What a Digital Microscope Adds to a Phone Teardown

You take it apart, put it under a microscope, and look at the parts nobody was meant to see.

Every year, manufacturers tell us what is inside their newest devices. Marketing graphics show a privacy layer here, a vapor chamber there, and a clever adhesive somewhere else. The diagrams are clean and convincing. They are also decided in advance by the people who built the product. iFixit exists to check. The team has been taking consumer electronics apart in public for years, scoring each device on how repairable it is and publishing the evidence for anyone to see.

Manufacturers pay attention to those scores, which is exactly why the evidence must hold up. And much of what decides whether a phone can be repaired happens at a scale no phone camera can reach: an adhesive bead, a coating, the way a display stack is layered.

To capture that level of detail, iFixit uses the DSX2000 digital microscope. We spoke with Arthur Shi, senior technical writer at iFixit, about how the microscope fits into a teardown, what it has revealed inside recent flagship phones, and the moment a Samsung marketing graphic did not match what the team found underneath.

Before you switched to the DSX2000 digital microscope, what was missing from your teardown imaging process?

Arthur: We simply couldn't get the images. We either had to bypass that aspect of the analysis, or we used a very basic microscope, which didn't show as much. So, we'd hedge in the writing and illustrate with drawings instead. It worked, but it wasn't the same as showing the real thing. Microscope images always get a lot more attention. People see them on social media, and they're always excited to see the actual thing.

You recently completed a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra teardown. Could you describe the imaging process used to visualize the privacy display panel?

Arthur: The privacy screen was the thing we wanted to showcase, so the display panel went under first. We imaged it from the front and then from the back. Samsung had its marketing graphics showing how it looks, but we weren't sure how they actually implemented it through the structure. Once we imaged both sides, we could see where the privacy layer really sat in the stack, and it was higher than we'd assumed. The privacy pixels shared a stack with the standard pixels, and the physical cones that restrict the viewing angle were doing the real work.

When you captured images inside the S26 Ultra display, you noticed unusual color in the OLED panel. Could you explain what you found?

Arthur: Yes. Under reflected light, the panel showed color, which was very strange for an OLED because it's self-emissive and doesn't really need color filters. It looked like they had color filters still on the pixels. I think they did it to increase contrast or reduce reflections. We tried polarized light and found no polarizing effect, but we did see color banding coming off the coatings. We were careful about how we presented that in the teardown, but we only had something to investigate because we could see it in the first place.

In the iPhone 17 Pro teardown, what causes the camera plateau to scratch?

Arthur: The anodized aluminum around the camera plateau was chipping when it met keys and coins. We wanted to show what was physically happening at that edge, so we imaged the aluminum lip and caught the coating shearing away from the sharp corner. At that magnification, you can't get enough of the thing in focus on its own, so we used the stacking capability to get a nice depth of field. That's what made the images usable.

Inside the iPhone 17 Pro Vapor Chamber

The same teardown put the iPhone 17 Pro’s cooling hardware under the objective. Imaging revealed the internal copper wick structure that moves heat away from the processor.

FineWoven vs. TechWoven: What did the microscope reveal about Apple’s cases?

Arthur: One of my favorites had nothing to do with the electronics. Apple's FineWoven cases were widely disliked because they stained, and the replacement, TechWoven, didn't have the problem. We put both under the microscope and could see that they changed the weave density completely and added a new coating. The FineWoven case wasn't sealed at all, so any liquid would absorb into the fibers. With the TechWoven cases, they sealed it, with a liquid-resistant layer on top. Two products, one obvious difference in everyday use, and you could point a camera right at the reason.

What was it like getting started with the DSX2000 digital microscope? How hard was it to learn?

Arthur: It's pretty intuitive, and it's pretty easy to get amazing-looking photos. There was an initial learning curve, not too bad. We'd used the previous generation, so a lot was familiar, and setup was handled remotely in about half an hour. Once everything is set up, it's amazingly easy to start using. We normally have it constantly on, and it just works.

What does digital microscope imaging let iFixit prove?

Arthur: Our main goal is to educate people, so creating striking imagery, anything that helps, is really helpful. The images carry the story. They let us settle arguments about how something is built, and they get people genuinely interested in what's inside their devices. It's been a great tool. Invaluable in some ways.

What a Marketing Graphic Doesn’t Show You

A marketing diagram tells you a layer exists. It does not tell you where it sits, what it is made of, or whether the device will survive being repaired. For that, someone needs to open the phone and look closely enough to see. That is the difference between being told what is inside and being shown.

That’s the work iFixit does, and increasingly it is the DSX2000 digital microscope that lets them show it. The same imaging is used every day in materials science and failure analysis labs, where the DSX2000 runs on the PRECiV™ DSX software that drives its observation modes and 3D imaging.

Curious what your own samples reveal at this level of detail?

Explore the DSX2000 digital microscope or request a demo.

Imaging Techniques Used in Phone Teardowns

The images in this story were captured using several imaging techniques on the DSX2000 digital microscope. Each one reveals a different property of the sample or captures it in a different way.

Frequently Asked Questions About Using Digital Microscopy in Phone Teardowns

How do you inspect a smartphone display under a microscope?

Image the display panel from both the front and the back to see how the layers stack up, then use different observation modes to draw out features that flat lighting misses. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, iFixit did exactly this to establish where the privacy layer sat in the stack, and recorded 4K video of the panel powering on and off to show the privacy structure working in real time.

What is Z-stacking on a digital microscope, and how is it used in phone teardowns?

Z-stacking, also called focus stacking, captures images at multiple focal planes and merges them into a single image with extended depth of field, or into a 3D reconstruction. At high magnification, a sample cannot be held in focus in a single exposure, so stacking is what makes images such as the iPhone 17 Pro camera plateau edge usable.

Why is free-angle observation useful for electronics teardowns?

Device parts rarely sit flat. Free-angle observation tilts the optics instead of the sample, which is how iFixit imaged the machining inside the iPhone Air chassis.

How long does it take to learn how to use a digital microscope for phone teardowns?

iFixit describes the initial learning curve for the DSX2000 digital microscope as manageable, with remote setup taking about half an hour. The system is left switched on and used continuously.

What digital microscope software is recommended for 3D imaging of electronics?

The DSX2000 digital microscope runs on PRECiV DSX software, which controls its observation modes and 3D imaging.