Before we can start with the removal of anything essential, we need to get rid of a bunch of Phillips #000 screws and a piece of black adhesive covering the flex cables.

After we say goodbye to some metal brackets, we can start to expose the motherboard by unplugging the display and motherboard flex cable, battery cable, and the antenna cable.

Up to this point we feel like we're removing the battery of the Mate 9's sibling, the Huawei 9 Plus.