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

That’s right – you can now have 128GB of storage in a 17 x 22 x 1.7 mm footprint – brought to you by Toshiba. I can’t help but think this device will have a massive play in the larger devices we’re seeing come to light (See Tablet’s, MIDs, etc.)

Technical Specifications:

5MB of data ~50 years ago

@DrWreck

Last week, we saw a report on cnet making claims that Apple’s iPhone 4 is powered by the same device as the Samsung Wave S8500. The renowned A4 chip is manufactured by Samsung – it makes sense that it might appear in a Samsung device.

What many North American’s don’t know is that Samsung is a massive company – much larger then they might think. Samsung plays in semiconductor design, manufacturing, consumer electronics, appliances and even automotive (ie. They make cars). From personal experience, the various divisions have difficulty working together. The concept of a Samsung device having a Samsung core is slightly less likely then you probably thought.

R&D costs on a chip such as the A4 are bound to be quite high. Have you ever seen a chip that you weren’t able to ID on Samsung’s website?  Chances are it has proprietary claims – much like “Apple’s A4″.

Well, today Dr. Wreck has news for you – semiconductor manufacturers often resell or repackage bare die in an effort to extend a devices life-expectancy or even functional base. That means you might find yourself purchasing a crippled or often repackaged device for your next design application. This is often done by rotating the die 90 degrees inside of the package – which modifies the pin-out.

What is the device actually called? The S5PC110A01. It’s no wonder Apple, the king of branding in all things electronic, decided on something simple and sexy like the A4. This news is really no surprise – that said, the iPhone is about the only smartphone anyone should really consider building proprietary devices for (sales volumes are high enough to support R&D and tapeout).

Technical Specifications at a glance:

• PowerVR SGX 535 3D Graphics core
• 1 GHz Cortex-A8 (iPad)
• L1 cache – 64KB
• L2 cache – 640KB
• PoP – 2x 128MB DDR SDRAM chips, 64-bit data bus

Make sure to check out @DrWreck on twitter for the latest and greatest in Smartphone news.

Just a quick update today – something Dr.Wreck likes to keep track of and is probably of interest to most of our readers. Thinking of buying a smartphone? Want to predict what’s hot based on last quarter’s sales?

Check out the below chart.

Q1 2010 Smartphone Performance by OS

To be honest, no real surprises here. The iPhone is an ever threat – with it’s new corporate plays it seems to be inheriting a portion of RIM’s “prosumer” share. Android is doing just as well with a matched +2% QoQ (Quarter on Quarter performance).

Interestingly enough is that the two proprietary Hardware Software Combo Makers (RIM and Apple) seem to dominate the market. Cross platform OS’s (WinMo, Android, etc.) don’t seem to be doing as well. Android is a relatively new player (compared to RIM and Apple) – it’s most likely only a matter of time before our little robot friend starts to absorb BlackBerry and iPhone users. What’s your opinion? We’d love to hear it!

@DrWreck

]]> http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/06/07/smartphone-market-share-q1-2010/feed/ 2 http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/06/07/smartphone-market-share-q1-2010/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/phonewreck/EewB/~3/dbCLqccrfH8/ http://www.phonewreck.com/2010/05/27/dr-wrecks-take-on-mobile-devices-and-ic-convergence/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 23:00:28 +0000 Dr. Wreck http://www.phonewreck.com/?p=713

We love consumer electronic tear-downs, we’ve seen and performed a ton of them. In the past year we’ve seen a pretty considerable level of convergence in multi-use/multi-function IC’s.

A few notable corporations have played a major role in what we’ll call “hardware convergence”. One company that really stands out for leading this front is Qualcomm. Founded in 1985, these guys have definitely withstood the test of time.

Their “do everything mobile reference designs” cover everything a mobile device needs – BaseBand, AppCore, PMIC and even radio tranceivers. This makes it super easy for ANY run-of-the-mill ODM to build state-of the art smartphones. All you really need these days is Google and Qualcomm – save some special extra boutique devices we come across from time-to-time.

We can trace similar HW convergence to what happened with age old PC architecture (leading to the X86 design of modern PC’s). Combining all functionality into a tiny package ARM based processor core is very attractive from a cost and PCB design perspective. Unfortunately, these do-everything IC’s are often met with heavy power requirements. For perspective, each new BlackBerry device that get’s launced is met with reduced charge longevity. Of course, LCD screens are getting brighter and larger but these devices get really hot with use. This has to be related with packing a 1GHz Baseband/App Core/Kitchen Sink under the hood.

Is hardware convergence really even a good thing? In our opinion, yes and no. On one-hand, it should open the space for smaller companies to develop market ready and attractive smartphones. On the other hand, if every device uses the same HW and OS, the only differentiating consumer factor is overall physical design. Building that top-of-the line do everything well device requires custom hardware configurations. We’re talking Capacitive touch screens, Laser-navigation devices and even devices that boost USB transfer speeds.

We can compare this convergence to a Toyota Corolla – it’s reliable and get’s the job-done but doesn’t include the bells and whistles. Our dream device is more comparable to a BMW M5. It’s fast – (maybe not so reliable :S) but allows us to tweak our experience with more options then we’ll probably ever use. Sure, most of those options can be enabled at the Firmware level, but having the supporting Hardware is absolutely required for the optimal, Dr.Wreck approved experience. Let us know what you think!

@DrWreck

In the interim of Product Teardown’s, Dr.Wreck has decided to call on his vast experience with taking apart and creating consumer electronics. Today we’d like to briefly discuss Foxconn’s new platform featuring Tegra 2 and Android.

Nvidia has done fantastic things with it’s Tegra platform – recently engadget got a chance to play with the latest creation via Foxconn. The device looks great – it’s widescreen, it’s simple, it get’s covered in smudges, it’s looks are not what we want to talk about. What’s inside this device? What about Tegra 2 makes this package so interesting?

Well for starter’s the Tegra 2 is a 1GHz ARM Cortex 9 CPU which is capable of Symmetric Multi-Processing – kind of like your PC. Not only does this thing crunch math like nobody’s business, it includes a low power GPU (details are scarce) that we can only assume takes influence from the lightweight and popular ION/ION2 platform. What is means is that Tegra 2 is effectively an MCP capable of pantsing your netbook in fixed function applications. It’s capable of encoding and decoding 1080p h.264. It’s really hard to put this device in perspective – considering it combines the PC hardware of ~2006 into a single chip package smaller than an after-8 chocolate. Nvidia even claims it’s capable of 140 hours of audio and 16 hours of HD video playback! What size battery would that be?

If you ever find yourself at a trade show and see Nvidia’s booth, make sure and take Tegra 2 for a spin. Then ask yourself why this device isn’t integrated into every facet of your mobile computing life. Is it price? Is it IC politics? Probably a combination of the 2 – our guess is a similar situation as to why we don’t see ION in more netbooks – Intel supremacy.

One thing is for certain, Tegra 2 packs alot of punch. It’s combined architecture means your PCB requires less. Mobility enabling Semiconductor’s are becoming heavily integrated platforms which can both reduce cost and design effort.

The future is exciting. We can’t wait to grab one of these devices!

@DrWreck