Friday, January 23, 2004
The Smartphone Operation Game - Don't Try This at Home
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 08:00 AM
A little over a month ago, my Orange SPV Smartphone fell onto my keyboard on my desk. It happened to strike the direction pad, and ever since that happened, the action button hasn't functioned properly. A Smartphone without an action button is practically useless, so I was very relieved when a friend of mine sent me his Tanager Smartphone to use. What a world of difference! The screen on the Tanager is 1000% better than the screen on the SPV. So now I had a phone to use, but an SPV that was practically useless. Today I decided to see if I could fix it.
Now, it's important to understand that I'm not an electrical engineer, so I really had no clue what I was doing. :lol: Some of you who ARE engineers can probably do a better job of explaining what I was seeing so feel free to jump in.
I've never taken apart a Pocket PC or Smartphone before. It was a very impulsive decision, and the only tool I had was a multi-headed screwdriver. My goal was to see if the action pad sensor had somehow become dislodged, because when I pressed the action button there was a strange clicking. I had no clue how to get the SPV open, so I put my fingernails in the plastic seam and started to gently pull. Much to my surprise, most of the phone came apart that way without a problem. It took some tugging and twisting though in some parts.
Once that was complete, I had three pieces - the back shell, the battery, and the actual phone. I noticed there were some latches keeping the main body of the phone attached to the screen, so I detached them and seperated the main body from the screen. There was one part of the phone that wouldn't detach, but after some wiggling it finally came free. I had a feeling though that I broke something... 8O
This is the back of the phone's front panel - I didn't find anything obviously wrong with the action button here, but this is a thin rubber membrane that covers the actual button, so I needed to keep looking.
A close-up shot of the dialing pad.
The real guts of the phone, from the back. There's another circuit board mounted onto the main board here, but I didn't disassemble that.
Aha! Here's the elusive d-pad area. You can see it's a four way control, and the centre button is the action button. Nothing obvious here either. When I pressed it with my finger, it felt normal. Looks like this might not be fixable...
The top of the phone, including the LCD screen. If you look closely at the left side of the image, you can see it looks like there's some broken plastic on the phone. Yup, something didn't come free properly, and I broke a small piece of plastic on the phone.
Ah, look, it had a screw on it. I guess I should have examined things more carefully. :lol:
A front view of the LCD screen. Since it's not a touch screen, there's only a single layer.
A close-up of the circuit board, with the USB connection at the base. Looks like a copper plate?
Another close-up, showing the SIM slot and a small on-board battery. I wonder what that's for? It's not user servicable, that's for sure...
Is that piece of metal twisting around the internal antenna?
A side view of the SPV guts.
After taking the photos I put it all back together. I was pleasently surprised to see how easy it was, but after sealing the phone and powering it up, I realized that dust particles had gotten under the screen, and the LCD screen had fingerprints on it. 8O Whoops! I don't remember touching the screen but I must have. I made no real effort to clean the work area or wear gloves, so I'm not surprised that I managed to make things a little worse.
The SPV still has the same button issue as before, so it's more or less useless to me unless I can find someone to service the phone. It's not a high priority for me right now though because I just so happened to receive a new phone earlier this week. It's not quite functioning yet, but I hope within a few days I'll be enjoying it fully. Let's just say that I'm quite impressed with the hardware so far.
So, anyone else gutted their Smartphone? :lol:
Now, it's important to understand that I'm not an electrical engineer, so I really had no clue what I was doing. :lol: Some of you who ARE engineers can probably do a better job of explaining what I was seeing so feel free to jump in.
I've never taken apart a Pocket PC or Smartphone before. It was a very impulsive decision, and the only tool I had was a multi-headed screwdriver. My goal was to see if the action pad sensor had somehow become dislodged, because when I pressed the action button there was a strange clicking. I had no clue how to get the SPV open, so I put my fingernails in the plastic seam and started to gently pull. Much to my surprise, most of the phone came apart that way without a problem. It took some tugging and twisting though in some parts.
Once that was complete, I had three pieces - the back shell, the battery, and the actual phone. I noticed there were some latches keeping the main body of the phone attached to the screen, so I detached them and seperated the main body from the screen. There was one part of the phone that wouldn't detach, but after some wiggling it finally came free. I had a feeling though that I broke something... 8O
This is the back of the phone's front panel - I didn't find anything obviously wrong with the action button here, but this is a thin rubber membrane that covers the actual button, so I needed to keep looking.
A close-up shot of the dialing pad.
The real guts of the phone, from the back. There's another circuit board mounted onto the main board here, but I didn't disassemble that.
Aha! Here's the elusive d-pad area. You can see it's a four way control, and the centre button is the action button. Nothing obvious here either. When I pressed it with my finger, it felt normal. Looks like this might not be fixable...
The top of the phone, including the LCD screen. If you look closely at the left side of the image, you can see it looks like there's some broken plastic on the phone. Yup, something didn't come free properly, and I broke a small piece of plastic on the phone.
Ah, look, it had a screw on it. I guess I should have examined things more carefully. :lol:
A front view of the LCD screen. Since it's not a touch screen, there's only a single layer.
A close-up of the circuit board, with the USB connection at the base. Looks like a copper plate?
Another close-up, showing the SIM slot and a small on-board battery. I wonder what that's for? It's not user servicable, that's for sure...
Is that piece of metal twisting around the internal antenna?
A side view of the SPV guts.
After taking the photos I put it all back together. I was pleasently surprised to see how easy it was, but after sealing the phone and powering it up, I realized that dust particles had gotten under the screen, and the LCD screen had fingerprints on it. 8O Whoops! I don't remember touching the screen but I must have. I made no real effort to clean the work area or wear gloves, so I'm not surprised that I managed to make things a little worse.
The SPV still has the same button issue as before, so it's more or less useless to me unless I can find someone to service the phone. It's not a high priority for me right now though because I just so happened to receive a new phone earlier this week. It's not quite functioning yet, but I hope within a few days I'll be enjoying it fully. Let's just say that I'm quite impressed with the hardware so far.
So, anyone else gutted their Smartphone? :lol:
- Discuss this story [3 replies]
- Permalink
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence