The strangest thing about these phones so far is, of all things, what lies underneath the motherboards.

To soak up all the heat from each phone's octo-core processor, we expect to find a sprawling copper vapor chamber here—the kind Samsung was always quick to brag about in previous Galaxy Phones. But instead, we find a multi-layered graphite thermal pad.

Stranger still, it seems some other Note 20 phones do have copper heat pipes—but not our US-spec model. Does the Exynos SoC on international models require different cooling hardware than our phones, with their Snapdragon processors?

Our friend Zack, of JerryRigEverything fame, tells us his South Korea model also has graphite. Stay tuned for more details on that.

Our next thought was, maybe this comes down to heat-prone 5G mmWave hardware, which not all Notes have—but that doesn't line up either. Is it some kind of A/B test on new cooling hardware? There must be some logic here, but we can't figure it out. Let us know if you have ideas.

Update: We gathered some additional intel on the different cooling systems and some inside dirt on Samsung's design process. Read all about it!

Speaking of mmWave modules—both our phones have them, but only two each. In contrast, the Note10+ 5G and S20 Ultra got three. Has the hardware improved such that only two are needed, or is something else going on?