iFixit’s Note 7 teardown reveal how the phone’s iris scanner works

With Samsung latest smartphone making its way out to Canadian consumer starting today, iFixit, the world’s leading teardown website, has taken apart the 5.7-inch phone to find out what’s hidden inside its all-metal frame. Par for the course, Fixit’s teardown is informative, revealing several interesting details about the phone.

To start, thanks to website we now know how the Note 7’s iris scanner works. It’s a two part system that incorporates an infrared blaster and a second front-facing camera. Anytime the user wants to authenticate their identity, the IR blaster lights up their eyes, which the second camera then captures. It’s because of this implementation that the system is capable of authenticating users in low light conditions.

Speaking of camera technology, the Note 7’s rear-facing camera features the same Sony IMX260 CMOS sensor found in the S7 Edge; if there’s a theme here, it’s that the Note 7 repurposes many of the same components found in the S7 lineup, including the former’s flash memory module and gyroscope, among other components. It even has a similar heat pipe mechanism as the one found in the S7.

The website also tested the new S-Pen and found out its more sensitive than both the Apple Pencil and Surface Pen, boasting 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity compared to the latter’s 1,024 levels of sensitivity.

The Note 7 also incorporates the same redesigned stylus storage mechanism Samsung added to the Note 5 partway through its lifecycle. This mechanism prevent Note 7 users from inserting the stylus improperly.

In the end, iFixit gave the Note 7 a four out of 10 reparability score, noting that while many of the phone’s internal components are modular, facilitating relatively easy removable and replacement, the double edged screen will likely prove impossible to replace.

[source]iFixit[/source]