Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus (SM-G996) with a non-functional camera (EXPERIMENT)

☝️ To see how to disassemble this smartphone, check out the detailed guide here: [how to disassemble Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus]

And do not forget to turn your phone off.

A Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus with a faulty camera came in for repair.

After diagnostics, it became clear that the issue was with the camera module itself, and currently, suppliers don’t have this part in stock.

☝️ However, I noticed that the camera looks very similar to the camera module from the previous model, the Samsung Galaxy S20!

1️⃣ Disassemble the phone and remove the camera module.

2️⃣ Take out the available camera module from a Samsung S20 and compare them.

The cameras look absolutely identical—same cameras, cables, and connectors.

The only difference is the metal frame around the cameras.

3️⃣ To test, I temporarily connect the S20 camera module to the S21+, power on the device, and launch the camera app. 😎

4️⃣ As I suspected, everything works perfectly! 😊

This is what the S20 camera module looks like on the S21+ motherboard. The mounting points don’t match, so to install the camera permanently, the frame will need to be replaced.

5️⃣ Carefully remove the non-functional camera from its frame. Don’t worry about damaging the camera — just make sure the frame stays intact!

6️⃣ Handle the working camera carefully. To remove it, we cut the frame in several places and bend it open.

7️⃣ Without the frames, the cameras are absolutely identical. We then insert the working S20 camera into the S21 Plus frame.

8️⃣ Temporarily connect the camera for testing and partially reassemble the smartphone.

 Test the camera in all modes — everything works perfectly! 👍

📸 It turns out that two generations of smartphones—Samsung S20, S20 Plus, S21, and S21 Plus—use completely identical camera modules! Meanwhile, suppliers charge significantly different prices for the S20 and S21 series cameras. Quite a funny paradox, isn’t it? 😁

By the way, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. The Japanese company Sony released four generations of smartphones—Xperia Z1, Z2, Z3, Z3+ (Z4), and their Compact versions—with the same cameras.

Yet, at every launch, they announced that the cameras had become "much better," even though the improvements were purely software-based. Quite a marketing trick, right? 😂