Cracking open a retired HTC T-Mobile MDA
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The business end
The business end
I recently upgraded from our MDA specimen here, to a Blackberry Pearl (LIKE IT!), and I thought a dutiful dissection of my former friend would be in order.
nnWhen I first bought the unit, it was the one to have (in my mind) if you did not want a Blackberry. The keyboard on the Cingular sister unit was better, but I wasn’t going to switch service for that. It had all the bells and whistles, and certainly earned its “PocketPC” title. It came with all of the Mobile MS software, which I thought would be very useful, but didn’t turn out to be very easy to use. It also had built-in Wi-Fi and bluetooth, but I found the IE browser to be a little troublesome (imagine that).
nnOverall, the unit proved to be reliable, but I have to say that the thing I like the least was the touch keypad for the phone. I cursed seven devils every time I had to use it. It’s saving grace was the voice dial, which I used often, and was really quite reliable compared to my current Blackberry.
nnAs a whole, I believe that the downfall of the devices such as the T-Mobile MDA, its twin the Vario, the Cingular 8125, and others like it, had to be that accursed touchpad.
nnNew units such as the Instinct from sprint seem to have addressed that problem with a tactile touchscreen. Sprint has a nvery cool promotion for the Instinct on its website.
nnThe T-Mobile MDA and its bretheren, were originally engineered by the Taiwanese company, HTC. They also designed the iPAQ, back in the day, and its similarities can been seen in the Wizard-type units such as these.
nnOur specimen has a Texas Instruments OMAP850 195Mhz cpu, 64Mram ( 45 available after the OS ), a 2.8′ QVGA display – 65k colors, and stereo sound ( very good stereo when using headphones), 1.3 Mp camera, and WindowsMobile 5.0. Some have upgraded theirs to a modified version of 6.0, which I may do now that it is not the center of my cellphone life.
nnWell – on with with it – Lets Crack it open!
The large screen is what I ( and many others I expect) liked about these units.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Locked and Loaded
Locked and Loaded
The fact that these units had to lock reliably into an open position literally thousands of times, is a testament to their excellent design.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Right profile
Right profile
You can see here, from left to right, the camera button, reset button, IR transmitter, right speaker, and voice command button.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Head shot
Head shot
The useful Mini SD slot. I bought the biggest SD card that I could afford for this when I got it.
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Left profile
Left profile
Not much here – left speaker, ringer reset, and the communications manager button.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Below the belt
Below the belt
The headphone jack, power/sync plug, and battery release.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Battery cover and more
Battery cover and more
Here we see the back sporting our camera, and battery cover.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Out with it
Out with it
The battery, and SD cards removed, the first order of business is to remove the two tiny torx screws that are buried in the bottom – yellow circles.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Once removed
Once removed
Once the two screws were out, I needed to carefully pry the top section of the back off.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Better view
Better view
After unsnapping that, it swung off like so. This appears to be the antennae (?) – I really like to use of spring-loaded contacts here. We find the use of them throughout the device. I think this type of thing shows how well engineered this device was. Probably more cost effective for production and materials cost as well…
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
You're on candid...
You're on candid...
Here we have the camera and flash in better view, and the two yellow circles show the next two screws to remove. One of them covered by a void tag, of course.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Tiny tabs
Tiny tabs
Screws out. Next to pry off the back, in red, you see one of the barely visible tabs that hold it together.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Buzzzzzzz
Buzzzzzzz
The vibrate mechanism – covered with 2 years worth of pocket lint.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Love a good motor
Love a good motor
I really love this little motor – I wish I could find a use for it somewhere….Wasn’t there an episode of Seinfeld where…never mind.
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Simple flash
Simple flash
A closer look at the back of the flash and its contacts.
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Speak!
Speak!
The speakers came out as expected, and it looks like the only thing preventing the board from coming out is the ribbon connector in the yellow circle.
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Filth
Filth
This is a good reason NOT to keep your cell in your pocket – those magnetic particles that find their way in…
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The attraction was mutual
The attraction was mutual
Fun with magnets.
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Spycamera
Spycamera
Circled in yellow, is the “camera module”. I expect that this is the camera used in many camera phones.
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There seems to be a disconnect here
There seems to be a disconnect here
Camera removed – a close up of the connector – typical of most small devices. nnI still don’t know what these are called – Anyone know???
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Teeny cam
Teeny cam
I thought this was a good example just how small these cameras are. Also an excellent view of my fingertips.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Next up
Next up
Secured by yellow tape, this ribbon is the last thing to come off before removing the mainboard. This is the ribbon that connects the keyboard to the mainboard.
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Swing wide
Swing wide
There are a few interesting things here – notice the ribbon (red circle) that allows the sliding keyboard, and the silver protective mesh on the mainboard that rests on top of it. Another good bit of forethought there. Also notice all of the shielding for the chips – those will have to come off.
The yellow arrows point out the only connection between the “screen half” and the “keyboard half”.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Peeling
Peeling
Peeling off that tape/mesh to facilitate the removal of the shields.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Lower the shields!
Lower the shields!
The covers came off easier than expected – as they are sometimes soldered into place. These were just snap-ons.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Curios little bit of rubber
Curios little bit of rubber
I don’t know what this particular chip does, but it had its own little rubber cover, and it they took the time to make sure that it stayed in place with some adhesive. Hmmmm –
Anyone know what this could be?
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
TI everywhere
TI everywhere
Lots of TI chips here – circled in yellow – all to support the TI cpu, which is the large circle on the left.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Holding it down
Holding it down
The yellow circles here show the torx screws that hold the keyboard down. The whole metal plate is the keyboard itself, as we see in the next frame.
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Mini QWERTY
Mini QWERTY
Here we have the keyboard itself, in the red square. The small yellow circle points out one of the 12 leds that provide the blue backlighting for the keyboard. The yellow arrow points out the back of the rubber keyboard membrane.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
A little disection
A little disection
Since I planned on using this unit later, I had to be careful here, but this gives us a good view of how simple the keyboards are. It surprised me that the bi-metallic contact cups are just held in place by what is effectively a big piece of tape, but most keyboards are much more simple than one would expect.
Also note two of the leds in yellow that poke through the square holes in the membrane.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Show me your membrane
Show me your membrane
Here we see the rubber membrane that is the keypad.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Missing someting?
Missing someting?
The open unit without “everything else”.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Pre-separation
Pre-separation
In the two yellow circles are the two torx screws that need to come out to get the slider off.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Pole position
Pole position
Now that the two units are apart, we see part of what makes this unit open and close reliably – the two little plastic poles or posts that both guide the slider and help lock it in place.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Broken pieces
Broken pieces
Once the screws were out, the black plastic backing needed to be separated from the silver front. A close-up view here of one of the clips that I broke when splitting them. It survived, however, and was still able to keep it together when it was re-assembled.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Not so heavy metal
Not so heavy metal
These are the two metal sliders that the lower unit (keyboard half) screwed into. They were held in place by the same screws that held these two pieces together. Another example of the fine engineering that went into this device.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Buttons everywhere
Buttons everywhere
This is a neat picture, I think. You can see the bi-metallic buttons on the right, and their rubber brothers on the left.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Lower set
Lower set
The lower set of buttons –
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Uppers
Uppers
And the upper set of buttons – though upside down here so you can see the speaker – for your viewing pleasure. I did not add any graphic for this, but they wisely employed the use of the spring/contact method for the speaker/earpiece here. If you look back two frames, you can see how they lined up.
…My grandmother used to complain about trouble with her uppers – not sure what she meant…
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Gently now - gently
Gently now - gently
The screen itself came out very easily – just needed to pry it up a bit.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Outed again
Outed again
The screen and its frame – peas in a pod. Also note the rubber seal around the opening for the screen.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
There you have it
There you have it
So there it is – all blown up just for you. In case you were missing all of the screws, they are in the middle of the image – there weren’t very many of them — another sign of excellent engineering.
Photos by Drew McBee for TechRepublic. ©
Together again
Together again
And, yes, she went back together again and worked as expected. Now – where is that 6.0 ROM….?
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