Ah yes the BlackBerry Tour 9630 – RIM’s answer via Sprint and Verizon to the very successful Bold (available on GSM networks).

Design wise, the Tour shares similarity with all 3 of the current and very successful BlackBerry devices available on the market. It’s got the shape of the storm, the screen of the 8900 and the keyboard of the Bold. In Dr.Wreck’s humble opinion, this device takes all of best physical design features from the current roster tosses them in a pot and mixes up a delicious cup of chowder. This device has good weight, good size and good functionality (screen, keyboard, software).

Alot of you have had difficulties with the trackball. Luckily RIM has disbanded this gosh-forsaken mechanically unstable and frequently unreliable piece of junk for the new optical trackpad we see on the Gemini and the newly announced 9700. Gone are the days of blowing on your trackball in hopes that a gust of bad breath can fix it!

Dr.Wreck has gone ahead and ripped this thing apart to perform a  full teardown and analysis. Click through for all the juicy details!

The first step to taking your Tour apart is to remove the  battery cover and battery. There you will see 4 hex bolts embedded in the plastic frame. Grab your T6 for the best fit. Remove all 4 screws but take note, the screw about midway up the right side of device has a white sticker covering it.

After you remove the screws, you are NOT ready to pull this cover off. Don’t pull, pry push or break.. There are six screws holding the device together – the top two are hidden and getting to these can be somewhat difficult.

To get to these well hidden monsters, you need to pry away the plastic piece with the BlackBerry logo and earpiece grating. Dr.Wreck uses a staple remover for all of his leveraging needs – he recommends you do the same.

This piece is adhered with double sided tape. Pry it away but be careful not to crack the plastic!

Voila! Now use your T6 to remove the screws you just found underneath – pull away the rear cover and reveal the PCB!

It’s important to keep in mind that your PCB won’t look like Dr.Wreck’s. In order to identify all of the integrated circuits we had to remove all of the “cans” (Metal shields) that provide heat and ESD shielding. Removing these shields is a bit of an art, we’ll keep that secret to Dr.Wreck’s dainty hands!

You can now pop off the flex cable tabs like Dr.Wreck is in the image above. These connectors are fairly robust however – delicacy should be practiced. You will also need to pop off the antenna which is located at the top right of the PCB.

You should now be able to flip the PCB vertically to reveal the underside (where the real brains are!). There are 3 flex cables attached to the PCB. These are used for The LCD, Trackball and keyboard. Pop them off to fully remove the PCB!

This is a good point to discuss the design of this device further. RIM has opted for a “floating” PCB design. This both saves money and makes these devices MUCH easier to take apart and service. The drawback is with the trackball (which we will see/discuss in a moment).

As soon as you pry away the chrome, face-plate and device border, the keyboard and track ball fall apart. This is where the design flaw lies that has created a massive warranty issue for the carriers. On the bold, the entire track-ball module clips into the PCB via a small malleable metal frame. This piece was totally discarded on the tour and consequently the ball more or less floats inside of the device.

If your trackball stops working, put a thumb on either side of the module and press firmly and evenly across the front of the device. This should reset everything and temporarily let you use the device again.

The Bringer of Pain

Now – for the reason you’ve all been reading – the Teardown Analysis.  What devices make this puppy tick?! Check out the functional block diagram below.

At the core we once again have the Qualcomm MSM7600 which provides both the Baseband and Application management functionality. Not surprisingly, this is the very same core that resides in the current BlackBerry Storm. As a matter of fact, when we look further we see many other shared ICs from the same Qualcomm reference design. These include the Qualcomm PM6658 for Power Management, the RTR6500 Dual-Band Transceiver and RTR6285 RF Transmitter.

It looks as if RIM went away from CSR for bluetooth with it’s decision to use the Samsung BTTM53C2RA chipset. This ia not entirely the case. Delving into our resources reveal the same CSR core, disguised in a Wafer-Level-Chip Scale Package.

Looking even further we see the same USB Phy from SMSC coupled with the now BlackBerry standard MicroUSB port.

Unfortunately the 9630 falls a fair amount short of the mark in the memory category. Sporting the ever-common Samsung MCP K5W2G1, we note that it only has a 2Gb OneNAND coupled with the 1Gb SDRAM. This falls short of the Storm however the phone really does perform admirably well – under almost every benchmark test we could subject it to (with the exception of sideloading).

And that’s all she wrote! Any comments, or questions – feel free to pop them into the comment section below! Dr.Wreck is going to be spending some time with  two new devices over the next few days.  Stay tuned for lot’s of data!

-Dr. Wreck

Dr.Wreck loves his BlackBerry devices. So much so, he’s rounded up every one money can currently *legally* buy (and is worth actually buying).

Our BlackBerry Bold vs. BlackBerry storm review from last Fall was a smashing success. We figured we’d one up it and review the whole darn shootin’ match!

What we’ve got here is the current purchasable flagship BlackBerry devices:

BlackBerry 9000 Black (Bold)

BlackBerry 9530 (Storm)

BlackBerry 9630 (Tour)

BlackBerry 8900

In keeping with tradition, we’ll stick to the facts and start off with a pure technical comparison between all of the devices.

Technical Specifications

As we mentioned before, the lack of inclusion of WiFi within the storm and Tour are well documented as mandates from the carriers rather than the RIM itself. It’s easy to tell – I mean in this day and age, why would anyone hoping to launch a device with competitive technical specifications even hope to remain in the heat without wifi?

It’s simple really – WiFi on a BlackBerry is useless without a dataplan – most apps require a direct connection with RIM’s NOC (Network Operation Centre) to even consider allowing you to use it.

We’ve seen many devices before on Qualcomm’s MSM 7600 platform (Storm) using WiFi, there’s no excuse. Thanks to rave reviews from consumers though it looks as if WiFi will be present on the all new and much approved (Dr.Wreck got to play with one!) Storm 2.

Winner: Tour(ish)?

Browsers

BlackBerry devices to date have not been very well known for their browsers. I mean, the browsing experience is OK, but nothing to write home about and the one thing that ALL of your iPhone toting friends always BRAG about. We took the liberty of putting each BlackBerry through a tests with some of our favourite and most visited websites.

Bold – 4.6.x

Storm – 4.7.x

Tour – 4.7.x

8900 – 4.7.x

Web Browsing Benchmarks

The results are pretty bang on with what we expected. Unfortunately alot of the network speeds rely on the provider – we can’t really officially comment on what technology/provider we think is best but this chart makes a pretty solid point. It’s also hard to contend the 8900 as it really is only a 2.5G device. We’ve heard rumours and seen benchmarks that show the improved 8900 browser as being capable of near 3G BlackBerry speeds. Unfortunately, this table does alot to disprove those previous theories.

Note: Please keep in mind the disclaimer attached to this benchmark. These devices were all connected to active networks and the attempt was made to ensure all tests were in full-bar/full-coverage atmospheres.

Winner: Bold – 3G on AT&T

Camera

We know the Bold camera is a little bit sloppy. The storm is well known to produce decent pictures. At a glance:

Bold – 1600x 1200

Storm – 2048 x 1536

Tour – 2048 x 1536

8900 – 2048 x 1536

The details should be in these numbers. If you want high quality photos, stay away from the bold.

Loser: Bold

Sideloading

Dr.Wreck HATES waiting for his stuff to load. Let’s put his issue in perspective:

You use your device as an media player. That means, on the commute to work you listen to music/watch movies, at work you listen to music/watch movies (…), when you work-out you listen to music, and when you commute home you listen to music/watch movies. The device plays a massive part in your productivity and energy for the day. Now let’s say you just purchased/borrowed some new music/movies and your morning schedule is so efficient that you have only a few seconds to load up the new medias. It’s amazing how much speed difference there is between these devices. In fact, the sideloading speed of a device is the most MANDATORY decision making criteria for our beloved Doctor.

Let’s see how these thangs stacked up:

It’s no surprise the Bold performed well and the Storm – not so much. We weren’t expecting the Tour (our new device) to have Storm-esque performance as well. As we already new, the 8900 kicked butt.

Dr.Wreck is fairly puzzled by this phenomena. The GSM devices COOKED! What’s holding up the CDMA platforms?!

Winner: Bold & 8900 (Tie!)

Keyboard/Typing

Dr.Wreck has extensive experience with the Bold keyboard – it’s his weapon of choice. That said, before the Bold was the curve – so the keyboard on the 8900 feels great in his hand.

RIM makes a solid PHYSICAL keyboard. We’re not even going to talk about the storm here – we’ve tried it – it’s terrible, RIM has fixed it. End of story.

The Tour is something kinda new though. At first glance, it looks like a Bold keyboard, but when compared side to side it’s significantly smaller. Dr.Wreck’s massive thumbs quivered with anxiety when he first noticed this.

BALLER Keyboard

HOWEVER, the keys are actually separately lifted so it actually feels MORE natural than the Bold! Within 5 minutes of texting Dr.Wrecks massive quantity of 5 friends (Ms.Wreck, Momma Wreck and Poppa Wreck included) he was cooking that PCB with intense speed! IF you want a physical keyboard, nothing compares to the BlackBerry Tour.

Winner: Tour

Media Playback

It goes without saying, the Javelin and Tour share the same screen. They are bright vibrant and of the highest pixel density.

That said, no external speaker matches the Bold. Now with THAT said, most people using these phones for media playback or handsfree use them in conjunction with the BlackBerry headset that is shipped with the device. Dr.Wreck’s audiophile ears could hear little discernible difference from the audio codecs.

RIM has come a long way with it’s built in media player on the BlackBerry products.

Conclusion

BlackBerry currently has some great devices on the track with some even cooler ones in the stable (Bold 9700, Storm 2 included). Which one is best for you? The decision comes down to your usage habits. The overall size of these devices is similar but the compact and delicious design of the Tour (which will be discussed in our soon to launch Tour Teardown) make it the device for Dr.Wreck.

Look at those backsides!

That’s about it for this cat! Stay eloquent and until next time Keep on Wrecking!

-Dr.Wreck

The phone itself (in it’s fully functional and intact form) got a mediocre review at best. We’re wondering if it was due to limitations in the OS/form factor or if it was a larger issue stemming from economy hardware.

Of course, we didn’t really wonder for very long – we ripped it apart!

As you can probably see from the above diagram – this is not a very complex phone. Sharp really made use of the features embedded within Qualcomm’s renowned 7201A core.

The 7201A is a 15×15mm CSP chip that performs as a  Baseband and Applications core and supports WCDMA/HSUPA and EGPRS networks. The Apps side pushes 526MHz and the Baseband hits roughly 256MHz. This package covers alot of ground with it’s integrated A-GPS (gpsOne), Camera controller and Audio Codec. The entire design (PMIC and RF Transceiver) includes Bluetooth connectivity and a USB transceiver.

These all-in-one design solutions are great for ODM’s but often do not compete with the highest ranked IC’s in terms of end-user functionality. This is perhaps why I had so much difficulty loading up my classical.

PCB top

The PCB for this device seems to be structural and as such seems a little disorganized. This is only when compared to devices that have much smaller PCBs that pack way more functionality such as the Omnia we previously took apart. In this case, the power amp win goes to Skyworks with the SKY77336. The PMIC and Bluetooth IC both go to Qualcomm with the PM7540 (integrated USB transceiver) and BTS 4020 respectively. The main section of the PCB is show on the right. Here is an image of the other side where the Bluetooth chip is visible:

The bottom of the Sidekick LX's PCB

As can be seen above, the main memory win went to Samsung with the K5E2GIGACM which features 2Gb of Nand and 1Gb of DRAM. The USB PHY belongs to SMSC and what we believe to be the USB3326 part we’ve previously found in both the X1 and G1.

At the end of the day,  the T-mobile Sidekick LX is an average device. It has some powerful hardware but doesn’t exactly innovate or open any new doors.

That said, the device is marketed to young folk who will eventually genetically evolve into beings with massive sidekick worthy texting thumbs. The skin customization tools on T-mobiles website are nothing short of impressive.

One discussion I feel worth having is about the long term evolution of device hardware. Are we slowly experiencing a convergence to integrated solutions or is mobile computation infinitely bound to discrete hardware (in the highest level of course). Are integrated solutions cutting costs at the expense of performance? Feel free to share you opinions in the comments below!

If you haven’t yet, make sure and check out the product review!

-Dr.Wreck

T-Mobiles "17th" version of the sidekick.

Ah, the original sidekick – one of the most revolutionary devices of it’s time bringing a full-qwerty keyboard to the texting masses.

Currently there is the LX and the standard. In the past we’ve seen the Tony Hawk edition, the older LX, the colour, the II, the 3, the II juicy, the d-wade 3, the Diane von Furstenberg 3, the iD, the slide and the original.

That’s alot of sidekicks! The bloodlines of this device trace back to 2003 -  before Dr.Wreck was barely a twinkle in Mister and Missus Wreck’s eye!

What we have here ladies and gentlemen is the Sidekick LX. A rehash of the original LX circa 2007. Over the years the T-Mobile Sidekick seems to have been a very successful handset for the carrier, appearing in the hands of many A-list celebrities. We’re hoping this teardown can get Dr.Wreck into some of those fantastic hollywood parties.

In popular media, the sidekick has more cameo’s then Will Farrell. Let’s see how it actually stacks up!

The Goods

Sharp has stuck with the classic design. The Sidekick was revolutionary in 2003, and many manufacturers have copied the form factor over the past 6 years.

This is a good thing – they haven’t revolutionized, more or less just modernized something tried and tested.

Moreover, the device isn’t overly heavy (we’ll get to the overall size later…) it feels solid and well built in our hands. Dr.Wreck has recently been taking measures to boost his testosterone levels – he didn’t manage to break this thing in half during a week of hard use. Consider that a good sign.

The mechanism that slides and rotates is pretty sweet too – once you figure out how to properly use it and not get your fingers in the way – unfortunately this takes awhile.

The screen is also mighty sharp at 854×480 and only 3.2”. That blows away what we’ve seen from the latest gen BlackBerry, and iPhone.

Kickbutt screen on the Sidekick

On T-mobiles 3G network it feels snappy – it’s just … what is there to do on this device?

The So-so

Dr.Wreck would call this a feature phone (not a smart phone) even though this baby retails for $449.99 without contract. This works out to $174.99 on a standard term. When compared to the 199.99 you’d shell out for the mytouch 3G this seems a tad much.  Especially considering the non-contract hardware only retail cost of that device is $499.99

Don’t get us wrong, if you want a texting, “browsing”, media and gaming device that’s simple and doesn’t have a whole whack of flexibility – this device is for you. We’d put it a similar category with the Motorola Krave or Glyde. The difference of course is that these devices have touch-screens and cost the same or less…. bummer.

That's a massive keyboard!! Check out those toe thumbs!

The keyboard would have to fall under this category as well. Similar to the palm pre, the buttons are actually a sticker that goes over the pop keys. There is minimal feedback when they are pressed and the spacing is big… almost too big. Typing on this thing will really have you fingers stretching all over the place. Thankfully, Dr.Wreck has toe-thumbs and didn’t find it overly strenous to type.

Based on the size and UI/controls layout, this device has to making of creating a fabulous gaming experience. Let’s hope some devs take advantage of this a create something fun to keep us entertained.

The Ugly

This device is massive, easily dwarfing the recent BlackBerry Bold in comparison (the biggest device we have). Sure, it’s thin and light but this thing isn’t much smaller than a PSP for gosh sakes!

The Bold is a BIG device... doesn't say much for the LX

One really weak point on this device is the calling function. To make a call you have to flip open the screen to dial. Once the screen is open you punch the numbers in and then put it to your ear. Wait, the screen is in the way. Ok, let’s just close it then. Just as you’re about to close it, it snaps back open again – so you try again – and again – and…. oh wait almost got it… again. By this time the person you called is on the line listening to you struggle with your phone. They’ll probably hear a string of curses by the time you even say “Hello?”. Of course, things like this take practice – just like juggling 4 torches – blindfolded – in a strong wind.

Flip to Dial

The last thing Dr. Wreck wanted to test on this phone before giving it the teardown was it’s ability to transfer/play music. The media player is so-so, it works fine. The biggest qualm we ended up having was in the speed of file transfer. Dr.Wreck is a busy person and enjoys his classical like any other. At most, he received 2.9MB/s when transferring a bunch of .mp3’s. Compare that to the BlackBerry Bold at almost 15MB/s – good gravy!

That’s it for the review folks! The results are in, stay tuned for the teardown!

Final Score: 6.25 out of 10 chances you get the screen closed in time to pick up your phone calls.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, check out the teardown!

CNET Score: 3.5/5

FreakGrades – User score: 7.4

FreakGrades – Expert score: 7.5

So here it is, the much awaited Palm Pre.   Dr. Phone and Dr. Wreck have been following the handset industry from the days of the so cool Zack Morris brick phone (which we were happy to see once again appear on a recent episode of Jimmy Fallon) to the astronomically popular Motorola Razr, all the way through the Apple iPhone.  Its not even hyperbole to say that at no time ever has one single phone meant more to a company than the Pre does to Palm.  With the Research In Motion branded Blackberry redefining the smart phone by its Pearl, Curve, Bold and Storm entries, and Apple setting the gold standard for all smart phones by its introduction into the market with the iPhone, the Sunnyvale, CA based Palm had become a distant afterthought.  For years the company struggled along rumors of being bought out or broken apart culminating with the stock price reaching an all time low of $1.42 in December of 2008.   But then, with the announcement and demo of the Pre at the January 2009 CES in Las Vegas, the company built back enough momentum to inject energy into the Palm brand.   The phoneWreck team has been waiting anxiously to review the Pre and promises to break down every nook and cranny of this monumental phone.  As always, we will call it like we see it, and promise to pull no punches so enough of this nostalgia already and in the words of the immortal Michael Buffer, “LETS GET READY TO RUMBBBBBLE!!”  Ding. Ding.

Palm Pre Review

We pay homage to the great Clint Eastwood in this review by going through “Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo” for those of you who don’t parlarano italiano that means “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”

This phone was filled with plenty of Goods but also some Bad’s and Ugly’s. At times while reviewing the phone it almost seemed like a phone that didn’t have too much middle ground.

The Goods

Oh where to start?

First lets start with the looks and form factor of the phone.  Image is everything and this phone does not disappoint.  The phone has very sleek curved lines and a glossy look to it.  Mrs. Phone also pointed out that the backside when slid up has a nice little mirror for taking pictures, or doing your hair while talking on the speaker phone and driving!!! (and some of you wonder how we got the name phoneWreck, sigh).  Dr. Phone always likes to judge how good a phone looks by how many double takes he gets when walking into a club while pretending to talk on his brand new phone, and of course Mrs. Phone isn’t around.

Double-Take Rating**: 8 Double Takes Out of 10!!*

* Note this number may vary based on alcohol consumption, lighting, and other factors.

**Scale – Dr. Phone normally gets 0 double takes from 10 women so this is purely the phone and only the phone

Mrs. Phone's favourite phone mirror!

Additionally, as stated in the hardware review, the phone fits into your hand nicely, both its weight and width make it easy to slide into your pocket.

So the thing that was most surprising to the team at phoneWreck was the Touch Screen.

Most other models we have reviewed or torn apart (Omnia, HTC Touch Pro, Krave) use “resistive touch” which means you physically have to press on the screen in order for it to recognize your finger.  Other phones we reviewed like the Storm or iPhone use capacitive sensing algorithms which sense when your finger actually touches the screen and are much easier to use.   Still, as we mentioned in the Storm review we found the touch to be slow, the touch sensitivity not accurate, and no capabilities to press on multiple points in the screen at the same time.  The Palm AMAZED us with its accurate and easy to use multi-touch ability.  Kudos to them for getting it right finally!  We are not saying this is the holy grail of touch screens but is a 10x improvement over Storm/iPhone and 100x over Omnia and resistive touch.

Without showing a video of some of the very cool things you can do with the touch like expanding, condensing photos (or even maps on Google, or web pages) with two finger gesturing, you will not be able to fully grasp how cool this feature is!  Below are charts from the instruction manual on the gesturing just so you have an idea:

Touch-Screen Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Screen Review:

This is a difficult one to review.  The Bold, Storm, iPhone, Pre all have very comparable HVGA (320×480) HVGA 24-bit color screens.  The Pre screen size is at a very decent 3.1 inches and is made by Sony.  The screen looks amazing, and backlight is very bright so the image really shines off of the phone.  Dr. Phone is not a videophile but likes this screen a lot.

Screen Rating: 9 out of 10

Other cool features:

The internal accelerometer senses when you flip the screen to panorama, and 180 degrees so it changes the images in photo, web browser, main screen, etc….   Seeing that the movie Bruno is coming out very soon starring Sacha Baron Cohen, we thought we’d do a little Borat and say VERY NICE!!!

The phone when connected through USB is recognized automatically by iTunes so if this is your method of choice to transfer music (its not ours) you can use this utility.

Cut and Paste!!! (Apple took almost 2 years to release this for iPhone).

3.5mm headphone jack, it sounds cheesy but some phones don’t even support a standard headphone jack but its good to see has one does without doing some proprietary headphone rip-off scheme.

Internet Browser:

The Blackberry browser has been much maligned in reviews, but we chose to use the Blackberry Bold browser since it was easy to configure in WiFi and Over the Air in both Java and non-Java modes. We hear that the Palm browser is based off Webkit which also powers the Safari browser on the iPhone and on PCs.  Aesthetically speaking the Palm browser formatted images much better and pages looked far superior to that of the Bold.  In addition the brilliant touch adds a lot of pros here by being able to scroll much easier and zoom in and out with ease.  The quick refresh and back button are a nice feature and in order to enter in your next address you begin typing on the keyboard and that’s it.   Unlike the iPhone, you get to see the entire screen while you are typing in the next webpage.   Palm has really made a nice browser here.

Lets take a look at the speeds using three of the phoneWreck’s team favorite sites and each companies respective sites.

Browser Loading Benchmarking:

Bold Browser: 4.6.0.167

Pre Browser: 1.0.2

Using WiFi:

Clearly the WiFi browsing on the Palm Pre is not only better looking but faster as well.   Java scripts are running much better on the Palm Pre.

Network Browsing:

Okay so this one we know that the browser on the Pre is faster but we wanted to see how the Sprint EV-DO Rev. A (DORA) network stacked up against the AT&T 3G WCDMA Network:

The above numbers tell an interesting story.  It seems that the Sprint DORA network is slowing down the loading of pages on Pre, but by very little margin over the WiFi which means it is closely matching the internet speed at the phoneWreck lab.  On the other hand the Bold WiFi numbers closely match the numbers of the AT&T 3G network which indicates the browser formatting is probably what is the bottleneck in loading pages, not data acquisition.

This round goes to the Pre without question!!!  The inaugural phoneWreck Kelly Slater internet surfing trophy goes to the Palm Pre.  Surfs up bro.

Internet Surfing Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Camera Review:

Its hard to really compare against some of the super high-end camera phones that are coming out with 8.1 MP cameras but it should be fair to compare against similar type phone like Bold/Storm/iPhone.  The Pre (1520×2032) is capable of higher resolution pictures than the Bold (1200×1600) and is roughly similar to that of the Storm (1536×2048).

Below is a comparison of images between the Bold and Pre:

BlackBerry Bold

Palm Pre

BlackBerry Bold

PalmPre

The above pictures really show the Pre having a more colorful, vibrant and sharper image.  The good thing about the Bold is the fact that it allows you to choose between resolutions, effects, and specific types of flash modes, where as the Pre only gives you control over the flash.   The Pre however makes you feel like you can take pictures as fast as your finger presses the button, which is a great feature and a testament to how fast the image processing is working on the Pre..

Camera Rating:  8.5 out of 10

Operating System Review:

The much talked about webOS!  This operating system is unique and yet probably the closest thing you will see to a PC’s operating system in the sense that it lets you keep as many applications open as the Operating System can handle and as many web browsers as you’d like.  The people at Palm call an open application a “card” for the cool way that it appears on the main screen.  We tried to push the Palm Pre to the limit to see how many cards (applications) we could have open at the same time without slowing down the OS.  We got up 16 (1 YouTube,1 Google Maps, 2 Telephone Prompts, 3 Webpages, 1 video camera mode, 2 camera modes, 1 calculator, 1 notepad, 1 task taker, 1 world clock, 1 calendar, and 1 e-mail) before we quit because the OS still did not slow down.  Very impressive! The ease of switching between the apps is the swipe of a finger left or right, and the ability to close an app is about as simple as swiping your finger up, to fling the app off the screen!!  The webOS is perfect for multitasking is probably the single largest advancement over ANY phone in the market today. Superb job of really understanding how to make an OS easy to use, and to allow users to flip between their favorite applications rather than closing one down and having to open another.   The OS from our time playing with it seemed to be very stable and bug free.

webOS Rating:  10 out of 10!!!!

The Bads

There are so many items on this phone that show that Palm really took their time, with prepared, well thought out features that it was surprising to see so many things that made the phoneWreck team scratch their head.  This phone really appeals to the consumer market and we understand that, but Palm’s core audience has always been the business user as well, which we think they may have turned off with a couple of key features.

The slider button on the top of the phone for muting for instance, is something that is hard to slide especially in the middle of a conference call or in a split instance if you need to talk to someone else.  Why not use a simple push button like the Blackberries.

The speaker, and speaker phone are sub-par.   The Bold really became the phone to beat here, but the Pre doesn’t compete against a Curve, or even and iPhone with its speaker phone.   Not to mention the speaker design on the back looks like its straight out of an 1980’s tape player.

We commend Palm for putting a keyboard on the Pre unlike the iPhone.  The touch screen is so good you could easily get away with using a touch keyboard on the Pre, however it would take away from the ability of viewing the entire screen.  Having said that, the keyboard is way below average comparing it to other keyboards on the market.  Once again Blackberries set the bar high on keyboards, but Palm’s choice to keep their old Centro/Treo keyboard was not a wise move.  The keys feel really slippery, don’t depress much and are very close together.  A nightmare for Dr. Phone who suffers from FFS, and no that’s not a fatal disease, its Fat Finger Syndrome!

Its U.S Open time for Golf so we wanted to type the following sentence in both the Bold and Pre and compare time and errors:

“Unlike Thursday, Friday offered no rain. And by the time the first 78 players had finished the first round, the sun came out and offered up a nice day on a still-saturated course, Tiger Woods who played seven holes of the first round in Thursday’s rain and shot an opening-round 74, tried to downplay the effect of the tee times. But it was clear afterward that those in his predicament got the worst of the situation.”

The above was typed three times on each device and an average was calculated.   The above contains multiple numbers, capitalizations and punctuations which also needed to be correct, as if I was a business user typing an important e-mail to a CEO.

In addition to making over two times the amount of errors Dr. Phone typed almost two times slower.  The keyboard could certainly be easier to use.

Keyboard Rating:  6 out of 10 (we give credit for at least having one)

The Uglys

USB Sideloading

The phoneWreck readers are very intelligent, but we believe everything on the Pre phone should be consistent with its OS and Web Browsing and simple to use.  That’s why we were surprised to plug in the phone to the USB port on our computer (note without iTunes) and see the below:

Luckily, because of Dr. Wreck’s teardown review we now realize the OMAP 3430 is handling the High-Speed USB (hardly fast as you will see).  The average user might go cross-eyed seeing the above.  We expected to plug in the phone and have it look like a thumb drive.  The Bold phone does this and were surprised not to see this easy option on the Pre right away.  Okay so we eventually figured out that we needed to download the “Palm Data Transfer Assistant” to move our music and movie files in “USB Drive” mode.  We think this should have been plug n’ play but we can let that go aside.  The next thing that took us by surprise is that you cannot use the phone while you transfer your movies and music files to the Pre!!!!!  The phone turns off and shows that you are in USB mode.  Neither the Bold, iPhone or Storm do this, why the Pre?!    In addition, we decided to transfer one large 1.4 GB movie file to the Pre and found that it took nearly 12 minutes.   So, before I travel I always transfer at least two movie files onto my Bold so I can play them on my plane ride.  This would take nearly 25 minutes, and 25 minutes which I can’t talk or text to my friends.  Dr. Phone’s 16 year old nephew is texting and talking constantly, he would go nuts if he couldn’t use his phone for 25 minutes, as I practically did..  Here is a side by side comparison of the Pre vs. Bold on Sideloading:

The Bold would take 3 minutes to transfer 2 movies versus 24 minutes for the Pre and You can talk on the phone and transfers files fast at the same time with the Bold, this is the way it supposed to be, a definite oversight on the Pre, especially as a multimedia smart phone!

USB Sideloading Rating: 3 out of 10 (At least it has HSUSB, that’s all we can say)

Mechanical Design

The slider mechanism is not very stable, and looks as if it could be very easily broken.  When we were first trying to get our hands on the Pre we went by several Sprint stores who had to remove the Pre displays because people and we quote “Slid the phone too much and  broke the slider.”  This is a very expensive phone, it is almost inexcusable to not have a tight sliding mechanism like the T-Mobile G1, or the Sony Xperia.  The USB mini A/B port cover also fell off Dr. Phone’s Pre after using it three times.  Mechanical design must be more robust!!

Durability Rating (as mentioned in Review Part 2):  5 out of 10

Battery Charging

Battery charging from a dead battery situation is a nightmare.  I pity anyone who is on an important call and their battery goes 100% dead because it took us almost 10-15 minutes to get this thing back from a dead battery using the wall charger.  It charges relatively quickly when the battery is not dead, and standby battery life is not to shabby at all, but the dead battery situation is a catastrophe.

Battery Charger Rating: 4 out of 10

Summary:

The phoneWreck team prides themselves on testing every phone to their limits and not giving “soft reviews” We really took this thing to the limit and we believe it actually lives up to its hype which is a hard thing to do!  This phone took several major steps forward both with the brilliant touch screen and the amazing webOS.  There was some drawbacks that like we said made us scratch our head, like the keyboard, speaker phone, USB sideloading, and mechanical design.  You’d think for a phone that holds the companies fate in their hands they would try their best to get everything perfect and not make simple correctable errors.   They spent so much time on the OS, and other features why not go out of the way to build in a nice keyboard, better audio codecs, faster USB, robust mechnical design and battery charging. Some of these items could turn off one of Palm’s core demographics – business users. We absolutely don’t want to let these negatives get in the way of an absolutely revolutionary phone.   Our numerous positives far outweigh the negatives. If you get the chance to get one on the Sprint Network please do it!! You won’t regret any dime you spent and you will love this phone.  Great work Palm, and we think your company will be fine!

Thanks for reading the review, we appreciate your support everyone, please feel free to  leave a comment.

Keep on Wrecking phone lovers!!!

Overall Rating:  9 “Pre cards” out of 10

Make sure to check out the other Palm Pre Reviews! Also, subscribe to our RSS and follow Dr.Wreck’s twitter!

The unboxing - courtesy of ifixit

Apple “surprised” us early this month with the announcement of it iPhone 3G “s”. Whenever Apple releases a new device – everyone and their brother/sister has to get involved.

Dr. Wreck is no exception and has been working hard with the gentlemen/women over at ifixit to get the skinny on the new device. Without further ado, here we go!

Explosion - courtesy of ifixit

Those Apple Engineer’s really know how to pack a PCB. They’ve managed to fit almost everything onto the “top” of the main logic board. The 3Gs’ PCB makes the 3G’s PCB look sparse (the apostrophes were probably a little bit confusing there).

Let’s take a minute here to talk about the new Applications Processor Core. Apple has chosen to go from the ARM 11 Samsung S3C6400 to the ARM A8 Samsung S5PC100 with this device.

iPhone 3Gs Block Diagram - In Progress

This is the single largest difference between the 3G and the 3Gs. Firstly the manufacturing process has been chopped from 90nm to 65nm. Pipeline depth has been boosted to 13 – stage from 8. More importantly the clock speed of this newer processor rolls in at 600MHz – opposed to the 412MHz core of the old – obsolete 3G. Samsung has also doubled the quantity of L1 cache from 16 to 32KB.

None of this even takes the new PowerVR graphics core into consideration. Apple is clearly thinking along the lines of a gaming device for this puppy. The SGX is fully programmable – like the graphics card on your PC or mac. Expect some sweet gaming action in the near future.

@ 200MHz the SGX can pop 7M triangles/second and render 250M pixels/sec. That’s roughly 7 times the performance of the old, “obsolete” MBX.

It’s kind of like comparing your old 486 to a Pentium.

Moving around the rest of the PCB – it’s easy to notice the similarities with the previous 3G device. The Power Amp wins once again went to Triquint and Skyworks. We also see the NAND flash going to Toshiba – which as far as phoneWreck is concerned is fairly surprising. The battery has been bumped from the previous 1150mAH to 1219mAH – a much needed upgrade. Only time will tell if Apple’s claim of increased battery life will hold.

Once again the psuedo SRAM win goes to Numonyx. The BaseBand Processor appears to have similar markings to the previous 3G therefore we can assume it’s an Infineon. This has been paired with the Infineon PMIC. The Applications Processor mentioned Earlier (Samsung S5PC100) is paired with a PMIC courtesy of what appears to be NXP.  It’s mounted with a DDR SDRAM coming in at 256MB.

True to form, Apple has re-branded some of the higher profile IC’s we’re very interested in. We’ll be performing some more thorough analysis further identify these. Make sure to follow Dr.Wreck’s twitter or subscribe to the RSS for updates!

Underneath the logic board we have a little surprise! A new combo chip from Broadcom (BCM4325) This puppy packs 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 (+EDR and FM).  This is a fairly substantial change from the Marvel and CSR combo on the old – obsolete 3G.

We’ve received some rumours and speculation about the other devices we weren’t able to ID. There is a guess from a few readers that the GPS chip may be the same as on the previous 3G – the Infinieon Hammerhead II. This may be true but the new package is a different size – this means that it could incorporate the compass hardware as well.

That said, we’ve had some rumours that the compass chip is the  Asahi Kasei – AK8973. We’ll still have to do some more digging!

We’re currently in the process of performing a much more thorough analysis. Keep checking back for more details as they come – we’ll most likely be putting  this device through it’s paces to see how it stacks up with the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Bold & Storm.

Thanks again to the wonderful people at ifixit for gracing us with these great photos! If you want to see how it’s taken apart, make sure to check out their teardown.

Stay tuned and keep wrecking!

Dr.Wreck

As promised, we’re coming at you with the second part of our analysis of the Palm Pre from Sprint. This time, we’ll be talking about the specifics of the form-factor design. What we like, what we don’t like and what is merely – satisfactory.

This review will be a good compliment to what ifixit has already done. Also, make sure an checkout our hardware analysis and UI Review!

So without further ado, we present you the Palm Pre Design Analysis!

Overall

The Palm Pre feels good in your hand and is much smaller than the Doctor’s weapon of the choice – The BlackBerry Bold.

In the next review, we’ll see how it stacks up to this device in terms of performance.

The Pre definitely has a minimalist design. To us, it’s shape resembles the perfect skipping stone… an expensive skipping stone at that. One thing this device definitely has is curves. The screen isn’t made of glass which may have been a cost cutting decision. However from a design perspective, this allowed Palm to shape and flex the screen around the chassis of the device which creates a genuinely sexy look. Unfortunately, as with all plastic screen covers, we’re skeptical about how it will resist scratches.

Smudge Magnet

One thing we’re used to seeing as of late is the faux/real metal border surrounding the device. This is a ploy often used by ODM’s to make the device looks smaller in your hand. Fortunately for Palm, this device is already quite small – this might reduce the devices resistance to drops and scratches though.

Cosmetically speaking, the all black look is definitely attractive and leaves the door open to many future colour options which we’re sure we’ll soon see.

Moving around the edge of the device, things are once again kept very simple – there is only one flap, the one that exists for the  microUSB port. It is flat and flush with the body – a very suprising and clever design move for Palm.

That door is flush.

Of course, there is no external (or internal) slot for removable storage. This thing comes packed with 8GB of internal memory – which as any iPhone user knows, isn’t a whole lot. At least we got a removable battery right? Dr.Wreck is calling future versions with 16-32GB of internal storage – mark his words.

Keyboard/Sliding Mechanism

The Palm keyboard we're so used to seeing

On the outward, this device doesnt feel like it has a keyboard – it’s so small and fits so nicely in our hands! In reality it probably feels like this as the keyboard is fairly small and shall we say… flimsy. The sliding mechanism feels solid although not as smooth as the Xperia’s which we previousely took apart.

The keyboard is the same as previous Palm devices – small and hard to press with anything but your nails. Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs and as such found it difficult to hit the buttons. Moreover, the space between the top keys and the device is fairly small… stay tuned for some speed typing benchmarking.

Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs

As we started taking it apart, we revealed the sliding mechanism. We also peeled the keyboard off (turns out the keys are just a sticker with gelled buttons).

The leaf spring

Looking closer at the sliding mechanism, we can see there are two tracks. The entire device has a slight curve which allows the keboard to slide out and toward the user – a very cool and useful feature. There is a small leaf spring which helps pop the keypad into place but is not too loose or too resistive. That said, Dr. Wreck is also abnormally strong… which is also probably why he didn’t experience any binding.

The two tracks (phone is in closed position)

Back Cover/Touchstone Charging Kit

The back cover is suprisingly easy to remove – although with no removable storage or SIM card, there is very little reason to remove it – unless of course you got yourself the Touchstone Charging Kit. If you purchased the kit, you need to put the new backcover on. At this point, Dr.Wreck wanted to give a science lesson on inductive coupling. We figured that might be a little bit boring and decided to forgo it. That said, it charges the same way as your electric toothbrush and isn’t really that ground-breaking – unless of course you consider this as the first time it’s been implemented on a mobile phone.

Touchstone Charger and Touchstone Cover

It’s worth mentioning that the touchstone cover has a matte finish while the original cover is glossy. The glossy cover looks nice but is slippery and susceptible to smudges and scratches. We prefer the matte touchstone cover.

Conclusion

In conclusion this phone is fairly well built and very well designed. If you’re a sprint customer looking for an upgrade, without a doubt this is the phone to choose. If your thinking of switching carriers to get this phone we suggest you try before you buy.

First Impressions: 9

Build Quality: 8

Estimate on Durability: 5

Keypad/Interface devices: 7

That’s it that’s all! In the meantime, subscribe to our RSS, watch Dr.Wreck’s Twitter and check out the Pre’s hardware review and UI Review!

Keep WRECKING!

Dr. Wreck

If you haven’t had a chance yet, make sure to check out our Sprint Palm Pre design analysis! Check out the UI Review!

Note: Most images are courtesy of www.ifixit.com

Here it is, the phone we’ve been ramping up for since it was first unveiled earlier this year.

This puppy has been touted by many as the venerable iPhone killer. Here at phonewreck, we’ll be taking this thing through it’s paces over the weekend and the next few days in order to give you, our readers a proper review that includes benchmarks for all of the functions this device can perform.

Make sure and keep it locked on www.phonewreck.com as we continue to put our Palm Pre from Sprint under the wrecking ball.

Fortunately for you guys, we had a chance to work with the gentlemen/women over at ifixit to get some high quality images of the PCB. These people  really have their stuff together and resorted at nothing to be the first with a fully documented teardown of both the pre and the pre touchstone charger.

Anyways, enough rambling from us – we know why you guys are here. Time to get our hands dirty and see what makes the pre hummmmmmmmm.

Oh and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS to keep posted as the updates come!

There are some pretty interesting things that popped up on the Pre’s PCB’s. This is the first production device we’ve seen on the OMAP3 (Open Media Applications Processor) platform. OMAP3 is powered by the 600MHZ ARM Cortex A8, PowerVR SGX 530 (GPU), 430MHz C64x, DSP and ISP (Image Signal Processor) and was clearly designed to pack a punch – Dr. Wreck thinks we’re going to see this processor popping up in future netbook endeavours.

On the connections side we see the usual wifi/bluetooth combo going to Marvell and CSR with the W8686 and 63823 respectively. We also see the BaseBand win going to Qualcomm with the heavily integrated MSM6801A platform. The OMAP3 PMIC comes loaded with a USB tranceiver and Audio codec which even further reduces the overall board density of this device. We’re not fully sure – but it looks as if the Pre’s cool new multi-touch Touch Screen Controller win went to Cypress Semiconductor with the CP6944BA device.

The device packs a 1150mAh battery – just like the iPhone 3G.

More Info after the Break!

On the top of the communications board we can spot the BaseBand Processor (Qualcomm MSM6801A), SDRAM, RF power amp and Duplexer by TriQuint.

On the bottom of the communications board we can spot the BaseBand PMIC (Maxim MAX8695Q), RF Transmitter (RFT6150) and the RF Tranceiver (RFR6500) both by Qualcomm.

On the main logic board, we see the OMAP3 PMIC – the Texas Instruments TWL5030. As mentioned before, this PMIC is packed with a USB Traceiver as well as Audio Codec. We also see the Bluetooth and Wifi Tranceivers with the earlier discussed wins from both Marvell and CSR. This device contains a microUSB port and 8GB of internal memory from Samsung.

Elpida offers up some mobile DDR memory and is stacked on top of the venerable OMAP3 processor. We’ll have to wait and see how this thing benchmarks.

And there you have it! Thanks again to ifixit for the wonderful teardown scans and images. Make sure and pop over there if you want to see how they took it apart!

Keep posted as we plan on continually releasing Palm Pre content over the next week!

Until next time, Keep WRECKING and make sure to grab our RSS and follow Dr.Wreck on Twitter! Also be sure to check out our Palm Pre Design analysis or UI review!

For full teardown analyses, bill of materials, and high-resolution pictures, hit up the wiki: http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Omnia_i910

The Samsung Omnia is not a “new” device – we had one lying around and all the hype surrounding the fresh Omnia HD had us thinking we might as well break it open to see what makes it hum. The verdict? You’ll have to read on. Simply said however, this device was built for function.

At a time when everybody and their brother/sister seems to be creating an iPhone clone, the Samsung Omnia came out as a fully featured device to meet the requirements and fill the voids that exist in Apples highly acclaimed platform. Man, is this thing packed with features… Let’s see how it stacks up from a design perspective.

Samsung Omnia Review

Greats

The Samsung Omnia is a well built device but it’s no Xperia. Unlike most of the BlackBerry devices we’ve seen the chrome feature around frame of the device is actually metal – not painted plastic that scuffs and scrapes with everyday use. The battery cover and trim pieces that make up the surroundings fit within small tolerances, and there is very little give or “flexible” feeling as you use the device. The screen is resistive but doesn’t feel loose like some of the other devices we’ve seen with the same technology.

That said, you will want to use the provided stylus as most UI buttons are inherently tiny and hard to hit with a finger. More on that later.

In terms of feature set, the baby is solid. Name a function – it’s probably there. The 5MP camera and 8GB of internal storage all helps contribute to this amazing feature set.

Thankfully, Samsung has replaced some of the more arduous components of Windows Mobile with some easier to use and more powerful programs. Notably, the program launcher, browser (Opera 9.5 comes standard) and software keyboards were good selections. Samsung’s touchplayer media “centre” is also a grand improvement that ends up being a lot more finger friendly then Windows Media Player mobile.

If you’ve already taken a gander at the teardown, you’ll notice the device contains a pretty small and pretty packed PCB. One thing that Omnia really shines in when compared to other Windows Mobile Devices is its ability to easily perform tasks while surfing data or making phone-calls. Most Windows Mobile devices either don’t have this ability or really crunch when the goin’ gets tough.

So-So

Unfortunately the TouchWiz UI didn’t really tickle our fancy. The 3.2”, 240×400 screen simply isn’t big enough for all of the necessary widgets and you’ll often find yourself accidently moving the icons around the screen. Moreover, the screen seems fairly small for the overall size of the device. From an aesthetics perspective, it’s a little too tall and narrow. We found ourselves often wishing for a little bit more real-estate during typing related activities.

In another blow to the overall rating, Verizon has limited the usage of GPS within the bounds of its very own VZ Navigator software. This means that Google maps cannot determine your location – major bummer.

Another iffy sentiment is the fact that the stylus is always dangling from the phone, often scratching it up as you toss it in your pocket. The stylus is solid and feels like a high end pen in your hand, but why was there no storage built into the phone? Unfortunately it feels like a bit of an afterthought.

For typing you have a variety of options. The Samsung keyboard, Block recognizer, transcriber and more. In portrait mode, the full QWERTY is very cramped so you’re pretty much forced to use the stylus and poke out your text (similar to the way your grandpa might type). The Omnia does provide haptic feedback by means of small vibrations, but these can be slightly overwhelming and play on your nerves when things aren’t coming out the way you had expected.

The built in accelerometer also rotates the screen when you hold the phone in portrait or landscape configurations but it’s overly sensitive and can be slow to respond. When holding the phone 10 degrees from flat, it often rotates itself with slight bumps. Forget about typing a message while sitting on a bus.

The widget system is really cool, but at the moment you are limited to only Samsung’s selection of stock items. It would be nice to have some cool independently created widgets to play around with.

Gripes

What’s with the proprietary headphone/USB/Tv-out jack? It’s really cool that all of these functions are provided via a single jack, but sometimes you don’t have the specific Samsung cable handy. It’s also annoying to plug your 2.5mm headphones into an included adapter. 2.5mm? ??!!! This is like the BlackBerry of 2002!

Now that we’re on the media wagon, this thing downloads media from your PC really slow. You have an option of either ActiveSync of Mass Storage mode – neither of which don’t achieve a speed of over 3.8MB/s. ActiveSync mode is incredibly slow and barely reaches 2MB/s in its best scenario – it’s like watching paint dry. These numbers are a far cry from the BlackBerry Bold or 8900/Javelin which we’ve previously seen achieve speeds of well over 13MB/s. If you’re trying to load music in a jiffy, forget about it with the Samsung Omnia.

Conclusions

The Samsung Omnia is a solid device with a few major media hurdles holding it back from being either an iPhone or a BlackBerry. Windows Mobile inherently offers any device some difficulties in the complexities and common qualms of the platform which are hard to avoid. The Omnia has avoided this somewhat successfully by offering software alternatives out of the box.

The device is well built and the camera kicks butt, but this device “simply ain’t” your “do everything well” pocket companion…. One day, Dr. Wreck, one day…

phoneWreck Score: 7 Widgets out of 10.

Samsung Omnia Teardown

This device is well built. As such, it was a little bit tricky to take apart. Thankfully, all shielding was clip in and the device’s brains were easily revealed. Muahahahaha.

Notably, this device runs on the Qualcomm 6800A and Marvell PXA312. These devices are connected via a Cypress Dual-Port bridge and have separate Power Management Devices. Note that this PCB is impressively packed and impressively small! Another thing to point out is the presence of an SMSC USB PHY. We’ve seen these devices on a variety phones we’ve ripped apart.

Bluetooth goes to CSR and Wi-Fi to Marvell. The GPS win goes to Avago. Note the massive quintplexer!

The one thing we knew the phone had but couldn’t find was the 8GB internal memory. Where could it be? We eventually found it hiding underneath the shield covering the processor side of the PCB – very sneaky!

So there you have it! We hope this teardown helps you decide which device you want to buy! Stay tuned for more exciting stuff!

If you have any questions or comments, don’t be afraid to fire us an e-mail @ phonewreck@gmail.com, make sure and check out the wiki entry for more data!

-Dr. Wreck

For full teardown analyses, bill of materials, and high-resolution pictures, hit up the wiki: http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=BlackBerry_Curve_8900

So here’s the big kahuna, the mountain giant, the piercing javelin, if you will.  The Curve 8900 (Javelin) has done well to garner a lot of press, because it’s a well functioning BlackBerry, in a tight package, fitted with some crazy insides, yet lacks 3G.  Many people have stated how gorgeous the phone is, but they take a step back when they learn it doesn’t include a 3G radio.  How does this impact the final use of the phone?  Let’s take a look shall we?

Oh, and of course, let’s smash the darned thing while were at it (with über care, of course).  Read on!

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is an update to the BlackBerry Curve 83xx series.  Of course, ditching the traditional xx10/xx20/xx30 customs, the Javelin (easier to say than Curve 8900) includes both GPS and Wi-Fi options, similar to RIM’s recent devices.  The one we have here is actually one of the first device launches from T-Mobile in Germany, but the hardware should be exactly the same — except of course, the QWERTZ keyboard.  So without further ado, here’s the review.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 Review

Greats

First and foremost, the Curve 8900 (hereon referred to as “Javelin”) is a gorgeous device.  It’s got the same chrome trim as the Storm, relatively the same shape, and a faux-brushed-aluminum backing.  While I prefer the Storm’s actual metal backing, the Javelin makes up for this in weight.  It’s an astonishingly light device, even with the brick of a battery.  The keyboard is similar to the old Curve’s, but almost seems to fit tighter.  In reality, the size differences of the Javelin aren’t very different from the existing Curve, but gosh, the improvements to the aesthetics are amazing.

When you turn the device on (after its traditional white screen + hour glass sequence), the screen blows you away.  It’s bright, it’s clear, it’s gorgeous.  It runs the same resolution as the Bold, but in an even smaller screen.  You won’t notice the difference in pixel density (even though it’s higher on the Javelin), but heck, everything you look at becomes beautiful.

In standard RIM fashion, the keyboard is better than ever.  To the grunts of the meeting-filled corporate employee, the keyboard is a little louder than normal.  You might get looks from a few more people than you normally would with the Bold, but WOW does this thing type fast.  The distinction is clear between the Javelin and the Bold.  The Javelin sports a separated keyboard similar to the Curves, but the Bold has accented keys that are stuck together.  This is completely a subjective category, as they both type ridiculously fast.  Needless to say though, your friends better get a BlackBerry themselves if they want to catch up to you in e-mail speediness.

In terms of media playback, the phone rocks.  Everything is pretty much the same across BlackBerry’s, so what we said here and here, remains the same.  The only thing to note is that the speaker seems to be the same as the Storm’s.  In terms of sound quality and well, bulk, the Bold still dominates.  GPS navigation is simple and easy with your choice of BB Maps or Google Maps.  E-mail, calendars, and most of the rest of your applications remain the same.  In fact, the fundamentals are all here, including the most fundamental of them all: BrickBreaker.

Mellows

Although most of the apps remain the same, the real question many of you really want to know is how well the browser works.  The verdict is: it’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s definitely an improvement.  The browser seems to handle Javascript a little better than its predecessors, but for regular use, you still want it off.  CrackBerry had a great posting on the Javelin’s browser times.  They’ve shown that the improvements to the Javelin’s browser are pretty darn significant.  So much so that it nearly compares to the Bold’s 3G speeds even though its on EDGE.  Another interesting thing is the new cursor movements.  Before, you had to run your thumb down the trackball dozens of times just to scroll through a website.  To the delight of those who needed treatment for “BlackBerry Thumb“, the new system has an accelerated trackball motion that lets you move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other side in a quick flick.

The camera implementation on this phone is also decent.  While it won’t replace a good point and shoot, the 3.2MP camera with auto-focus generally fits the bill for on-the-go captures.  Our complaint with the camera is its limited zoom (digital zoom only goes to 2.0x) and the excessive effort it requires to get there.  A good long flick moves the zoom from 1.0 to 1.1.  It does take relatively good pictures in low-light however, and the capture lag time is similar to the Bold’s.

Gripes

To be honest, we’re being a little nitpicky here, but the Javelin’s battery cover is quite annoying.  It uses the same latch as the Curve’s, which isn’t really a bad thing, but the build quality of the cover is pretty crap.  The plastic back, which differs from the Storm’s metallic back, is rather flexible.  In effect, the battery cover “pops” in and out near the latch when you’re grasping it with too much force.  Perhaps it’s this particular unit, but the annoyance of a flimsy battery cover has always got to our heads.

Conclusion

The Javelin doesn’t really have too many gripes rather than the flimsy battery cover and the lack of 3G.  We didn’t include the latter, because we understood RIM’s position in marketing this as an update to the Curve — because it is a Curve.  And in fact, the improvements to the browser make the lack of 3G much more bearable.  The tight, new form factor really has us drooling though.  It’s a great device to use, and definitely tops our list of favorites for the moment.  The Javelin presents a good alternative to the faux-leather backed bigger brother, and we’re very satisfied.  Enough chit-chat though, let’s get to the goods!

phoneWreck Score: 9 trackballs out of 10

BlackBerry Curve 8900 Teardown

Here’s probably what the bulk of you came for — in fact, your eyes are probably not even reading this line.  In any case, a lot of people have been requesting for higher resolution pictures.  So ta-da!  Click on the picture for slightly higher-res marked pictures, and the links below for unmarked ones.  Hope you enjoy!

So right off the bat, much of what you see here is actually very similar to the Bold.  The most significant change is the Freescale chipset including the SC29746VK processor and the MMM7010 RF transceiver.  Skyworks takes the win for modulating power for the RF transceiver with the SKY77526.  Looking at the datasheets for these ICs, it seems as if everything was built to be as small as possible.  Judging from the main PCB and its insanely small size (shown below), our guess is that RIM is really looking to make things thinner.  The Storm had a similarly sized PCB as well.

Click here for the high-res unmarked version

Cypress Semiconductor continues to win designs for their West Bridge solution, with their CYWB0124AB chip, enabling fast transfer speeds as we earlier noted.  MtekVision makes an interesting entrance as well, claiming quite a large space for their camera signal processor.  We’re guessing this is what’s responsible for their relatively quick and strong camera captures.  Texas Instruments, as always, makes some notable wins with their audio codec, Wi-Fi chipset, and the power management unit (shown above and below).

Click here for the high-res unmarked version

Finally, SiRF continues to provide GPS units, and CSR provides Bluetooth functionality.  This is the interesting part, as CSR and SiRF, who provide most of the GPS and Bluetooth ICs for a wide range of handests, have recently announced their intention to merge.  We can’t really speculate as to how this will affect the semiconductor industry in the wireless world, but we imagine that they would definitely offer some hard-hitting competition.  So that’s mostly it!  We’ve posted some of the more important ones below, and the rest, we’ve stuck into our wiki (link below).

Click here for the high-res unmarked version

Click here for the high-res unmarked version

Hope you’ve enjoyed.  Thanks!

If you have questions, comments, concerns, humorous anecdotes, be sure to let us know in the comments or through e-mail (phonewreck@gmail.com). Also be sure to visit the wiki for more pictures (http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=BlackBerry_Curve_8900)! Thanks!