmaster

      Re: note for the young people

      Boxer would have been more accurate... Especially if the phones been made in one of the shared factories at the 54th parallel.

      Two legs bad, four legs good!

      1. BebopWeBop

        Re: note for the young people

        Good eating on those 4 legged critters. Maybe he contributed to British sold minced beef?

    2. JohnFen
      Thumb Up

      Re: note for the young people

      Thanks for the explanation. I'm the opposite of young, but I don't follow horse racing news and so I'd never heard of Sherger and didn't understand the reference.

  10. jmch Silver badge
    WTF?

    Robustness??

    " even if you're using one of those rugged Otterbox protectors that make your once-svelte phone look like a Panasonic Toughbook on doughnuts."

    One thing I don't understand in modern phones.... they are made super svelte, and glass to the edge plus water-repellant coating make them both fragile and incredibly slippery. Which means most people put their phone in a case, making it more bulky (but without being able to use the extra bulk for a larger battery), and denying the benefit of having edge-to-edge screens (or, even worse, covering part of the screen). Moreover, making it thinner makes it more expensive since it's more tightly packed = trickier to design and assemble. Plus, you have to pay even more for the case / screen protector.

    The only benefit of this arrangement seems to be the swappability of cases - so are we back to the early-millennium Nokias where case-swapping was a design feature?

    1. JohnFen

      Re: Robustness??

      This has always baffled me as well.

      I had the same very thin phone for 7 or 8 years now. I've never used a case for it, because I hate cases -- and yet it remains utterly undamaged despite being dropped countless times, including in water twice. I don't know what I do differently, but I do serve as an example that cases are not technically necessary.

    2. whoseyourdaddy

      Re: Robustness??

      *cough* makes it harder for pickpockets to slide it out of your pants pocket while trying to order takeout. Didn't stop my device from roaming from Germany to Romania but.. next time I feel something moving near my junk, expect to draw back a stump.

  11. BebopWeBop
    Happy

    Were Lorn Lucan's fingerprints found allover the battery as well?

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