How do you open the iPhone 7 Plus? Courage.

There’s been a lot of buzz about the waterproofiness of the 7 Plus, so we took a look at what contributes to that stellar IP67 rating. A new set of super-sticky adhesive strips keeps the display tightly adhered to the frame. Tons of rubber seals surround points of ingress, like the mute switch and SIM tray. There are also tight seals and fine mesh decking the dual speaker grilles. The mechanical home button has been replaced by a solid state touch sensor, and the phone’s “real” buttons are gasketed to the gills. But the real question on everyone’s mind—what did Apple do with all that extra space after removing the headphone jack? It’s been replaced by a mysterious plastic bit that might actually channel sound from the beefed up Taptic Engine.

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iPhone 7 Plus Teardown highlights:

• The battery is rated at 3.82 V and 2900 mAh, for a total of 11.1 Wh, a slight upgrade over the 10.45 Wh (3.8 V, 2750 mAh) of the 6s Plus, and on par with the 11.1 Wh, 2915 mAh cell found in the 6 Plus.
• The iPhone 7 Plus opens from the side—like a book. It’s still fastened with tabs at the top and Pentalobe screws at the bottom, but you’ve got to cut through hefty adhesive and swing right to open—think micro iPad.
• We discovered never-before-seen (in an iPhone) tri-point Y00 screws guarding all the usual repair suspects: battery, display, home button, and more.
• The iPhone 7 Plus wins some (modularity and durability) and loses some (uncommon screws and extra adhesive), but all in all nets an iPhone standard 7-out-of-10 on our repairability scale.

Select components:

• Apple A10 Fusion APL1W24 SoC + Samsung 3 GB LPDDR4 RAM (as denoted by the markings K3RG4G40MM-YGCH)
• Avago LFI630 183439
• Bosch Sensortec BMP280 Barometric Pressure Sensor
• Cirrus Logic 338S00220 Audio Amplifier(x2)
• Dialog 338S00225 Power Management IC
• Lattice Semiconductor ICE5LP4K
• Murata 339S00199 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Module
• NXP 67V04 NFC Controller
• Qualcomm PMD9645 Power Management IC
• Skyworks 13703-21 Diversity Receive Module
• TDK EPCOS D5315
• Texas Instruments 65730A0P Power Management IC
• Toshiba THGBX6T0T8LLFXF 128 GB NAND Flash
• Universal Scientific Industrial O1 X4

And as always, thanks to our silicon experts at Chipworks for helping identify the key ICs at play! ----- More can be found at © iFixit.