Hardware

Cracking Open the Tungsten E2 Palm PDA

By · November 6, 2008, 10:53 PM PST

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  • In its Glory

    I was saddened when I discovered that my old pal the Tungsten E2 would no longer take a charge. I must not have been TOO saddened, because it was a good excuse to go upgrade my cell phone to an MDA, which I happily did. You can see the fate of my now retired HTC T-Mobile MDA here.

    I really did like my palm, and I foolishly believed that the case was made of aluminum, or some other alloy. It makes you feel like a MAN when your PDA is made of metal - yes it does. I also liked the feel of the stylus - heavy and substantial in your hand.
    br> I bought a wi-fi (SD slot) card for it (this would have been at least 3 years ago), and had a ball testing different connectivity configurations, playing with VPN software, etc. I will say that I was overall not very satisfied with the browser performance, however. I believe it was the Blazer browser.

    The Audio on the unit was excellent as well, and as I said, I was a bit disheartened by the fact that the battery died off so quickly. Replacement batteries are easier to come by now, and more affordable than I recall they were then. I found a nice one on eBay for about $15. I checked the local "Every Battery in the World" shop, and they had one for $39.99 - thus my eBay purchase.

    There appears to be - or to HAVE been a Linux on the Tungsten project, which I may persue once my Tungsten is back up again. A link to the aged but still seemingly relative "Linux for Tungsten" site is here Linux on the Palm Tungsten E

    I thought it would be a good time to Crack 'er open, while I was replacing the battery, and so here you are -

    Here is our specimen sans power. To the right the blessed hammer of Palm shorthand, the stylus.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Four points

    Only four very small torx screws to remove.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Mumbling

    After a bit of mumbling from me, I separated the two halves exposing the innards. The yellow circle shows our conveniently mounted 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery. The two red arrows show contact points for the surprisingly adequate speaker and mainboard.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Powered by Sanyo

    Funny that they (Sanyo) used black ink to print the model number on the battery with a black cover. They probably decided at the factory that is was still visible, and not worth spending time on it...

    You don't really need the number "these days" anyway, as they are common place enough that you just need make and model of device.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Slip and slide

    Now the whole MB/display package slides out neatly from the front half of the case. The yellow shows the SD card carrier.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Parts of the whole

    Here we have the major chipsets: Yellow is the Intel PXA255 200mhz CPU, the Green appears to be the memory chips - more on those in a few frames, Red is the WM audio chips, The Blue is an MX chip - usually those are used for network controllers, so I would have to think that it is the Bluetooth controller.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • CPU closeup

    A nice pic of our Intel chip...

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Sounds like a WM9712

    This is the WM9712, a low-power version of a common audio chip the AC'97.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Wait a SEC...

    In the Yellow - these appear to be our memory, as they are SEC, or Samsung chips. I don't see any other chips that would qualify as RAM on the board.

    The MX chip here, in the blue, I think is our bluetooth controller. I could not find any info on this chip specifically, but I have to think that that is the case, as MX chips are typically built into network controllers.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Disappointment

    It was about here that I was stricken with the realization and subsequent disappointment at the fact that the E2 case was actually made of plastic, and not some space-age alloy as I had fooled myself into believing. You can see the gray plastic underneath and the silver over spray.

    The square of silver that we see in the yellow circle is the display assembly - attached to the mainboard by the ribbon we see there.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Button Cluster

    Here we have a good picture of the Tungsten control button cluster.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • The REAL buttons

    A single red arrow indicates the permanent directional and shortcut buttons that are soldered onto the board.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Turn it over

    Turning the assembly over again, we see where the ribbon connects to the display assembly.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Feeling...disconnected

    Simple standard connector here. Nice picture, I think.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Lift and separate

    Lifting the display assembly away.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Separation anxiety

    The mainboard and display beside one another. I'm not sure why they used the copper foil on the mainboard. I would assume as a barrier from the display assembly. By why not the whole area of the display, and not just that small bit to the right?

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • X and Y gene?

    This I thought was interesting in it's simplicity. Only four control lines leading to the surface of the screen. Two pairs of X and Y axis for stylus tracking, yes? The "touchpad" as it were.

    We'll see later that it is not the screen itself, but a glass/plastic overlay.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Removal

    The "touchpad" ribbon from the previous frame, removed.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Easy

    Once that small ribbon was disconnected, the glass overlay (foreshadowed earlier), and the display itself separate.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Tear it down some more

    We can take the display apart a bit more, but since we plan on using this later, we are limited as to how much.

    The red arrows point out the small slots that hold the lcd into a metal frame. Pry back on them, and the lcd falls away.

    What is this? A secret message?

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • Not a secret message after all

    Here we see a better view of what appears to be reflective material for the display - possibly to enhance the brightness?

    One of the enhancements that was featured in the Tungsten E2 was that it was supposed to be 30% brighter than its predecessor.

    Also note in the yellow cirle - that looks to me like a power connector for display backlighting.

    I did not take this down any more, as it appeared that doing so would damage the flimsy ribbon between lcd and control board.

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

  • The Palm Tungsten E2 exploded

    Here are all of the parts that make up our unsuspecting victim.

    Not very many, but then it is usually moving parts that take up space, and of those, we have few on the Tungsten.

    After doing this gallery, I think I am going to see about that Linux .prc for the Tungsten...

    Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

In its Glory

I was saddened when I discovered that my old pal the Tungsten E2 would no longer take a charge. I must not have been TOO saddened, because it was a good excuse to go upgrade my cell phone to an MDA, which I happily did. You can see the fate of my now retired HTC T-Mobile MDA here.

I really did like my palm, and I foolishly believed that the case was made of aluminum, or some other alloy. It makes you feel like a MAN when your PDA is made of metal - yes it does. I also liked the feel of the stylus - heavy and substantial in your hand.
br> I bought a wi-fi (SD slot) card for it (this would have been at least 3 years ago), and had a ball testing different connectivity configurations, playing with VPN software, etc. I will say that I was overall not very satisfied with the browser performance, however. I believe it was the Blazer browser.

The Audio on the unit was excellent as well, and as I said, I was a bit disheartened by the fact that the battery died off so quickly. Replacement batteries are easier to come by now, and more affordable than I recall they were then. I found a nice one on eBay for about $15. I checked the local "Every Battery in the World" shop, and they had one for $39.99 - thus my eBay purchase.

There appears to be - or to HAVE been a Linux on the Tungsten project, which I may persue once my Tungsten is back up again. A link to the aged but still seemingly relative "Linux for Tungsten" site is here Linux on the Palm Tungsten E

I thought it would be a good time to Crack 'er open, while I was replacing the battery, and so here you are -

Here is our specimen sans power. To the right the blessed hammer of Palm shorthand, the stylus.

Photos by Drew McBee for © TechRepublic

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