Teardown video shows Nio Phone 2's premium and not so premium components

Nio unveiled its second smartphone during the 2024 Innovation Day, which also brought a new car OS and the industry’s first 5nm smart driving chip. How does a car maker build smartphones? The same way that smartphone makers do, more or less. WekiHome has a detailed disassembly video that offers a peek inside the phone.

The Nio Phone 2 upgrades the original design with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (up from Gen 2). The disassembly process starts as usual, by removing the SIM card tray. There’s a rubber ring to keep water out (the phone is rated IP68 and claims it can dive up to 2m underwater for 30 minutes). The back panel is made of glass, but there are metal inserts for the rings around the cameras. These are also sealed against water.

Below that is a flap that houses the NFC antenna and the wireless charging coil. The Phone 2 also adds UWB – both UWB and NFC can be used for regular smartphone things, but they also allow the phone to serve as keys for compatible cars. Nio cars are compatible, of course, as the company was among the first to adopt UWB late last year.

Anyway, other interesting discoveries include SK hynix RAM (LPDDR5X) and Samsung storage (UFS 4.0), plus a new vapor chamber to keep the Snapdragon going fast. However, WekiHome found some less than premium details – for example, the Nio Phone 2 only has two microphones, whereas most flagships typically have three (or even four). Also, the fingerprint reader is an optical unit that peeks through the OLED display. The proximity and front ambient light sensors are also under the display, both are on a small daughter board.

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