Build Your Own Samsung Galaxy S9+ Using Parts Sourced From Shenzhen

Two years ago, Scotty Allen from Strange Parts went on a quest in Shenzhen, China to create his own iPhone using nothing but spare parts. While making your own smartphone is cheaper than buying one direct from your favorite vendor, it isn’t exactly easy to do so. You need to know what parts you need for the build, and in a city the size of Shenzhen, the capital of electronics, it’s a daunting effort, but not an impossible one.

Considering Apple manufactures the iPhone in Shenzhen, Allen was able to find all the necessary parts he needed to produce his phone, and it turned out a success. Now he’s back with another quest to construct an Android-based phone, only this time he took the lessons learned from his first build, and applied them for this venture, even brushing up on his Mandarin. He initially wanted to make a Samsung Galaxy S10, but the parts were near impossible to find, and so he settled on a Galaxy S9+.

As the video points out, Allen managed to find all the parts he needed to build the S9+ — including the mainboard, display, headphone jack, antennas, cameras, battery, and case. To assemble all the components into a working phone, he turned to iFixit’s teardown of the same model, using it as a guide to putting the pieces back together. In no time flat, the phone was up and running, albeit after a few hiccups, including forgetting to buy the necessary antennas, as well as factory resetting the phone as he couldn’t bypass the password still hardcoded to the motherboard.

Allen states that he will put a BoM together for those who would like to build their own Galaxy S9+, although he cryptically says he had some “professionals” look at his S9+, and not everything is what it seems.