Disassembling Samsung Galaxy Note 9: S-Pen Adds Bluetooth Module

By Carrie Tsai,  Last Updated: 6 September, 2018

Samsung's new generation of business flagship Galaxy Note 9 officially launched on August 31. Compared with the previous generation, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 retains the design language of tough business. The hardware configuration is stable and the camera is integrated into AI. The scene recognition is optimized, and the adjustment in the later stage is more natural, which reduces the overshoot of nighttime photographing.

Compared to the previous generation, the most important upgrade of Samsung Note9 is equipped with a new S Pen, which supports remote operation by adding low-power Bluetooth.

“If you press and hold the Bluetooth button on the S Pen, the Note 9’s camera app will launch. With the camera app open, a single tap on the same button will snap a photo.” Now let's take a look at the internal structure of this phone.

Samsung Note9 is equipped with a 6.4-inch hyperboloid Super AMOLED screen who with a resolution of 2960X1440 (516 ppi). The appearance is not much different than Note8, but it further enhances the screen ratio. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 still retains the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Samsung Note9 still uses rear dual camera, although the camera is arranged horizontally but fingerprint recognition is transferred from one side to the bottom of the camera. Samsung Note9 new S Pen color and body color is the same, the blue version of Note9 is equipped with a yellow S Pen, with a contrast color design, visually more impact.

The disassembly is started below. First, the back adhesive is softened by heating, and the back cover of the mobile phone is opened by the suction cup and the warp. The Note9 battery is 15.4Wh, which is an improvement over Samsung Note 8 (12.71Wh).

Next is the mainboard, this version uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and Samsung 6GB LPDDR4X memory, with Samsung KLUDG4U1EA-B0C1 128GB eUFS storage, NFC controller, WLAN front-end module and LTE front-end module are on-board standard, in addition to Samsung Galaxy Note 9 still uses the Qualcomm WCD9341 audio codec. On the other side of the motherboard, there is a Bluetooth module and its decoding RF module.

At the bottom of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, there is a separate board that connects the Type-C connector to the microphone. The 3.5mm headphone jack is reserved and the internal is also a separate module design. The newly added water and carbon system is a heat pipe with a larger surface area than the previous product. It is directly fixed to the frame of the fuselage and cannot be disassembled.

Finally, regarding the disassembly of the S Pen, since it is an integrated design, it is necessary to use a knife to forcibly destroy the disassembly. After cutting through the middle of the S Pen, you can see the internal slim circuit board, equipped with a Bluetooth smart SoC and a super capacitor for short-term power supply. There is also an induction coil at the tip of the S Pen, which is charged with the internal sensing device of the phone when it is inserted into the phone.

In the end, ifixit gave Samsung Note9 a fix score of 4 points (out of 10 points, the higher the score, the easier it is to repair). Ifixit gives a 4-point repairability rating for Samsung Note9. Ifixit said that Samsung Note9 internally includes Type-C interface, 3.5mm headphone jack, S Pen corresponding charging device are modular design, replacement repair is still very simple, but due to the characteristics of waterproof seal, the design has increased disassembly the difficulty of repair.