Inside the box

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Product documentation

As this is AT&T’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S, AT&T documentation is included with the Captivate.

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Front - Screen, speaker, and main buttons

On the front of the Samsung Captivate, you’ll find the external speaker (top), Menu key, Home key, Back key, and Search key (bottom).

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Back - Camera, speaker, back cover

On the back of the Samsung Captivate are the camera, external speaker, and removable cover.

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Left side - Volume key

On the Samsung Captivate’s left side is the volume button.

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Right side - Lock button

The Lock button is located on the right side of the Samsung Captivate. Using this key you can lock and unlock the phone’s display.

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Bottom - Microphone

The main microphone is located on the bottom of the Samsung Captivate.

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Top - headphone jack and Micro-USB port

The 3.5mm headphone jack and Micro-USB charging/data port are located on the top of the Samsung Captivate.

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Micro-USB port sliding door

The Samsung Captivate’s Micro-USB port is covered by a sliding door. This photo shows the door in the open position.

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Sliding open the back plate latch

To remove the Samsung Captivate’s back cover, slide the bottom portion of the phone down and lift the cover away from the case.

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Battery - Front

The Samsung Captivate used a 3.7V Lithium-ion battery with 1500 mAh capacity.

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Battery - Back

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Removing the six case screws

Six Phillips #000 screws hold the Samsung Captivate’s case to the screen assembly. The first four are clearly visible on the top half of the case. The last two are hidden beneath the sliding portion of the case.

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Hidden cases screws

One Phillips #000 screw is located on each side of the phone, under the sliding portion back cover.

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Accessing the hidden screws

I tried for several minutes to remove the sliding portion of the Captivate’s back cover, but it didn’t want to come off. Afraid I would break the slider, I decided the best way to access each of the hidden screws was to slide one side of the movable latch down and keep the other side in the closed position.

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Removing the hidden case screws

With just one side of the movable latch in the open position, I could remove the hidden screw on that side. I repeated the process on the other side to remove the last hidden screw.

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Six case screws

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Separating the case from the screen assembly

With a very thin metal spudger, I was able to gently pry the plastic case away from the screen assembly. I started at the bottom of the case and slowly worked my way around.

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Plastic tabs

Small plastic tabs hold the case to the screen assembly. There are several on each side. You should be able to release all the tabs without breaking the case or the screen assembly.

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Left the case away from the screen assembly

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Case and screen assembly

Case - Internal

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Case - External

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Removing various connectors and cables from the main PCB

The next step in disassembling the Samsung Captivate is to disconnect all the visible connectors and cables from the main PCB. This will allow us to remove the phone’s various components and the main PCB.

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Removing the camera

With the camera disconnected from the main PCB, it will simply fall away from the phone’s screen assembly.

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Camera - Front

The Samsung Captivate has a 5.0 megapixel with 4x digital zoom and auto-focus. Connected to the camera is a chip with the folloring markings:
NEC
MC-10170
020KU711
ARM

This chip is likely an image processing IC.
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Camera - Back

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Main PCB screw

A single Phillips #000 screw holds the main PCB to the screen assembly.

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Removing the main PCB

With the seventh screw removed, we can lift the Samsung Captivate’s main PCB away from the screen assembly.

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Screen assembly

This photo shows the screen assembly with the main PCB removed.

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Screen assembly - Bottom

Along the bottom of the screen assembly are the connectors for the four buttons on the front screen and the antenna cable.

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Screen assembly - Top

Along the top of the screen assembly are the 3.5mm headphone jack, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor. Mounted to the back of the display is an ATMEL TSP touch control IC.

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Main PCB with speaker assembly and SD/SIM slot PCB - Front

This photo shows the Samsung Captivate’s main PCB with speaker assembly and SD/SIM card slot PCB still attached.

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Main PCB with speaker assembly and SD/SIM slot PCB - Back

On the back of the main PCB, there are two large chips that both have Samsung markings and a connector for the SD/SIM card slot PCB.

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1GHz Processor and 16GB memory

I removed the circular, white sticker from the chip on the right in this photo.

The chip on the left is the MoviNAND 16GB Flash memory chip. The chip on the right is the 1 GHz Samsung S5PC110 u201cHummingbirdu201d (Cortex A8) processor.

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Disconnect the SD/SIM card slot PCB

To remove the SD/SIM card slot PCB, we must disconnect its cable from the main PCB.

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Disconnect the speaker assembly cable

To remove the speaker assembly, we must disconnect its ribbon cable from the SD/SIM card slot PCB. To do so, gently lift up on the tiny gate that holds the cable in the connector. You’ll also need to pry up the translucent blue tape stuck to both the connector and cable.

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Speaker assembly - Back

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Main PCB with speaker assembly removed

All that’s left is to remove the SD/SIM card slot PCB from the main PCB.

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Gently pry loose the SD/SIM card slot PCB

Using our thing metal spudger again, I gently pried the SD/SIM card slot PCB away from the main PCB.

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SD/SIM card slot PCB - Front

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SD/SIM card slot PCB - Back

The back of the SD/SIM card slot PCB also serves as a shield for the chips located underneath it.

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Main PCB - Top (chip closeup)

There are several TriQuint RF ICs that handle the phone’s supported frequencies:
GSM quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
UMTS tri-band global 3G (2100/1900/850 MHz)
EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 7.2 Mbps

The large silver chip is the Samsung SWB-B23, which provides support for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

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Samsung Captivate completely disassembled

Cracking open the Samsung Captivate wasn’t difficult, but there were a few tricky spots. If I hadn’t seen the two hidden case screws, I may have damaged the case. Also, prying the case away from the screen assembly required a gentle touch and a little patience.

Overall, the Captivate appears to be a well-constructed phone with good hardware. If you’re in the market for an Android smartphone and you already want to use AT&T, you should give it a look.

And for a more in-depth comparison of the Captivate to other Android phones, check out Jason’s Product Spotlight review.

Photo credit: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic