Howdy, today at Phonewreck we’re bringing you all the gory details regarding the Motorola Cliq XT. For those not in the know, this device is the evolution/alternative to OG Cliq. Differences lie in the lack of keyboard and OA thickness. The XT is just a little bit taller and wider then the original Cliq.

As you can see above, the PCB is INCREDIBLY small. In fact, for a “full” featured and relatively modern smartphone, it’s the smallest we’ve ever seen. More on that design later.

The first step to taking this device apart (as always) is to remove the back cover, battery, SIM and SD card.

This reveals 6, T6 hex screws holding in the plastic chassis and antennae. Notice the sticker based antennae system at the bottom rear of the device. Remove these screws and take note of the locations of the silver and black-screws. The thread density is different on each, and they’ll need to go in the same place they came out.

Next step is to pry away the black plastic chassis piece which holds the power, volume and camera buttons. The can be done by carefully prying with a fingernail and then pulling away from the clips with minimal force. Don’t break the clips!

Fantastic – the PCB is right in front of you and only held in via a few flex clips. Pop these away with a fingernail/spudger/staple remover.

Now if you have some time, reflect on the size of the PCB. Compare it to your SD, SIM card, the iPhone 4 PCB, or the Galaxy S. Sure these devices are more feature packed but Motorola surely has made a statement about PCB design here.

Warning to the wise: ESD cans are soldered (not soldered AND epoxied thank-God) to the main logic board. They can be loosened/removed with a heat gun/iron. Be careful though… inexperience with these tools can write off the device.

And that’s it. From here you can remove the Antenna block and Screen module via simple pokes and prods. What we’re really interested in is what powers this device. How can the PCB be so small? What kind of integrated mastery is taking place here?

Ahah! It’s the MSM 7200A. Holy moley, we saw this device in the original Xperia! Talk about product line longevity! We assumed this puppy was EOL’d long ago.

That’s not to say it isn’t a solid device. It does a seemingly good job of powering the Cliq XT, a handset we’d consider in the “economy” category when it comes to smartphones.

The Qualcomm MSM7200A integrates GPS and Audio Codec into the Baseband and Applications core. This eliminates ~4 devices off of the main logic board. Is this a good design? Well, the sheer quantity of processing power takes a hit, but it’s a perfectly fine low-cost design decision for the cliq XT.

As we often see, PMIC and Transceiver pairing went to Qcomm with the popular PM7590 and RTR6285 reference design. Why mess with what works?

The memory win went to Toshiba with it’s footprint friendly TYBC0A111107LC MCP SDRAM + NAND package. this removes three additional IC’s from the board when compared to other, more expensive devices.

Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM is handled via Broadcomm with it’s every popular BCM integrated series, the BCM4325FKUBG on this device to be exact.

Looks like the USB PHY win goes to SMSC with the USB3326 and Motorola tops this device off with it’s BQ6X 3.7V 1420mAh battery.

That’s it, that’s all – an interesting device, definitely built with economy in mind.

Is reducing the size of a device the current trend? It’s hard to believe with devices like the EVO on market – touch screen interfaces really do work better with bigger screens. One thing for sure, we should see a cost/weight reduction in future smartphones…. well, probably not cost, but definitely in weight

Be sure to leave any questions or comments below!

What’s next for Dr.Wreck? Stay tuned to @DrWreck or the RSS to stay informed!

Keep Wrecking!

Believe it or not – one of the easiest Teardown’s we’ve performed to date! The device is built well, and easily dissasembled – vast improvements over previous attempts (AHEM OMNIA).

We admit, it hurt a bit to take this thing apart – it’s such a nice device.

First step is to remove the backcover and Battery. This can be done by prying away the plastic at the base of the backside of the device.

Next, grab your trusty and super small phillips head screw driver. There are 6 screws to remove here:

That’s about it. Now it’s up to your spudger or staple remover to seperate the black plastic casing from the chrome bevel.

Plastic clips keep this all in place. Be careful, if  you break them the device will be flimsy and loose upon re-build. You should now be able to separate the two halves and reveal the PCB!

There’s a variety of flex cables to pry away. These cables keep the PCB in place which we consider a clever design to eliminate the use of metal or plastic fasteners.

And thar she blows! The PCB assembly should drop into your hands.

This device was clearly built with space constraints and weight in mind. Instead of expanding the PCB into the battery section, a separate PCB that houses the SD and SIM card slot is mounted to the top of the ESD shields. These effectively smother the communication devices on the main logic board.

In true fashion, we had to keep digging. The ESD shields can be removed by prying back the small metal tabs shown here.

Once pulled away, the real meat is revealed…

Now, let’s identify what devices are on the board!

My my my, you may notice some significant similarities to the iPhone 4. At the centre of the diagram, the Samsung “Hummingbird” S5PC110A01 applications core reins supreme. There’s been plenty of debate that this is the die hiding underneath Apple’s A4 skin – it’s hard to say. One thing for certain, this device kicks arse. Capable of assembling ~90 million triangles/second, penetration of this processor will only make smartphone gaming a more immersive experience.

Similar to the iPhone, Samsung chose an Infineon baseband. The YYN1N7438A8 to be exact. The baseband wasn’t infineon’s only win, coming in with the PMB 5703 SMARTi UE transceiver as well.

Not surprisingly, Samsung has kept things consistent with just about every other phone and provided itself with the memory wins. The K4X1G323B, KLM8G4DEDD and K4X2G323PB represnt the 1Gb DDR SDRAM, 8Gb Managed NAND and 2Gb DDR SDRAM respectively.

Communications are literally monopolized by Triquint. We’ve got a duplexer (TQM6M26028L) a transmit module (TQM69014), and two power-amps TQM676021 and TQM666022.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communications are handled by the same MCP/combo device that we found on the iPhone 4, the Broadcomm BCM4329FKUBG. Broadcomm also has the GPS win with the BCM4751.

Audio Codec goes to Wolfson (WM8994E), Camera Controller to NEC (MC-10170), Touch Screen Controller to Atmel (MX1224) and PMIC to Maxim with the MAX8998.

And that’s all she wrote! If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments section! Until next time, happy wrecking!

@DrWreck

Smartphone penetration by OS – who’s in the lead? This Quarter, Android saw massive uptake (~866%) and now encapsulates ~32% of the market. It’s reflected in the people you know and here on phonewreck. High powered and awesome Android devices keep coming across our desk! This week it’s the Samsung Galaxy S.

At quick face value, this device rocks. It has the super amazing AMOLED display, 1GHz processor, 720P HD video recording and tons of wireless connectivity options, we do like this device.

That said, are there any gripes? Keep reading to find out…

Technical Specs at a glance: 8GB of Internal Storage, 1GHz Samsung “Hummingbird” processor, MicroSD, MicroUSB, GPS, Accelerometer, Digital Compass, light/proximity sensor, 2 camera’s (5 MP rear-facing AF and VGA front-facing) and tri-band 900/1900/2100 HSDPA/HSUPA.

Greats

Hardware

If it’s what your after, this device looks like an iPhone. It’s slightly larger and slightly lighter – both bonuses in our minds. What else is great? The back-cover pops off to access removable storage and battery. The glossy black and “faux-metal” bezel are reminiscent of every other modern smartphone and do well to reduce the perceived size of the device. At 122.4 x 64.2 x 9.9 and~120g it’s light, but has a slightly low-quality feel. You’ll definitely feel iPhone 4 envy if one is nearby – that said, we’re sure the Galaxy S is better suited to handle drop tests. There is very little in terms of buttons on this device. Volume rocker, power and home button. Everything else (menu and back buttons) are capacitive and “part” of the screen – it works well, but we’re not a fan of capacitive “buttons”. More on that later.

The screen literally makes our mouth water. It’s AMOLED with 800×480 lines of resolution. To us, it looks better then the iPhone 4, that might be due to Samsung’s colorful skin.

Software

The Galaxy we have is running 2.1 with a disguise by Samsung called TouchWiz. TouchWiz is ok, nothing to write home about. What we do like is the changes made to the notification bar, which have shortcuts for toggling Bluetooth, WiFi, notification style/mode and media playback controls.

Accessing applications is different then most other Android devices. On the Galaxy, it can only be done through the static Application button on the lower “4-Button Bar” of the device. Not a bad idea, but a little tricky to get used to.

Samsung’s AllShare allows you to stream multimedia from the Galaxy S to a WiFi player, and even act as a remote control for a media server. Video, Audio and Pictures can all be streamed and with a slew of supported codec’s – it’s a sweet deal.

Samsung’s Media player is solid and far better then the standard Android offering. We’ve got support here for MPEG4, H.264, H.263, Xvid, WMV, DivX, AVI, FLV and MKV video. Audio format support is extended to OFF and FLAC.

The Camera is good – at least better then the average smartphone which we consider a “great”. There’s also some flexibility with shooting options -as much as you’d need with a pocket camera. Video can be recorded in 5 different resolution settings from 320×240 to 720P (1280×720), with or without audio. There’s lots of flexibility in options here as well such as contrast, saturation, sharpness and exposure.

Middle of the Road

Capacitive buttons can be annoying and take some time to get used to. We found ourselves accidentally closing apps with the base of our thumb – really annoying at first. We also missed some kind of alternative navigation device (track-pad) when finely tuning URL entries. Dr.Wreck’s thumbs are massive – and working with a tiny entry bar was very annoying.

On a few occasions, we found the the Galaxy slow to load our inbox and subsequently a specific message. This shouldn’t be the case with such a powerful processor under the hood, should it?

We also had a few hang-ups when hitting the back button. The ever impatient Dr.Wreck was forced to press the button 2,3 maybe even 7 times. This resulted in being taken all the way back to the home-screen when we only wanted to drop back one page.

Gripes

This device is great, but it isn’t without it’s gripes. We had the common issue of losing our e-mails – it totally forgot our settings. We’ve also had numerous camera crashes, which was frustrating when we were trying to capture that quick and perfect “once-in-a-lifetime shot that we missed because the flippin’ camera app crashed” picture. If you’ve used another Android device before, you’ll likely find the icons too colourful and hard to distinguish. Samsung also sets homescreen to farthest left which kinda stank.

We also did a small drop-test, totally on-purpose. The phone survived well but the cheap plastic “chrome” bevel scratched up – a la BlackBerry Bold 9000. Side-loading content via Kies was also a chore, transferring our 2GB of test data was like watching paint dry.

Summary

We like this device, if it wasn’t for our time spent with some *new* BlackBerry devices, Dr.Wreck’s weapon of choice would definitely be this phone. Software updates could easily fix alot of these bugs, it remains to be seen if Samsung will just release a new device or support it’s old. Historically, Samsung releases a butt-load of new phones quarterly. Our bet is that a new device will probably offset any firmware upgrades. If you’re looking for long term support? It’s probably a safe bet to look elsewhere.

Final Score: 8.7953156546 Galaxies out of 10.12638452

Are we going to tear it apart? Of course! No phone is safe!

@DrWreck

As with all of our teardowns, pictures are worth a thousand words – we definitely haven’t skimped here!

The device is cleverly built. Sliders are always a little bit trickier to take apart as manufacturers tend to get creative with the placement of their fasteners. The first step to tearing this baby down is to remove the variety of small Philips screws you see underneath the backcover. This will free the PCB from the main chassis.

Unfortunately, that’s not all you have to remove. We’ll admit, we were stumped. After several attempts to pry with our plastic spudger, we started peeling. Turns out, the remaining 4 (hex) screws holding the whole sandwich together are located underneath the keypad.

Once these are removed, you’ll have to do a little battle with the plastic clips securing the central housing. Once those are free, PCB come to me!

The rest is a cinch. The “keypad” is held into the LCD assembly via six philips screws.

On a side note, the antenna for this device is a sticker located on the bottom edge of the exposed back-side of the device (image #2 – link). Notice how if you were using the phone under regular circumstances, you wouldn’t touch it? Interesting! Also, note the solid aluminum shields over all IC’s. Sure they’re clip-ons but it’s clear that Sony wasn’t taking any risks.

Now for the Juicy details.

The baseband/app-core win on this device went to Qualcomm with the MSM7227. The ARM 11 core clocks in at a maximum frequency of 600MHz. The device also includes a 400MHz modem, 320MHz DSP, integrated Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, GPS and a fully stocked mini-fridge – all in a 12x12mm package.

This device is truly remarkable in terms of IC convergence – it’s an effective bare-bones reference design with the exception of a few outliers. Interestingly enough the QCOMM RTR6285 GSM Transceiver and PM7540 PMIC are the very same devices we saw on the BlackBerry 9650. Coincidence? Likely not – it even has the same GSM power Amp (SK77336) from Skyworks.

The memory win goes to Samsung with an undisclosed device – K524G2GACB. Surprisingly, this device only has 128MB of RAM. We didn’t know this until we took it apart - surprisingly enough, the limited memory had no impact during our review!

WiFi is tag-teamed by TriQuint and TI (TQM679002A and WL1271A respectively). The Cypress CY8CTMA 300E -36L wins the capacitive-sense controller.

Touch Screen Controller

That’s all she wrote! This teardown is right in-line with the tragectory we’ve set for mobile phones. The advent of integrated solutions has greatly simplified the design process and is allowed ODM’s to play a little bit more with form-factor design. We’re sure we’ll see more and more devices on these simple, powerful designs running Android in the near future.

Until next time, keep wrecking!

@DrWreck

]]> http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/08/05/823/feed/ 2 http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/08/05/823/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/phonewreck/EewB/~3/QKNhJ-M_MFE/ http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/08/02/sony-xperia-x10-mini-pro-review-teardown-on-the-way/#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:31:32 +0000 Dr. Wreck http://www.phonewreck.com/?p=807 What do we have here? The world’s smallest Android device!

What do we think of it? Well, errr, let’s talk about the specifications first!

As we’ll identify in the inevitable tear-down, this device is supposedly based on the 600MHz MSM722x Baseband/Applications processor, features a 2.55″ screen with 320×240 lines of fairly vibrant LCD resolution. It also houses a 5.0MP camera and microSD (Magic Stick disappeared a long time ago). We’re also blessed with a micro USB port, FM-radio, Assisted GPS, Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g WiFi. These things are standard and something you’d expect on any worthy Android device.

Our “Pro” version of the mini also offers a slide-out keyboard – something Dr.Wreck’s massive thumbs both loved and hated.

Now, with the standard technical fluff out of the way, let’s hear Dr.Wreck’s subjective and potentially jaded side!

Greats – Hardware

While the device feels thick, it also feels extremely solid. The slide is smooth and doesn’t bind when opened with one hand. The screen at 320×240 lines of resolution is also reasonably sharp. The first thing we thought of when unboxing this phone was the likeliehood that the smaller capacitive screen, when paired with the common android OS would be hard to read and the accuracy of swipes would be lost.

Thankfully, we were wrong! Android on this device (V1.6) has been artfully skinned for greater efficiency on the smaller screen. Not only that, swipes and pokes seem extremely accurate, more-so then the EVO or Incredible. We can bet there’s a better capacitive sensor at play.

Also, a smaller screen equals less power requirements. The X10 Mini-Pro is powered via a small (by today’s standards) 970mAh battery. That managed ~1.5 days on a full-charge. That’s more then can be said for ANY other current Android smartphone.

This device is extremely small. We took the liberty of comparing: “The world’s smallest Android smartphone” to the “World’s largest”.

We also like that the headphone jack is positioned at the top of the device.

Greats – Software

A smaller screen can hurt – we’ll get to that later. Also, anyone with android experience is looking for 2.x+, 1.6 doesn’t make the cut. The device has a good implementation of one finger zoom. You won’t find yourself wishing this device has more core functionality. It’s all there. Timescape, Sony’s version of Motorola Blur – is neat. It let’s you keep up with news, twitter updates and facebook feeds similar to iPad’s new flipboard app. That said, it’s not something we could see ourselves using everyday.

Lastly, FM radio? Very cool – the headphones function as an antenna – Steve Job’s, take note!

Middle-Road

Don’t think for a minute that the screen is “big-enough”. If you you’ve used any other Android powered device, you’re going to feel naked and alone. That said, it’s the devices design and Sony has done a good job of it. Webpages can be panned and zoomed with one finger (no-pinch support)  and they render very fast.

The camera: We really like the 2-stage button. Tap it to launch the camera (which loads pretty quick) and hold it halfway for AF. Once you’re ready, pop it down and click! Unfortunately, that’s all the “great” that can be said for the 5MP image sensor.

Images still appear washed out. Also, due to the Aspect Ratio of the phone’s screen, there are no wide-screen shooting options. Low-light images appear grainy, there aren’t that many customizations (4-shooting options) and there is literally no zooming feature. We realize Digital Zoom sucks, but holy cow!

The keyboard also lines up along the middle of the road. The on-screen is a gripe – no doubt about it. The slide out keyboard? Well, it’s not your 9700. That in mind, it’s passable at best. The space bar is in a good location, but the bottom edge has a sharp “lip” that your thumb hangs up on every-time your press it. It’s also very flexible and makes alot of squeaking noises. Dr. Wreck thought his thumbs were dancing on mice.

Gripes

Unfortunately, there are a few of these. The on-screen keyboard is beans – the device doesn’t auto-rotate, only doing so when you slide out the keyboard.

Having a smaller screen, means incompatibility with a ton of our favourite Android apps – a huge gripe. Sony does package this device with everything you’d need but apps play a massive role in smartphone success – especially in light of Apple’s marketing campaigns. Having so many options for screen size and resolution has got to be a major gripe for Android Devs – this device won’t help.

This little guy is also ridiculously thick! Again, we understand this is probably due to the fact that the rest of the device is so small. We took the liberty of comparing it to a larger device (albeit, without a slide-out keyboard).

It isn’t that much thicker – it sure feels it though.

Also, once you’re inputting text, you can only travel back a certain umber of characters. Want to fix a typo? You’re out of luck! Also the 5MP camera and MSM 722x is only capable of recording SD 640×480 video. It looks OK, but HD is standard! Especially considering the camera’s resolution.

Conclusion

We don’t mind this device. Sure it has it’s gripes and groans, they all do. The fact remains, it’s way smaller then anything we’ve come across – it fits easy in the pocket and the functionality really is there. We also don’t mind the QWERTY keyboard, it’s way better then any on-screen, we’d take it any-day. Also, the touch-screen is incredibly accurate and responsive considering the size. With less room for error, the Sony Engineers really had their work cut out for them.

If you’re looking for a small-package that packs some punch, look no further. With the promise of firmware 2.x on the horizon, this device could be the one to have. Our overall preference is still for the larger feature packed handsets. That said, to each their own!

Final Score: 7 wrecking-balls out of 10

Time to get started on the teardown. Stay tuned for that later this week!

@DrWreck

]]> http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/08/02/sony-xperia-x10-mini-pro-review-teardown-on-the-way/feed/ 0 http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/08/02/sony-xperia-x10-mini-pro-review-teardown-on-the-way/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/phonewreck/EewB/~3/lIh11ee56Ek/ http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/07/26/blackberry-bold-9650-teardown-and-analysis/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:19:53 +0000 Dr. Wreck http://www.phonewreck.com/?p=793 You read the review – time to see what’s inside the BlackBerry Tour, I mean Bold 9650!

RIM makes a solid device. They come apart easy, everything is modular, held in with a minimal number of well placed and cleverly but not impossible to find screws (a la Motorola Droid). These devices can be fixed although with the new optical track-pad what would you need to fix?

This is a gorgeous device, enough said – it will probably look better disassembled.

Remove the battery and back-cover. There you will see 4 hex screws just waiting for your T6. Remove them.

Here comes the tricky and slightly clever part. You’ll probably notice that the device is still held in the upper (camera level) portion. There are two screws located underneath the ear speaker. This is the same construction as the original Tour, and should come as no suprise. Alas, removing this piece of plastic requires a plastic spudger, patience and a will of steel. You can actually break the plastic tabs holding this portion in – be careful.

Once this piece is removed, you’ll see the missing links. Remove these screws and that’s it – everything – PCB, Antennae, inner and outer shell were held in with these 6 – screws. Simple and extremely effective.

Now for the PCB. Dag-nabbit, RIM is still using solid ESD cans without clips. In the past, we’ve found we can remove the solder with a heat gun of powerful soldering iron. They took this a step further (a la Palm Pre) and tossed in some epoxy as well. Alas, after much deliberation, we settled with a dremel.

Argh!

As a small aside, you’ve probably all heard about the iPhone 4′s antenna issues. You also may have seen Jobs’ jab at RIM and attenuation loss on the hallowed 9700. This device is a perfect example of RIM’s mastery in wireless communication. This PCB, is more secure from ESD and heat then Alcatraz. It’s rare to see such solid shielding as it undoubtedly drives manufacturing costs up. Kudos to RIM on this one – it just makes our job harder!

Since the 9650 is a world-phone, the hardware allows access to the following GSM networks: GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS2100. You’ll also get CDMA800 and CDMA1900 support. Hardware wise, there isn’t much difference from the OG Tour I mean Bold I mean, 9630 as you’ll see below:

The 528MHz ARM 11 MSM 7600 reined on the 9630 and we see it’s face again on the 9650 – there’s nothing wrong with the IC, but the 9650 competes with some pretty heavy 1GHz A4 and SnapDragon devices. That said, battery life on this device is fantastic and it seems to handle it’s built in functions well, with little processor lag. Apps? Not so much, it’s not really RIM’s current forte.

Interesting to note is the 256MB of RAM provided by Samsung on the KAT00M NAND + SDRAM MCP. Will this device have enough RAM to run BB OS 6.0? We guess not, seeing the advent and pending launch of the 9780. Worried about your device handling that OS upgrade? Maybe hold out for the 9780 or the other rumoured devices launching with OS 6.0

USB PHY win goes, once again to SMSC with the USB3326, PMIC and RF back to Qualcomm with the PM7540, RTR6500 and RTR6285 respectively. The PA array is courtesy of Skyworks (SK77336-13), Avago (FEM-7758) and TriQuint (TQM613031).

That’s and that’s all! Stay tuned, we’ve got a very interesting device in the queue – looking forward to tearing it apart!

@DrWreck

The BlackBerry Bold brand has always been reserved for RIM’s highest featured handsets. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 entered the market as the company’s first 3G handset while the Bold 9700 was the glossy new premiere of the coveted optical trackpad and new BlackBerry plastics. The BlackBerry 9650 is the next handset to enter the Bold family and rounds out the line up with it’s world-class capabilities.

Last July, RIM launched the BlackBerry Tour 9630 with Sprint and Verizon. It provided travelling BlackBerry users with an updated version of the BlackBerry 8800 world-phone. Since then, RIM has been trying to streamline their many brands – subsequently pushing the Tour under the Bold brand.

Offered by Sprint and Verizon, the features of the 9650 encompass all of great features from the 9000, 9700 and 9630 Tour and wraps them up in a slightly new design.

Price: $449.99 from Sprint or $509.99 from Verizon

With a 2-year contract the device will set you back $199.99 from Sprint or $149.99 from Verizon

Greats

Like I mentioned before, the phone is essentially a mash-up of what is good about the latest Bold family with added network capabilities.

Hardware

Size wise, the phone is a hair larger than the 9700 (Taller, Wider and Thicker). The keys are the same accordion style/guitar frets we see in the Tour and previous Bold devices.

If even for just the addition of the optical track pad, the older Tour deserved an update. The wildly popular ball-less pad is a bit more raised on the 9650 compared to the 8500 making it a bit easier to find and to use. The optical trackpad is as quick and responsive as all other models with this feature. This interface is a giant improvement from the inconsistent and unreliable mechanical track ball.

As for the O/A Form-Factor and housing design, RIM could have done more – but why fix what ain’t broke! The plastics are identical to that of the Tour, so much so that the backing of the previous tour can be used interchangeably with that on the 9650. Fortunately, the carbon f(o)bre look is gone. Heavier than the 8500, the phone holds very steady and has a weighty palm feel. Given the Tour was widely accepted among BlackBerry users as having the best BlackBerry exterior (previous to 9700), we couldn’t be happier with the exterior of the 9650.

RIM is also looking to increase their memory capacities. Internal memory in the 9650 was doubled to 512 MB. Strangely enough, this is still less then the OG 900, which contained a 1GB MoviNAND.

Software

The Bold 9650 comes out of the box equipped with the new BlackBerry OS 5.0 (specifically 5.0.0.6990). As is with all BlackBerry interfaces, the buttons are crisp and clean. Booting up from a battery pull or cold reset is about 30 seconds faster then a BlackBerry running OS version 4.6. Not much but it’s a start in tackling BlackBerry’s notoriously long boot time.

The two most unique features of the 9650 would be the phone’s WiFi connection and OpenGL support. The Tour’s lack of WiFi was a source of complaint from many users. Despite the phone’s wide selection of radio connectivity, a travelling user may find it difficult not being able to take advantage of free WiFi connections in areas of low-connectivity or just for the sake of saving possible roaming fees.

OpenGL support is a new offering from BlackBerry handsets and the 9650 is the first phone (and currently the only phone) to have it. This addition makes the 9650 capable of 3D graphics. This means it’s only a matter of time before some awesome 3D apps become available.

Middle Line Features

The 3.2 megapixel camera is really the only run of the mill feature of the 9650. At PW, it’s understood that megapixels do not always equate to better pictures, but we would love a 5MP CMOS.

It isn’t totally awash however as BlackBerry does include a host of camera options to enhance pictures. You can get a variety of effects using these options. We took the liberty of presenting some below.

Image A - Default Settings, Autofocus = OFF

Image B - Default, White Balance set to Florescent

Image C - Default with AF set to Macro

Image D - Default with Image Stabilization

All images are taken with automatic flash setting. Autofocus provides the most clarity although other options such as White Balance and Image Stabilization are nice features to have. The camera also gives you the ability to enable Geotagging, a feature native and akin to the iPhone. These new options redeem the cameras lack of resolution however not enough for it to be a strength.

Gripes

To be honest, there is little to really pick apart on the 9650. Overall, it does it job of a smart phone very well and shows that BlackBerry definitely takes user feedback into consideration when defining new handsets. The only drawback may be the media player which doesn’t seem to appear as sharp as that of the Bold 9000. The speakers are also not as powerful in terms of volume as the 9000 either. However, pictures are still vibrant and beautiful as always.

The one major weakness of the 9650 is the side loading performance. The memory options are very confusing. With the recent movement to MTP support, BlackBerry has tried to remain flexible and provide users the ability to do mass storage class. A nice gesture but a little confusing to the general user. The default memory setting enables both MTP and MSC however, data movement through either method is unbearably slow. When MTP is shut off, MSC is still not as fast as we would like to see on PW. And of course, when MSC is disabled, MTP is slow, no news there. Overall, the side loading performance is a bust.

As always, the BlackBerry browser could be improved. This is not a fault of the phone but more so a fault of the BlackBerry OS. Hopefully new updates (BB 6.0 and the Flash enabled WebKit browser) will alleviate this common gripe.

Conclusion:

BlackBerry was right in lumping this handset with their high-end products. It certainly delivers in both functionality and style. Although they could have done a bit more in terms feature enhancements (camera and display). RIM has released so many handsets in the last few years and this phone wraps up all of their best components and presents them beautifully. That said, RIM seems to be falling behind the curve – we can’t wait for BB 6.0 and their inevitable re-hash on touch screen devices.

BlackBerry Bold: 8.5/10

Stay Tuned for the Teardown. Don’t forget to follow us on twitter!

@DrWreck

Sharp’s “Waterproof” and Dustproof 841SH came by our desks and we couldn’t resist taking it apart. Most of the devices we teardown are built by large well known ODM’s or OEM’s and have fairly distinguishable reference designs. We knew that Japanese devices were different. What kind of IC’s did they use? Are these asian phones prone to using unmarked, knock-off IC’s?

The answer is not as simple as you might think. Different networks and broadcasted TV capabilities mean different IC’s. The phone definitely includes stuff we haven’t seen before – so what are the familiar devices?

SMSC’s PHY is a device we’ve seen before. USB is a standard in any multimedia enabled mobile phone – even the proprietary connectors on these Japanese phones require a USB transaction device.

This device has both an application core and a baseband – a common design decision employed in many American devices. The difference being that the Toshiba app-core in this device is more or less a fixed function “Multimedia Engine”. This engine handles broadcast TV, and various video codecs render natively on the device.

Taking apart the device wasn’t the most fun thing in the world. Sharp’s ODM used a 5 prong screw – we’ll call it a penta-screw. This is very unlike most phones we see, which have hex screws (6 prongs). Unfortunately, it’s hard to find these in North American, we had to order one from overseas.

The PCB had common, clip-in shields that can be easily pried off with a metal spudger or staple remover.

Once the shields were removed, all of the IC’s were covered with translucent shields, that needed to be pried/melted away. The residue left behind had to be cleaned before we could even ID the devices.

The Applications core we mentioned before is worth a quick discussion. This product is designed by Toshiba and is a device we have not seen in any North American market phones. The T5GE devices contain 3 hardware accelerators – a video codec, a 3D graphics accelerator and JPEG codec. These features are common, with the exception of the support for TV reception. The T5GE’s also incorporate an LCD controller that supports LCD display at resoultions up to FWVGA (864 x 480)

This Phone is also a Dual-band WCDMA ( FDD I / FDD XI ) & Tri-band GSM (GSM900 / DCS1800 / PCS1900 ) Dual mode Cellular Phone. These are bands we definitely do no regularily see in North American devices.

So what’s the skinny? We had a hard time ID’ing many of the chips on this phone. If anything jumps out at you, let us know!

Our conclusion is that some of these devices might be knock-off IC’s but it’s hard to say. The fundamental phone architecture remains the same.

@DrWreck

Stay tuned for a phone review later this week!

Yesterday was a Big day for E-readers. We saw the nook drop to $149.99 (WiFi only) and $199.99 for the 3G model. The Kindle 3 was hovering around $259.99 but made a significant leap to $189.99 at the news! Keep in the mind the kindle comes packaged with 3G regardless of price-point.

This is big news, and greatly reduces the margin each manufacturer takes on the device sale.

On both devices, data is offered for free. We all know from personal experience that data isn’t cheap. We also saw from a previous teardown (Kindle 3) – that these devices are NOT cheap the build. The BOM on the Kindle 3 we took apart hovers around ~$200.

How is Amazon going to make money you may ask! Book sales of course! The Kindle is a promising platform, Apps will definitely extend the Hardware Value proposition in the near future. Not to mention seemless integration with your BlackBerry, iPhone, Desktop and iPad. Amazon has really built an interesting business model and content network – if Dr.Wreck was to jump on an e-reader bandwagon it would definitely be Kindle’s.

Competition from high-cost, multi-purpose devices will definitely drive the cost of e-readers down over the next year or so. At phonewreck, we feel it’s only a matter of time before these things are offered for a few bucks, or the purchase of 10-20 e-books. Wouldn’t that be nice?

You may still think, “$200 for an e-reader is way too much, I’d rather go for an iPad” – Dr.Wreck’s opinion? You probably wouldn’t take the iPad to the beach.

@DrWreck