open and dissemble the palm pre

I
 
The back panel snaps off easily to reveal the battery.

• The Pre’s battery capacity is 1150 mAh, exactly the same as the iPhone 3G, though the Pre is reported to have slightly worse battery life due to its background process capability (but we don’t mind).
• Though Sprint will eventually sell replacement and/or backup batteries, our store did not have them available today.

II

The back of the phone and speaker.

• The speaker in the Pre is substantially better than the one in the iPhone.

• Palm didn’t skimp on antennas. They’re exposed for all to see as soon as you remove the back panel.

• The antenna design is three dimensional to optimize signal quality. The iPhone’s antennas also use this technique.
• The small sticker labeled palm visible in the third image is probably there to prevent people from doing what we’re about to do…

III
  
Removing one of the six T5 screws required to seperate the backplate from the phone.

• The screw in the upper right corner is covered by a sticker labeled “Palm.”

• There are interlocking tabs securing the backplate.

• Carefully work around the phone releasing the tabs as you go.

IV

We found two antennas.

• One was labeled GPS (its obvious what its for) and the other one was labeled DIV

V
  

• The two volume buttons are still connected to the front half of the phone. Completely separating the two halves requires first removing the plastic volume button cover, then peeling up the volume button electronics.
• The back frame seperated from the rest of the phone.

VI
 

• Two connectors need to be disconnected in order to remove the black PCB.
• The PCB is glued to the rest of the Pre. A gentle pry with the spudger separates the two.

VII
 
Removing the keyboard bezel.

• The hardware keyboard and its associated sliding mechanism weighs 32 grams. That’s nearly 25% of the weight of the phone! Even if you’re not a fan of a hardware keyboard, there’s no denying that packing the keyboard into a device that’s not much larger or heavier than the iPhone is a very impressive engineering feat.

VIII
 
The Palm Pre is the first phone using Texas Instrument’s new OMAP3(Open Media Applications Processor) platform.

• The processor is a 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX 530 GPU + 430MHz C64x+ DSP + ISP (Image Signal Processor)

• The chip covered by a white sticker on the LCD is CP6944BA 0907 A 04 KOR 604022.
• We found a water damage sensor on the logic board, just below the Micro USB port, indicated by the red box on the second image.

IX
  
Removing four more small connectors, and the main logic board is finally free.

• Like the original iPhone, the Pre has two main boards, the logic board and the communications board.
• Unfortunately, everything interesting is carefully hidden beneath metal EMI shields. Not only are the shields soldered to the board, there’s epoxy holding them down as well. Palm definitely didn’t make it easy to see what makes the Pre tick.

X
  
Finally, prying the logic board out.

• The Pre is definitely not an easy phone to service. There are lots of fragile and tricky tabs that will make putting the phone back together challenging.
• We wish manufacturers would put more effort into making their devices easily repairable.

XI
 
This is an incredibly thin, flexible PCB.

• The Pre has an integrated 3 megapixel digital camera with LED flash.

• The camera is one of our biggest complaints with the iPhone. The iPhone suffers from both poor quality photos and a long shutter delay. While the quality is definitely improved on the Pre, it’s still pretty slow snapping photos.
• You can see the standard phone vibrator next to the camera.

XII

components, from left to right:

• Earpiece speaker, LCD display and digitizer, microphone, communications board.
• Original rear panel and plastic framework.
• Battery, internal metal framework and spring mechanism, keyboard.
• Camera board and main circuit board.
• Main plastic framework containing antennas, antenna cabling, and the surprisingly excellent speakerphone.