Samsung switched to titanium for the frame of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but there’s more to it than that. Like with Apple’s iPhones, titanium only makes up the exterior of the phone. The two companies used different designs for the interior – Samsung went for a combination of aluminum and plastic. Zack from JerryRigEverything took the S24 Ultra apart to find out how it’s built. And by take apart, we mean take apart and put in a 1,100°C/2,000°F furnace to separate all the materials.
If you go back and watch the S23 Ultra teardown, you will see that last year’s model is milled out of a solid block of aluminum. Titanium is far too expensive for that, so instead strips of titanium are pieced together to make up the exterior of the phone. Back to the current teardown to see how that is done:
Most of the internal components of the Galaxy S24 Ultra are mounted to an internal aluminum frame. Injection-molded plastic runs around the perimeter of that and holds the titanium strips in place. Is that a durable way to build a phone? Apparently so, as the phone passed the bend test with flying colors.
In case you haven’t watched JerryRig’s iPhone 15 Pro Max teardown video, Apple’s approach is different. The titanium exterior is fused to the aluminum inner frame. Apple also used a higher grade of titanium, grade 5, compared to Samsung’s grade 2 (grade 5 is an alloy that is harder than grade 2, which is pure titanium).
