I upgraded the Samsung Trifold battery by 71%! - using the HONOR Silicon-Carbon batteries

Yes. Hello. Honor. A new battery

technology, you say? Wow, that much

better. You want me to put it in what? A

Samsung trifold? Yeah. Yeah, the the new

one. Yeah, I think I can do that. Honor

just told me they have these new silicon

carbon batteries that hold a lot more

than other cell phone batteries, and

they want me to try and add them to the

new Samsung Galaxy Z trifold, which is

this crazy triplefolding phone. as part

of announcing their new battery

technology at Mobile World Congress,

which is the big mobile cell phone trade

show in Spain. And I've taken a look and

I think it might be possible. But

there's one problem. You can't buy one

of these phones in the US yet. They're

only available for sale in Singapore,

UAE, mainland China, and Korea. So, you

know where we're headed next.

>> Okay. So, I've been looking at a tear

down from JerryRig Everything. I think

this is going to work, but it'll be a

little tricky. This is about the size of

one of the batteries, and the other

one's over here. I'm going to have to

remove material from the sides to make

this work. There's cables that pass

through here. I don't know. I'm going to

I'm going to do the best I can. This is

going to be tricky. Like these are

definitely wider than Samsung batteries

and so I'm gonna have to find extra room

on the sides to make this work. A huge

thank you to Honor for sponsoring this

video.

Let's go buy a phone. But first, I need

some cash.

Round one done.

>> The ATMs here have a 3,000 R&B per

withdrawal limit. So, I'm having to do a

whole bunch of transactions.

All right, ready to go to war here. I

mean, shopping.

>> And no, I am not worried. Shenzhen's one

of the safest places I've ever been.

It's one of the advantages having so

many cameras around.

Yeah.

>> Do you have any any of these in stock?

>> Maybe to the last four weeks is the last

>> four four weeks more.

>> Four weeks more.

>> Okay. All right. So, you're not getting

any stock right now?

>> Of course.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you gotten any or

only this one?

>> Only that one.

>> All right. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye.

Totally struck out. It sounds like

they've only gotten that one display

model. Now we go to plan B. What I'm

about to do is why I got all that cash.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hello.

Get

>> this done quickly.

Hello. Just take the P. No, take the

place. Okay.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

>> I understand. This is the the

>> day.

>> The date.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> I open and then pay the money. But if

it's good, I buy it. I buy it. No

problem.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

>> What country is this from? From

Shenzhen.

>> Korea.

>> I'm just being careful.

Maybe you can try this.

>> Oh, great. Yeah.

>> Great. Oh, that's fancy.

>> It's okay. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Bye.

>> Yeah. Happy New Year.

>> Yeah. Thank you.

>> Okay. Bye-bye. Well, that was a total

success. That was easy. I might have

paid over. might have paid a hundred

bucks too much. Didn't quite understand

where it came from, but maybe it came

from China. Somebody's got inventory

somewhere. Man, the markets are so busy.

This feels busier than usual. It's just

a couple weeks before spring festival. I

think everybody's doing their last

little shopping here. I'm going to go

take this thing apart. But first, I need

some tools.

Yeah.

Pango. Uh, let's see. What do I need? I

need

actually don't know.

Um,

I think I just need Phillips. Maybe

start with that.

It's Saturday and Hong's still at home,

but he said he would come over. I think

this is the infamous Tool Brothers

stall. I've known them for like 10 years

now. If you come to Shenzhen, they're

behind the McDonald's on the south side

of Shenan Boulevard. They'll hook you

up. I'll put their booth number in the

uh video description. I'm going to need

glue to put this thing back on. What do

they got?

T700

gravity magic rubber. That sounds good.

Simulate the tastefree. A hint of scent.

I need a metal shim for cracking phones

open. Oh, here. Let's get some spudgers

like this. Hey.

>> Oh. Haha.

The heating screen removal tool.

Perfect.

How? Okay. Yeah. How? Um,

I need one of those fine tools.

I need to open this one.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's it. What else? Hang

on. Let me see what's on my list. Okay.

Um Oh, it's uh

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. And

Okay.

40 bucks. 30 bucks. 40 bucks. Say city.

Hello, brother.

>> Hello.

>> I know you, brother.

>> You know, from where?

>> Yeah, from YouTube.

>> From YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> So, how how often are you from China?

>> Uh, now like a few times a year.

>> All right, let's take this apart. So, it

works. That looks good. I'm both excited

and really nervous to uh crack open a

$3,000 phone. Sometimes you just got to

do it. I bought a screen removing mat

from Tool Brothers. Basically, it's just

like a hot pad. Here goes nothing.

Oh, I've sliced through it, proper

broken it now. Yeah, I'm going to have

to figure out how to remove this without

doing so much damage. But that's what

this one is for. So, as Bunny Huang

says, who's the the infamous Xbox

hacker, he says, when you're modifying a

device like this, one to break, one to

actually modify, and one to leave intact

as reference. Hi. Boro's in my future

here. Tell if it's a metal or a ceramic.

But watching Jerry Rig Everything's

video, this looked a lot easier to get

into. Oh, it's like a fiberglass or

something. Okay.

This is exciting. I want to know what

these are. Oh, they're screws. Uh-oh. I

bet those relate to the hinge. A huge

shout out to my friends at Troublemaker.

Uh it's a a maker space here in Hatch

Bay. Uh you can check them out. I'll put

a link to them below. They hooked me up

with space here at the last minute to

film this part. Very grateful. I don't

like removing batteries. Oh, that's

thin. How does this fit? Oh, this is Oh.

Oh, I think this is going to work. Okay,

so I can just get this inside these

screws. If I were to take out all of

these screws, I could move these two

halves apart. This is where the end of

the hinge is. I can cut up to those

screws. And that means I cut this side a

little bit, but it'll totally fit like

right up to the screw line. Yeah, width

is the big issue here. Beautiful. I

mean, not beautiful. I've mutilated it,

but yeah, that's not great. So, I need

to be really careful down there or just

not cut there at all.

I mean, it looks like this is just a

whole bunch of metal. Same thing as this

side. Thickness is not going to be an

issue. Let's do the last panel here.

All right, that was better. Go through

and remove 16 million screws.

Cool. Let's get this battery out of

here. I don't know why there are

magnets. Oh, these magnets talk to the

other magnets through the screen. Talk

to the other magnets are attracted to

the other magnets. I'm tired. The other

thing I need to figure out is my battery

situation. So, the battery management

system does a ton of different things.

So, it protects the battery. prevents it

from getting too discharged, too

charged. I think it even does like heat

management, all that good stuff. So,

this up here is going to be the BMS.

What I want to do is swap this part for

the same part over here, but I need the

battery management system to be the

Samsung one, so it knows how to talk to

the Samsung. What I should do is put the

phone back together, put the battery in

it, make sure the phone boots, and then

we can swap them. Let's see if we can

get this to turn on.

Yes. Okay, it boots. So, what I want to

know is if I screw up my battery

transplant, will I know? So, if this is

unplugged, does does it still do that?

Okay. Well, I mean, I guess that's good.

So, this one we're going to try and keep

as long as possible, and then we're

going to cut it as short as possible on

this cell, and then I should be able to

tack them together. So, I need to go buy

a spot welder so that I can swap these.

>> Smoke.

>> No, thank you. I don't smoke this one

>> for batteries.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. This one. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Just like that. Oh, and this

is the bottom A with Z spot welder. Yep.

I need

this.

>> That's good.

Okay.

Yeah. Zo. Yeah.

>> 215.

About 30 bucks. Oh, and it has a nickel.

Great. And I bet you power it with USBC

and two magnets for I don't know what.

>> Good to go.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Hold up.

>> Okay.

See you.

One wasn't there, but that was super

easy. So, I think I am good to go. I

guess I just plug this in via USB and uh

be off to the races.

>> All right. We got flush cutters and

my spot welder. Oh, dang it. I ripped

it. Okay,

does say which is which. I might have to

go get a multimeter. Okay, so that is

positive. This is positive. Okay, great.

If that went on like that, then this

goes on like this.

That side is done. Make sure it looks

good electrically.

Yep, we've got continuity up on these

pads here. Should be good to go.

Beautiful. Okay,

the moment of truth. Does it turn on?

Here we go. Oh, it's out of battery, but

that's a good sign. This has been

charging for 10 minutes. Let's check

again.

All right, we're at 21%.

This should boot now.

Yes, this is totally going to work.

Yeah, we're in business. Look at that.

22%. It's charging, baby.

Yes. And I got to figure out how I'm

going to fit everything in here and make

it look good.

Okay, I have one more thing to check to

see if this is possible, and that is the

hinge. I bought a little cheap Dremel

like grinder set here. I'm just gonna

grind into a few things and make sure

the hinges still work.

Okay.

Okay. There it is. Yeah. This is what I

wanted to see. So, this has a cover over

it.

That's the width.

Oh, and I need to go just past the

batteries. Okay, this should work.

I think we're good. It's doable. It's

going to be very, very tight.

Yeah, piece of cake.

No worries. It's a little bit softer,

but

not a big deal. So, the next step is to

make a CAD drawing of this so that I can

properly CNC mill these out. All these

extra spaces for the batteries. So, I

might send this out to be scanned

instead, like I did with the Apple

Watch. That worked pretty well. I think

that's going to work, though. Okay, I

cleaned these up as best I could and uh

I'm headed over to the shippers to ship

them to the 3D scanning service and I

should have 3D drawings back in the next

couple days here.

>> Yeah.

Samsung trifold.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Okay. Good.

>> Thank you.

I'm over at at uh Hong's booth. So, I

have some carbon fiber openers so that

hopefully I don't scratch the back this

time. Also, I realized I need adhesives

to put it back together. So, I've got a

couple various ones. I've got Huang's

own Schwanho brand.

>> Yeah.

>> And then we have a bunch of applicator

tips.

>> Do you have alcohol IPA?

>> We have too many people use the ching.

>> Jujing. What's ching?

>> What is this?

>> What is it?

>> Yeah. Yeah, that's what I want. We've

got alcohol of unknown variety. Probably

not isopropyl like methanol maybe or

glue. Clean room wipes. These don't

leave any um like strings.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, I think that's it. Okay, let's do

this. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> 89.

>> 89.

>> Yeah. Thank you, Will.

>> Yeah. Thank you.

>> Okay. I'll come back.

>> I'll probably see you like tomorrow or

the next day.

>> Come back for more things.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. See you. Thank you. Bye.

>> He's the best. Absolutely the best.

Should have everything I need. If I

don't, he's just across the street. So,

super convenient.

>> Another day, another phone. I'm going to

try and take this one apart now without

breaking anything. In particular, I

don't want to scratch anything, but I

also don't want to break that screen. I

think I know what I'm doing now. Let's

hope. All right, let's start on this

panel again. I think the same order as

before.

All right, success.

Okay, we're there. There is the screen.

Things are looking up. So, I have an

issue, which is I thought the batteries

were smaller than they actually are, and

I just don't have a lot of extra room.

So, what I want to do is figure out like

this is a bottom speaker. I'm thinking

maybe I need to be able to remove that.

So, I'm going to try removing that. See

if the phone still boots.

And then we're going to pull the speaker

here.

And so, I'm going to leave that out. I'm

going to reattach the screen. There's

that. All right. Let's turn this thing

back on.

That should work. Well, if nothing else,

we should be able to play some video.

Okay.

All right. Off to the races. Yeah. I

just when this was down, I came through

and I just sliced that cable right

there. That cable actually folds over.

Clearly going to have to go buy another

phone to get a working screen out of. I

do have budgeted enough for two more

phones. Well, that was an expensive

lesson. All right, I'm going to tackle

this again tomorrow. I managed to sort

out a more private place to film and

work on this project. Let me make it

look a little bit nicer in here. I

rented a few lights.

That's much better. Let's get into it.

Got my test phone here. I want to swap

out all three batteries for the new

Honor cells. So, let me get those. We're

going to have to swap the um BMS's over

on the two big ones. I've got the little

one already done.

I want the ones without BMS's. That one

is good. Work. All right.

I'm going to get the batteries that I

got from the first phone out and we'll

modify those. So, first step is to

remove the BMS off these and transplant

it over. Now, these are slightly

different. I don't know if the BMS's

care. This is definitely the middle one

and this side. Yeah. So, these unfold

this way here. Try not to short it.

Okay,

that's working. We're in business now.

That'll get you going. May need to redo

that one.

Okay, that went better. Pull this

battery.

Beautiful.

All right.

Come on.

I do have a phone I can test this with.

Actually,

I put it in this phone and this will

help tell whether I fried that BMS or

not. I think we're good to boot. What I

don't know is if this battery is charged

enough.

Let me try putting on charger.

Yep, there we go.

Sweet.

Let's swap in the other three batteries.

This one goes here. This one.

Oh, and this one got broken.

It's not super pretty, but All right.

Phone.

Okay. This is easy to diagnose because I

can just plug back in the original

batteries. Let's see which ones work.

There it is. Okay. So, maybe it's that

middle battery. Okay. This is reading 37

and it's blinking, which maybe mean it's

charging.

I'm going go with that's the charging

indicator. All right. Let's try powering

it off and see if we can get it to power

on with the other battery.

Yeah, it's charging. Hey, hey,

boots.

Sweet. Okay, so I have all three

batteries switched over. This is now on

all honor batteries. That's exciting.

Now I really just have to fit them in

the phone, which is going to be the

harder part, I think. More timeconuming

for sure. But yeah, this is going to

work. I just got to cram it all in now.

I just got the parts back from being 3D

scanned. So, I got to figure out how

this is all going to fit mechanically.

We're going to cut pretty close to this

edge. Since these are bigger, they're

going to have to go down here. So, we're

just going to have to go all the way to

the bottom, all the way up, and then

over as far as we possibly can without

getting in the way of these holes, cuz

that's where the the hinge attaches. I

got to make sure to preserve enough

holes here for the hinge to fit on

there. These

are going in here.

So, this is the board that goes here

with all the cameras on it. And

this guy goes here. So, I think what's

going to happen is we're going to carve

out this section here. This is going to

go underneath. This is going to actually

sit on top of the battery, which means

this section has to get a little bit

thicker. I think that will work. I think

this can just bend up a little bit. That

will sit underneath. Yeah. Makes this a

little bit more complicated

mechanically, but I think it'll work.

So, I'm thinking I need to have some

sort of cover made for this. That is So,

it's replacing this guy here with

something that's like a bit of a box,

like has some space under here. So that

can slide over the top. So So one of the

questions is like what can I carve out

with the CNC mill here? So let's take a

look at the files that came back from

the 3D scanning service. This looks

great. Wow, they really drew everything.

This looks really good. Sweet. Okay. So

now I have full scan

of this

this

and I need to draw in here how to carve

this out. This is what I have designed.

So I've cut out this area here like

cutting this section out here and that

will be where this battery fits in. So

it'll fit in this section here. So,

that's where the battery will go. Yeah,

we'll cut that out on the CNC mill. Let

me do a 3D print of this with the

section cut out. And that way, I don't

have to spend all the time machining

this before I know whether this is going

to work. Let me go do that.

Okay, this is a kind of rough 3D print,

but this is just testing where that Oh,

that's sweet. That's going to be

perfect.

Goes in like that.

But it's going to sit on top here. Let

me get the one that has the right BMS on

it.

So, this goes here. And then this goes

like that. Great. But this now sits too

high. So if I put this cover on, it

doesn't mate there. So I need to make

this cover thicker.

All right. Let me design that

here. All right. So I realized I don't

actually need a box. I just need like a

shim that just goes around the edges.

And then I can use this as like the lid

of my box. So I've got so printed out.

This is the shim here. And the idea

is that it will go like this. And then I

will glue this on top of there. And that

will sit there. And if I do it on my 3D

print actually, I can see how these fit

together. Woohoo. Yes. Yes. Okay, this

looks great. Actually, Chinese New Year

is in just a few days and everything is

starting to shut down. The markets,

stores, restaurants, ATM machines are

running out of cash. I got to get out of

here before I can't get anything done.

So, I'm going to head home to my

workshop to finish this up.

All right, back in the shop and ready to

mill out these phones. Finish this up

for real. I'm going to make some

fixtures to hold them on the Carva mill

and then I'll start milling out the

middle here. All right, I've got a 3D

printed stock here. This is the scan,

the unmodified scan.

Okay, that looked pretty good. I

probably should have stopped it a little

bit sooner. just to avoid milling out

the bottom. Uh let's do a test fit up

just to make sure everything fits like

it should. Okay, so

looking at this here. Oh yeah, this is

just with the stock BMS, but looks

great. I feel like I should

procrastinate and not do this, but I

think I'm just going to jump into it.

It's looking good.

Whoops. Broke a bit. Not quite sure how.

I just think it's enough little pieces

flying flopping around as I'm doing

this. So, I'm not going to change

anything right now. I'm just going to

keep going, I think.

Well, that is not optimal. I don't know.

Maybe I need better support or

something. I don't know. Well, I've got

more tooling, so I'm just going to keep

feeding it tools, I think.

Well, despite the broken tools, that

went pretty well.

It's looking good. So, two little

touch-ups there, but that went quite

well all considering.

All right,

that took a lot of finishing passes. Oh

my god, I didn't even mill this

aluminum, but it just deforms

like foil.

But I think this is going to be my

ticket. Fits pretty darn well. I'll take

it. Tomorrow I'll make two more of these

now that I know kind of what I'm doing

and mill the other two out. Another day,

another thing to mill. All right, let's

load this up and see how it goes.

Look at that magnet picking up all the

steel and

neodyinium. This is going well.

Surprisingly well.

That looks great. This is really coming

out well. I'm going to clean this up a

little bit under the microscope. For

now, I'm going to get to milling that

third section. Third and final section

on the right. I did the test milling. It

looks okay. And uh we'll do it for real.

Fingers crossed.

Third one is done. That inside edge

there is pretty sweet. I think the next

thing is to do a test fitting here uh

over on my electronics bench. So, let's

see how these batteries fit.

This and then this one. That's looking

pretty good. And then this one.

Perfect. The next thing I want to do is

I want to put the hinges back in here

and see how that all fits together.

Moment of truth. It folds.

Okay, so this goes first and then that

one folds. We're getting there. Got to

get this battery to fit. So, I got to

cut a section out of the hinge. Can I

mark that?

Take that hinge back out.

Remove these screws and see what's going

on with this hinge. Section we need to

remove is right here.

Oh my god, look at that.

That is crazy. Well, I definitely need

to just cut the plastic here, I think.

There we go.

Oh, that doesn't have a spring in it.

We'll see. Oh, no. Yeah, this is just

floppy.

Okay, this is rubbing.

Yeah, that hinge is not working so well

anymore.

That's a problem.

I mean, it still folds. I think we just

forge ahead. Onward. This is the still

intact phone. I am going to take this

apart. Try not to break it. Reassemble

it with the honor batteries.

super tight.

Okay,

batteries are out. I need to take this

screen off, put it on the modified

phone, move the batteries over, and

button things up. I have 30 minutes

before I need to leave for the airport.

There it is.

I'm not going to with it anymore.

We're just going to assemble it now

for all the marbles.

Thank god. All right, moment of truth.

Oh,

sort of.

I don't understand what's happening with

these screens. I don't get it. But it it

works. It turns on. What the hell? Why

are these screens so damn fragile? I

thought I did a good job on that one.

All right, it's booting. We're just

going to button this up. Goes here.

It's done. It fits.

And I have 15 minutes to get the hell

out of here. There it is.

Just put a little bit of tape to hold

that in place.

And then we will worry about gluing it

later.

Not too bad. I'll see you in Barcelona.

Welcome to Barcelona to Mobile World

Congress, one of the largest trade shows

for mobile phones. This phone now has

71% more battery capacity. The volume of

the batteries is definitely larger, but

if they were the exact same size as the

original batteries, they would have 38%

more capacity. Silicon carbon batteries

are clearly the way of the future, and

Honor is the clear leader in this space

with the newlyannounced highest silicon

content at 32% silicon. But what's

different about these batteries and why

does it matter? To be clear, these are

still lithium ion batteries, but with an

important twist. Lithium ion batteries

are limited by the amount of lithium

that can bind to the graphite anodess,

which is one of the two electrodes.

There's an anode and a cathode in a

battery. Silicon can hold way more than

graphite without increasing the size of

the weight of the battery. It can store

10 times more lithium than graphite.

Now, the obvious question is, why

wouldn't you go to 100% silicone?

There's a problem. Silicon expands a lot

when charged, which causes the battery

to swell and it introduces really

intense mechanical stress which

destabilizes the electrode structure and

causes it to break apart. So, you have

to do something to mitigate that. One of

the big ways is by adding carbon which

stabilizes the whole structure. Now,

Honor is using chemical vapor deposition

to get tiny spheres of silicon that are

nearly perfectly round. And that means

that when the the silicon expands, it

expands uniformly, which helps the the

structure as well. The batteries that I

use actually have 25% silicon, which is

an industry first. Competitors are at

like 16%. However, this new Honor

silicon carbon blade battery, which

they're putting into the Chinese version

of the Magic V6 phone, has a whopping

32% carbon. The overseas version is the

the version that I use with the 25%

carbon. The Magic V6 battery for the

overseas version are 921 watt hours per

liter, which is a new metric for me, but

it basically is how dense are the

batteries. The China version is 985 W

hours per liter. Most high-end lithium

ion batteries are in the range of like

700 W hours per liter. Honor has also

improved the puncture resistance of

their batteries by 40%. Also they have

the first cathode material to reach 4.75

volts which again further increases the

amount that the battery can store. They

also have greater stability under high

temperatures which obviously super

important. Now why does any of this

matter? The battery is the single

largest component in phones. Phones are

continually getting more energy hungry,

particularly with ondevice AI. And

companies are always trying to shrink

down the other components of the phone

to make more space for the battery. But

as a consumer, I want a slim, small

phone that fits in my pocket. I'm sure

you do, too. Simply said, battery

capacity is hard to increase. It really

hasn't increased that much over say the

past 10 years. So, making an increase

this big, 38%,

it's pretty incredible. Now, there's

lots of other really interesting battery

chemistry. Lithium ion isn't the only

game in town, but most of those battery

chemistries are still really

experimental or they have significant

problems that prevent them from being

productionized into consumer

electronics. And so, honor

productionizing silicon carbon batteries

and actually putting it in a shipping

phone that lasts a long time is really

hard. I'm I'm just super impressed. I'm

very thankful that they sponsored this

video. This has been a super fun project

and it's really cool to be on the

bleeding edge of smartphone technology

and get to be one of the first people to

get hands-on with it. Speaking of which,

they have a bunch of really cool stuff

here to show off at Mobile World of

Congress. They have a robot phone that

has a multi-axis camera gimbal built

into it that unfolds from the back of

the phone. Super cool. and then a

bipeedal robot that's been walking

around as well as the Magic V6, which is

the world's thinnest folding phone. It's

a two-part phone folded up, it's thinner

than my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Actually, I'm

really interested to try carrying on a

day-to-day basis. Like, I could see

myself using this phone. If you want to

learn more, go to honor.com and I'll see

you again soon. And if you see me here

at Mobile World Congress, come say hi.

I'll talk to you soon.