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Photos: Cracking open the Palm Pre

Tech Republic pries open the Palm Pre, the latest smartphone to create buzz in the marketplace, to see how it--and its insides--stack up against the iPhone.

CNET Reviews staff
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1 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Palm Pre

The Palm Pre is the latest smartphone to create buzz in the marketplace. In partnership with iFixit and Phonewreck, CNET News sister site TechRepublic presents this Cracking Open photo gallery. Let's see how the Palm Pre's innards compare to the iPhone.
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2 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

iPhone, Pre comparison

The lineup: Apple iPhone 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.

Caption by iFixit

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3 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Back panel

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). Sprint will eventually sell replacement and/or backup batteries.

Caption by iFixit

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4 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Battery comparison

The Pre battery is 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.

Caption by iFixit

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5 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Pre back

Shown is the back of the phone and speaker. The speaker in the Pre is substantially better than the one in the iPhone.

Caption by iFixit

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6 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Pre screws

Here, we remove one of the six T5 screws required to separate the back plate from the phone. The screw in the upper right corner is covered by a sticker labeled Palm.

Caption by iFixit

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7 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

interlocking tabs

There are interlocking tabs securing the back plate. Carefully work around the phone releasing the tabs as you go.

Caption by iFixit

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8 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

antennas

We found two antennas. One was labeled GPS, and the other one was labeled DIV (for diversity antenna).

Caption by iFixit

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9 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

volume buttons

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.

Caption by iFixit

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10 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Back frame

Shown is the back frame separated from the rest of the phone.

Caption by iFixit

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11 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Connectors

Two connectors need to be disconnected to remove the black PCB (printed circuit board).

Caption by iFixit

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12 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

PCB

The PCB is glued to the rest of the Pre. A gentle pry with the spudger separated the two.

Caption by iFixit

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13 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Keyboard bezel

Removing the keyboard bezel. The hardware keyboard and its associated sliding mechanism weighs 32 grams. That's nearly 25 percent 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.

Caption by iFixit

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14 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

CPU

The Palm Pre is the first phone using Texas Instruments' new OMAP3 (Open Media Applications Processor) platform. The processor is a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8, PowerVR SGX 530 GPU, 430MHz C64x, DSP, and ISP (Image Signal Processor).

Caption by iFixit

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15 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Chips

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.

Caption by iFixit

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16 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Boards

Like the original iPhone, the Pre has two main boards, the logic board and the communications board.

Caption by iFixit

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17 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Shields

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.

Caption by iFixit

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18 of 24 Phonewreck, used by permission

Digital camera

The Pre has an integrated 3-megapixel digital camera with LED flash. You can see the standard phone vibrator next to the camera.

Caption by iFixit

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19 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Pre insides

Shown here are the 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.

Caption by iFixit

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20 of 24 Phonewreck, used by permission

Pre communications board

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

Caption by Phonewreck

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21 of 24 Phonewreck, used by permission

PCBs

On the connections side we see the usual Wi-Fi/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 (power management integrated circuit) comes loaded with a USB transceiver 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 multitouch Touch Screen Controller win went to Cypress Semiconductor with the CP6944BA device.

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

Caption by Phonewreck

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22 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

Display

Shown is 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 an HVGA display. However, the iPhone's display measures 3.5 inches diagonally, while the Pre's is only 3.1 inches.

Caption by iFixit

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23 of 24 Phonewreck, used by permission

Logic board

On the main logic board, we see the OMAP3 PMIC--the Texas Instruments TWL5030. This PMIC is packed with a USB transceiver as well as audio codec. We also see the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi transceivers with 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.

Caption by Phonewreck

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24 of 24 iFixit, used by permission

insides

Shown is a component comparison between the iPhone and the Palm Pre. Hardware-wise, the Palm Pre is very impressive. Our only hardware complaint is the physical keyboard, though 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).

Caption by iFixit

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