Nio unveiled its second smartphone at Innovation Day 2024, which also brought a new car operating system and the industry’s first 5nm smart driving chip. How does an automaker build smartphones? The same way smartphone makers do, more or less. WekiHome has a detailed teardown video that offers a look inside the phone.
The Nio Phone 2 improves on the original design with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (instead of Gen 2). The teardown process begins as usual, by removing the SIM card tray. There is a rubber ring to keep water out (the phone is IP68 rated and claims to be able to dive up to 2m underwater for 30 minutes). The back panel is glass, but there are metal inserts for the rings around the cameras. These are also waterproof.
Underneath is a flap that houses the NFC antenna and wireless charging coil. The Phone 2 also adds UWB – both UWB and NFC can be used for regular smartphones, but they also allow the phone to act as keys for compatible cars. Nio cars are of course compatible, as the company was among the first to adopt UWB late last year.
Anyway, other interesting finds include SK hynix RAM (LPDDR5X) and Samsung storage (UFS 4.0), as well as a new vapor chamber to keep the Snapdragon running at speed. However, WekiHome found some less-than-premium details – for example, the Nio Phone 2 only has two microphones, while most flagships usually have three (or even four). Additionally, the fingerprint reader is an optical unit that sits through the OLED display. The front proximity and ambient light sensors are also located under the display, both on a small daughterboard.
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