Samsung Galaxy S10 teardown shows what's behind the hole-punch display
Hint: there's a whole lot of cooling.
Samsung's Galaxy S10 may be all display on the surface, but what's underneath that enigmatic exterior? Quite a lot, apparently. iFixit has torn down the entire S10 family, and it's evident that Samsung has stuffed each phone to the gills. Most notably, cooling is everywhere. The back cover, display and wireless charging pads are blanketed in graphite, while the touted copper heat pipe is much larger -- it's closer to that in the Galaxy Note 9 than the cooling you saw in the S9. The iFixit team believes this might be necessary to keep the reverse wireless charging from cooking the phone.
The dissection also shows the stealthily integrated ultrasonic fingerprint reader, although it might be too well-integrated for DIY repair fans when you'll likely have to replace the main display at the same time. And as clever as the hole-punch display may be, it's relatively straightforward underneath.
Not surprisingly, the S10 isn't what you'd call an easily fixable phone. In addition to that display, you'll find a tough-to-remove battery and a USB-C port that's no longer modular. If that doesn't rub you the wrong way, though, you might appreciate the sheer amount of engineering involved in fitting everything into such a tight space.
