Name: Pixel 3 XL Teardown - Can the scratches be removed?
Uploaded: 2020-03-14T10:31:21.000Z
Duration: 9 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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the iconic Pixel Three Excel, with its dual facing front cameras and a notch you could land an airplane on, is ready to be torn down, taken apart and reviewed from the inside.

We'll see if those back glass scratches can be removed as well.

Like with most glass phones, we open it up from the back, using a lot of food to soften the adhesive between back and free.

Big suction cup lifts up when my razor blade slices through the thick, watertight adhesive.

Having a metal tools so close to the fragile circuits and lithium battery induces a tad bit of anxiety.

But there's not really a better way to do it glued, shut, watertight phones or just what we deal with these days.

Finally, cutting through that last bit of adhesive and lifting up the glass panel reveals that the insides of the pixel three Excel look much different than the regular sized pixel.

The wireless charging is the normal, boring black color, and the black NFC is actually stuck to the glass.

The pixel three Excel is just less aesthetic inside than the regular size pixel before we get too far into the tear down, let's see if we can remove these scratches on the back panel.

Erica Griffin made a fantastic video where she was able to clean off some of the scratches on her black pixel.

Excel in the sink, using soap, water and a toothbrush.

I mentioned my durability test video that the frosted glass panel was probably acting like a Level six abrasive, kind of like a chalkboard of sorts to any metal softer than a level six that it came in contact with.

Brass keys air pretty common and are usually about a 3.5 on most scale of hardness.

The etched level six surface of the back of this phone is literally acting like a piece of sandpaper to these common metals, and the residue of the metal is left behind.

As a permanent mark, Erica managed to clean off her softer brass residue with just water and soap.

But my stainless steel residue from the pry tools is not coming off with soap and water.

I think Google should have just etched the underside of the glass so it would still visually look cloudy.

But leave the glossy, smooth, non abrasive surface on the outside.

Putting your phone in water is incredibly dangerous, and liquid damage is not covered under any warranties and doesn't even clean off all metal marks.

I'll show you where those water damage indicators air hidden in just a second.

My welding brushes quite a bit stronger than a toothbrush.

Okay, but was equally unable to remove in your scratches back to the tear down.

Let's see why it's a bad idea to get your phone wet, unlike the normal sized pixel three, this fingerprint scanners clipped in with a latch dial connector, which lifts up and then lets the fingerprint scanner come loose from the motherboard.

Now the pixel three is I P 68 water resistant, not waterproof, meaning that water can still get inside the phone if it's deep enough, or if there's added pressure from a faucet or steam from hot water.

Google couldn't tell if your phone has been wet or not by this little white sticker near the charging port.

The white sticker turns pink when it comes in contact with liquid, so putting your phone in the sink is just not worth the risk.

Google will know there are more water damage indicators as well, but they're hidden under a series of T three screws holding down all of the components.

Let's start with those four screws holding down this metal side rail link.

All the tools I use in the video description with that side rail gone now, I can unclip the battery and the wireless charging both.

Unsnapped, like little Legos now is pretty excited to see some pull tabs underneath the battery.

Usually, this means that the battery has an easy removal process.

But both of these tabs turned out to be worthless.

They were incredibly tight, made no sound, and both of them broke before releasing their death grip on the battery, which means we have to commence the pride of shame.

I use a little bit of heat to soften the it easy.

Prying is dangerous because batteries air not meant to be bent or punctured.

It would have been nice if Google spend an extra two pennies per phone and got some worthwhile pull tabs like Look at this nightmare.

It's like the monster from venom has a death grip on the lithium.

I'll peel that off like a giant sticker revealing a 34 100 million power battery.

1,004,000 powers, but still better than the iPhone.

10 s 1,002,700 power down here at the bottom of the phone, we have one of the two stereo speakers held in place by five of those same T three screws.

I'll pop out the SIM card tray and then remove the speaker with its black plastic covering.

The interesting thing about this speaker is where the sound emanates from.

It's just the one side of the charging port, not the whole thing, meaning that the extra large size of that bottom Speaker grill is mostly for aesthetics.

Looking over here at the other large hole in the bottom of the phone thes sim card slot, we get yet another water damage indicator running along the entirety of the SIM card opening.

This indicator is one of the largest I've seen, and if it gets what it also turns red, notifying Google that your phone is not covered by any warranty since it got wet.

This indicator is also visible from the outside of the phone when the SIM card is removed, so once again, keep it away from water.

There are five screws holding down the plastic top plate over the motherboard and another two screws holding down the bracket over the tactic Vibrator.

Remove one more motherboard screw and two more screws holding down the long Brackett or for the notch components before the motherboard can come out.

I'll unclip the squeeze sensor, ribbon cable and the other squeeze sensor ribbon, the screen ribbon and the last final ribbon down at the bottom of the board.

For the charging ports, there's one more screw at the top right of the motherboard.

Then I conclude the two front facing cameras and the top here P speaker.

Lastly, if you're not asleep yet, I'll unplug the to signal wires the bottom, and then the whole motherboard can just shimmy out of the pixel three frame.

The motherboard is free, and it looks like we have some thick white thermal paste on the back of the processor.

The rear camera also plugs in back here and is arguably one of the main selling points of the pixel three.

This 12 megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization combined with Google's software, is supposedly one of the best smartphone cameras on the market.

At the moment, I kind of just boils down to personal preference, though I still prefer a dual camera set up for telephoto and wide angle.

Speaking of which, the Pixel three Excel does include two cameras.

I don't know if you saw it or not, but the Pixel three Excel has a notch on the front, and that notch is home to duel eight megapixel cameras, one normal selfie camera and the other camera for white angle groupie pictures.

The large ear piece surprisingly, has a few sensors attached to it and sits comfortably between the two cameras, right over top of the much smaller speaker grille opening.

Realistically, judging by the size of the front facing cameras, the notch couldn't be much smaller than it is.

Large cameras needed large notch to hide behind, and that's just the way this phone was designed.

Screen replacements require heat to pull the glass away from the frame.

The old cracked screens usually do not survive the removal procedure, so I'm gonna leave my screen in place and intact.

For now, the last thing to come out is the charging port.

It has three more of those same T three screws.

Once those air out, the charging port ribbon pulls out from inside the phone frame.

It does have the normal rubber ring around the USB seaport to help keep water out.

But judging by the placement of the water damage indicator, even Google knows it's still a weak point.

The SIM card trey does have a rubber lip around the edge to keep water out as well, but it's minor and unimpressive, and keeping your phone away from water is still the best plan of action, even if you're trying to wash off scratches.

I think Google did a pretty good job this year with the pixel three.

Yeah, the notches big and the glass gets marked up easy.

But for die hard pixel fans, this is still a solid phone.

I'm gonna tuck the charging port back down into frame, making sure all the screw holes line up with where they originally came out of slipping the motherboard back in and making sure it's not lying on top of any ribbon cables.

It's time to find out if this thing still works.

I'll clip the side squeezing ribbon back onto the motherboard.

This is the third iteration of the flex sensors that we've seen.

Each little sensor can detect minute fluctuations in the sidewall, squeezing acts like a button of sorts to activate the camera or other applications.

I'll get the year peace back into place, with the front facing cameras, clipping them in one by one and the bracket that holds everything in place.

I know I always stress keeping your screws organized in projects like this because it's super important and actually makes the assembly process go so much faster.

The bottom speaker is back in its slot, and finally, it's time for this large, random chunk of metal.

It makes you wonder if the phone wasn't structurally sound enough beforehand, and they added the middle chunk afterward to keep things from vending in half.

Let's give him a thumbs up for the random metal chunk.

It sits snugly over the top of the battery connector and the wireless charging book.

Then the fingerprint scanner ribbon can slip into its little slot in the motherboard and latched down firmly into place.

I'll add double sided adhesive to keep the back glass down.

It's definitely not watertight anymore, but everything still works.

I'd say the biggest issue with the pixel Three Excel is getting permanently marked up by basically any metal it comes in contact with.

Never has keeping your keys and phone in separate pockets been more important.