Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold upgraded with Honor silicon carbon batteries

Samsung released its Galaxy Z TriFold in December last year and it has been quite a success. The phone packs a massive 10-inch display when unfolded, the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, and a triple rear camera setup. All this is backed by a conservative 5,600 mAh Li-Ion battery. With Chinese brands transitioning to silicon carbon tech, foldable phones like the Honor Magic V6 have brought much larger 6,660 mAh capacity. While Samsung is still working on adding silicon carbon batteries to its devices, a YouTuber has beat the Korean giant to the punch, with the help of Honor.

The YouTube channel ‘Strange Parts’ is known for creative and complex projects like ‘building a working Apple Watch in one week’ or ‘3D printing an iPhone’. With their latest escapade (linked below), the creator and host Scotty Allen managed to upgrade the Galaxy Z TriFold’s battery with Honor’s silicon carbon cells, leading to a theoretical 71% improvement in capacity. The process, however, was arduous and not entirely successful.

The YouTuber partnered with Honor for this challenge and started with one Galaxy Z TriFold purchased in China. Allen then went on to figuring out some compatibility constraints and designing mock-ups to check feasibility of the project, before tearing down the actual phone. The Honor silicon carbon batteries were a little wider for the Galaxy Z TriFold’s battery compartments so the YouTuber had to CNC mill space for them. He also had to grind down part of the hinge mechanism and remove the bottom speaker. Along with that, he swapped the Honor Battery Management System (BMS) on the silicon carbon batteries with Samsung’s BMS so that the phone would recognize the new batteries.

By the end, he went through four Galaxy Z TriFolds to finally salvage the right combination of parts and make the silicon carbon backed Galaxy Z TriFold. While the battery capacity did go up to a claimed 9,600 mAh, a 71% increase, the phone’s display had a white line going across it. Unfortunately, there were no battery tests to check the actual capacity, charging speeds, or durability. But, this project does showcase the benefits of using silicon carbon in place of traditional Li-on, especially in foldables.

We might not have to wait long for Samsung to release a phone backed by a silicon carbon battery as a recent report suggested that such a phone could be released soon. It could be the Galaxy S26 Edge, or whatever it ends up being called, that comes out as the guinea pig for the new battery tech.