Palm Pre Teardown - Ifixit

8/3/2019 Palm Pre Teardown - Ifixit

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Steps 125: Palm Pre Teardown

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Author: Walter Galan

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Palm Pre Teardown

ntroduction

e got our hands on the new Palm Pre fromprint! Oh joy, our all-nighter in front of theprint store paid off! We're finished disassembling it now. Follow our updates @ifixit on twitter.

ew as slideshow

Teardown

Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.

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Welcome to another exciting teardown

brought to you byiFixit. Today we will

be disassemblingthe newest

sensation in the mobile phone market, the Palm

Pre from Sprint.

You can write a teardown just like this!

Take something apart and wow the

world with what you find!

We arrived at the Santa Barbara Sprint store at

2am and were first in line!

Two blocks down the street at a local shoe store

were 18 people stolidly entrenched in line for

Kanye West's new Air Yeazy shoe. Some of

them had been in line since Monday!

By the time we got our Pre at 8 am, there were

about 25 others waiting.

It took several tries to activate the phone (about

five minutes total), but no where near as bad as

Apple's iPhone 3G launch activation woes last

summer.

We tested out Sprint's 3G EVDO network on the

road home and didn't notice any interruptions.

Uploads and downloads were fast, and

Pandora's application ran like a champ.

WebOS is so cool! We love how natural it feels

to swipe between applications and multitask

with Web, Twitter, AIM, and Pandora.

Contents of the box:

Palm Pre phone

AC Phone Charger, Standard Li-Ion Battery

Stereo Headset, Carry Pouch

Micro USB Sync Cable

Get Started Guide and Features Guide

A prepaid plastic recycling envelope in the

box, making it easy to recycle your newly

obsolete phone. This is a fantastic move on
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2/10

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Palm's part, but of course recycling is a last

resort if you can't fix it.

And a partridge in a pear tree...

Users preferring physical keyboards will be

satisfied, but iPhone veterans may be left

disappointed at the lack of a software keyboard

option.

Revealing the keyboard feels awkward and

interrupts the smooth WebOS experience. Try

before you buy, because this keyboard could be

enough to deter picky users.

The Pre comes with a stylish and rugged case,

a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, earbuds and

USB cable.

The Pre is "Inspired by and designed in

California,"while the iPhone is merely

"Designed by Apple in California."

The battery came only partially charged, and we

managed to drain it on the 1.5 hour drive back

from Santa Barbara.

We'll just charge it briefly with the MicroUSB

connector before ripping it apart. :)

You get a full one year warranty on hardware,

but for software Palm only promises "software

will perform in substantial conformance to their

program specifications for a period of ninety

(90) days."

The lineup: Apple iPhones vs. Palm Pre

We love the feel of holding the Pre in our hands.

In its closed position, it feels much more

comfortable to hold than the iPhone.

Notice the extra thickness of the Pre

compared to the iPhone (17mm vs

12mm). Not only does this allow the

engineers more flexibility in designing the

physical layout of components, but it also makes

the Pre conform really well to our palm.

To see your face better while taking photos for

MySpace, the Pre includes a mirror on the back.

Unfortunately, the mirror distorts

everything in sight-- it conforms to the

slight curve of the phone. It also gets

easily covered in fingerprints. Your digits will

gravitate to this region while holding the phoneopen.

Cheese does not cut Pre. Evidently it

only works the other way around.

The 3 megapixel camera does take great

pictures though (we took the last photo here

using our Pre in the car).
http://gizmodo.com/5279413/palm-pre-cuts-the-cheesehttp://www.ifixit.com/Info/Environmenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#comment


3/10

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

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.

The battery from the Pre on the left, and the

iPhone 3G on the right. Although they're

different shapes, both weigh in at 23 grams.

In contrast to Apple's iPhones, the battery on the

Pre is user-replaceable. Thanks Palm!

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...

Removing one of the six T5 screws required to

seperate the backplate from the phone.

The screw in the upper right corner is coveredby a sticker labeled "Palm."

There are interlocking tabs securing the

backplate.

Carefully work around the phone releasing the

tabs as you go.

We found two antennas.

One was labeled GPS (its obvious what its for)

and the other one was labeled DIV (fordiversity

antenna - thanks microbreak!).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_diversityhttp://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Antennas/Theory/http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#comment


4/10

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

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.

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.

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.

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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_OMAPhttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#comment


5/10

Step 17

Step 18

Step 19

Step 20

Step 21

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.

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.

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.

Internal 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.

Communications board with high-resolution

shots of the front and back.

Samsung K5D1257ACC-D090

Qualcomm MSM6801A

AVAG0 FEM-7788
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6/10

Step 22

Step 23

Step 24

Step 25

0CEQ 86K H33F

The back of the display, complete with what

appears to be a manufacture date at the

beginning of January.

Unfortunately for repair, it doesn't look like the

LCD and digitizer are easy to separate.

Both the iPhone and the Pre sport a HVGA

display. However, the iPhone's display

measures 3.5" diagonally, while the Pre's is only

3.1"

A high resolution version of this image.

Logic board with shielding removed (high res).

Chip markings:

Texas Instruments TWL5030B 8CA28MWC

Marvell WiFi chip under the silver EMI cover,

marked W8686B12. Directly above it is the

CSR bluetooth chip. They're both on a

daughterboard soldered to the logic board.

Samsung SDRAM KMCMG0000M-B998

ELPIDA K2132C1PB-60-F 08510N060.

There is clearly another BGA chip

underneath this one, but we don't yet know

what it is.

Unbrandedchips: 3335A ADJ RNX, 89A8

850

The top of the board is labeled 888-3 94V0 1

309 - F3. The bottom of the board is bereft of

chips or markings, something Apple has never

done.

Component comparison between the iPhone

and the Palm Pre.

Hardware-wise, the Palm Pre is very impressive.

Our only hardware complaint was the physical

keyboard, although some people may

appreciate the hardware keyboard.

The Pre logic board is substantially smaller

than the iPhone logic board, which is very

impressive considering how renowned Apple's

engineers are for shrinking hardware footprints.

It's amazing the difference a year can make.

In general, this Palm hardware reminds us a lot

more of Apple's engineering style than any of

hardware we've taken apart by other

manufacturers (like Dell).

For more technical analysis, see the analysis

our partners over at PhoneWreck just posted of

the Pre.

Component diagram from phoneWreck's

detailed chip analysis.
http://www.phonewreck.com/2009/06/07/palm-pre-teardown-and-analysishttp://www.phonewreck.com/2009/06/07/palm-pre-teardown-and-analysis-review-coming-soon/http://s2.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/gOYCqydNCNKY2EPYhttp://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/3Pv5njUqZMZTvrDohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVGAhttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#commenthttp://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Palm-Pre-Teardown/809/1#comment


7/10

Page 1 of 1

otes: Step 4

by rmonge Jun 6 2009 @ 4:24 PM

A real keyboard! If the touch screen and applications work anywhere near iPhone qualitythis makes the Pre a very good option for people who actually want to create lots of text

content on their mobile device.

by microbreak Jun 7 2009 @ 9:08 AM

Div stands for Diversity Antenna.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_div...

otes: Step 10

by c4rlob Jun 10 2009 @ 3:21 PM

If the speaker is on the back doesn't that make it more difficult to hear and more likely tobe covered by your hand? So in the end does the sound end up being worse in practicalusage? The iPhone speaker placement seems to make more sense acoustically.

by iceman10 Jun 16 2009 @ 11:10 AM

Does anyone have an idea of the manufacturer of the 3D antenna?

otes: Step 12

by Miphnik Jun 7 2009 @ 3:00 AM

"DIV" likely stands for "Diversity", a second antenna for the CDMA receiver that reducesthe impact of spatial variations in signal strength and thus increases the average datarate available. Pretty common in CDMA EVDO designs these days.

by nxthxn Jun 7 2009 @ 12:07 PM

Re: Step 15

"...there's no denying that packing the keyboard into a device that's no larger or heavierthan the iPhone is a very impressive engineering feat."

At 87% volume of the Pre, the iPhone also weighs 2 grams less.

If they hadn't packed the keyboard in, I'm sure your statement would be true, except forthe 'very impressive engineering feat' part.

by dculberson Jun 8 2009 @ 10:54 AM

Quote from nxthxn:

At 87% volume of the Pre, the iPhone also weighs 2 grams less.

If they hadn't packed the keyboard in, I'm sure your statement would betrue, except for the 'very impressive engineering feat' part.

Is two grams really enough for a human to notice the difference? It's within rounding error- if given in ounce units both would weigh 4.7 ounces.

otes: Step 19

by n8b Jun 7 2009 @ 12:55 PM
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8/10

iFixit Staff

iFixit Staff

Does the camera come off the board that has the phone vibrator without a solderingiron?

by emooretc Jun 7 2009 @ 1:22 PM

Quote from n8b:

Does the camera come off the board that has the phone vibratorwithout a soldering iron?

I have torn mine apart, and it does not appear to come off easily. It may even be difficult

with a soldering iron because of the extremely thin flexible pcb. That is why I asked ifthey had any ideas.

You may be able to snip the leads coming out of the camera module, but that would be apretty permanent solution I imagine.

by RolfB Jun 7 2009 @ 3:57 PM

Does anybody know what the copper coil does that is on the back panel? See photoabove (step 23) lower right corner.

by Kyle Wiens Jun 7 2009 @ 7:56 PM

Quote from n8b:

Does the camera come off the board that has the phone vibratorwithout a soldering iron?

No, the camera is surface mount soldered onto the board.


Quote from RolfB:

Does anybody know what the copper coil does that is on the backpanel? See photo above (step 23) lower right corner.

That copper coil on the back panel that comes with the Touchstone charging kit. We talkabout it in ourtouchstone teardown.

by n8b Jun 8 2009 @ 9:13 AM

Quote from emooretc:

You may be able to snip the leads coming out of the camera module,but that would be a pretty permanent solution I imagine.

Man that's too bad. The treo 700p was pretty easy to pull the camera on. Just pull a fewscrews and the camera just unplugged. I was wondering if that thing it was mounted toowas a board or a cable. I guess I'll have to stick with my treo for now and see how thenew iPhone looks. I've had a palm in my pocket ever since the 99 when the IIIe came

out.

by RolfB Jun 8 2009 @ 11:34 PM

Quote from kyle:

That copper coil on the back panel that comes with the Touchstonecharging kit. We talk about it in our touchstone teardown.

Thanks Kyle. when I saw the coil I thought of it but I wasn't sure. I just saw the latestBrink on TV and they mentioned it: the Pre's wireless charging. It's funny that electrictoothbrushes got that feature 10 years ago (though a little simpler) and we see it just nowappearing in a very obvious application. It looks like that all the engineers who wanted todo this "stuff" (keyboard, wireless charging...) at Apple (and weren't "allowed) went toPalm... It will be interesting to find out what these "big old boys" carriers and other old-

style companies (Nokia, Moto....) will come up with when they propose the new"standardized" charging solution for our cells. It should be wireless! Maybe Palm is goingto set some standards again (for a while). I hope the Pre will be doing well. We needcompetition. Otherwise the iPhone will just fade away with its next iteration...nothingmuch new this year as we found out today.

by motoman Jun 9 2009 @ 9:48 PM

Quote from RolfB:
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9/10

iFixit Staff

Does anybody know what the copper coil does that is on the backpanel? See photo above (step 23) lower right corner.

It is the inductive charger for the pre called the touchstone charger. The phone is held onto the touchstone by means of the four magnets around the coil. When in place,inductive charging occurs. In other words the phone gets charged without plugging incables.

otes: Step 20

by Sebastian Nov 3 2009 @ 11:19 AM

At my Pre the earphone piece is a bit loose. I can swipe it with my fingernail up and

down. Is this at other pre the same or is mine broken?

I mean the small silver bar above the screen on the front.

otes: Step 21

by blah Jun 7 2009 @ 2:30 AM

http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/20...

by emooretc Jun 7 2009 @ 11:23 AM

Can you see anyway to remove the camera without damaging the rest of the phone.Those of us that aren't allowed to have cameras in our workplace would greatlyappreciate it. Thanks!

by cellularme Jun 7 2009 @ 11:31 AM

Well done for your teardown! Just wanted to point to an erroneous identification of thebluetooth chip. On your pics I can clearly see Marvell's 8686 WLAN chip. However it'snot a combo WLAN+Bluetooth chip as there is another chip right next to it that comesfrom CSR (you can read it on the packaging) and that's CSR's bluetooth SoC. Also the

chip underneath the Elpida DRAM die is Texas Instruments's OMAP 3 chip. The other TIchip next to it (TWLXX) is the power management unit that works with it. THx


Quote from cellularme:

Well done for your teardown! Just wanted to point to an erroneousidentification of the bluetooth chip

Fixed, thanks!

by StefRi Jun 16 2009 @ 4:15 AM

You have two major errors in the blockdiagram and the PCB info here:

The TriQuint Cellband PA-Duplexer in the new small 7x4mm package is completelymissing in your list and the block diagram! It is TriQuint part number TQM613026A. (Youcall it a "Duplexer" only, which is wrong.

http://www.triquint.com/docs/o/TQM613026...

The Avago PCS band part is a larger and older PA-Duplexer Module in 8x5mm packagecalled AFEM-7738 (not FEM-7788), see:

http://www.avagotech.com/docs/pl47pibsep...

otes: Step 23

by g2sb Jun 7 2009 @ 10:50 PM

The BGA chip under the ELPIDA memory package is almost certainly the TI OMAPprocessor.

by bsnguy Jun 16 2009 @ 3:43 PM

Quote from g2sb:
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10/10

The BGA chip under the ELPIDA memory package is almost certainlythe TI OMAP processor.

I doubt it. It's would not be that big... looks like a NAND memory chip to me.

by bsnguy Jun 16 2009 @ 3:46 PM

Quote from bsnguy:

I doubt it. It's would not be that big... looks like a NAND memory chipto me.

I just reread this and was confused... the unmarked chip looks like NAND memory. TheCPU is probably hidden under the ELPIDA chip as noted. Sorry for the confusion.

otes: Step 24

by telmon Jun 7 2009 @ 12:39 PM

also if you didnt notice there is no offset from the slide upper to the top of the first row ofkeys of the QWERTY is pretty much zero. This is a very bad design as it gives no roomfor your finger to press that row....can get awkward.

by telmon Jun 7 2009 @ 12:48 PM

also, could you please post a teardown of the keypad itslef:

-what is the backlight method (side fire LED w/ light guide, or EL)

-is the keypad a single film or singulated

-are the actuators pucks on the EL or the keypad film/keycaps

-how many dimples do the popples have (i assume 3-4)....do you know the actuationforce?

-how is the keypad tactility?

-how do you find the backlighting brightness?

by rheide Jul 13 2009 @ 12:15 PM

Is that an AT&T 3G SIM Card in the picture? Looks exactly like one. (white with a littleorange on the left side and blue on the right side)

by rheide Jul 13 2009 @ 12:16 PM

Quote from rheide:

just realized it was a comparison - I feel dumb :-)

by Jonny Jul 27 2009 @ 6:18 PM

Could you tell me the dimensions of the camera module?

xit:

ture:

nks:

licy:

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