Some people like the way things come from the packaging. Standard, dependable, not necessarily awe-inspiring. Others, upon seeing a plain and mass-produced consumer good, very quickly decide that they can make it look or work or just plain BE better.
I clearly fall into the latter category.
If I had the time, I would soup up my lawnmower. Six horsepower is JUST not enough! But what does this strange obsession have to do with my Treo? All too much.
See, the GSM Treo 650 comes in one amazingly exciting colour here in Canada: grey. Grey on a chromy thing then more grey. Grey grey grey. I already rejoiced when I discovered the unit I eBay'd was actually an old AT&T Blue/Unlocked GSM Blue/Special Edition Blue. Sure, very few if any people would have that here in Vancouver, but I wanted MORE. So then, I bought a Treo 700p dummy phone.
The point of the exercise was simple: to see if I could stuff a GSM Treo 650's innards into the case of a CDMA Treo 700p. If anyone has read the reviews and talk about the Treo 700 series, one of the recurring things you would find is that people don't like how it's just a slight evolution of the 650's design. So it hasn't changed much, especially in the dimensions, and that to me is a blessing in disguise. Is the difference minimal enough that I can use a Treo 700p's housing for my 650? Let's start by taking the dummy apart. Click the thumbnails for bigger versions of the madness.
The rubber stopper over the antenna's screw is removed. Noticed that I actually got a brand-new dummy that was never used; the plastic film is still over the camera hole!
Apply strong and steady horizontal pressure to the battery cover, as its stuck to the rest of the case with annoying sticky stuff. Once it's more or less as far as it'll go, gently twist and lift it up to remove it from the sticky goo.
Battery cover off, revealing the weight inside. As a side note, all Treo dummies from the 650 onwards can be dismantled in this way and used as housings. Pretty neat eh?
The "stylus" had that glue stuff at its tip, and the oly way to get it out was to use a blowdryer to warm up the glue. Left some residue, which I later chipped out. Since the stylus is no longer covering two of the screws, I can use my T5 Torx driver to take out all the screws.
Unsnapping the back piece by pulling out one side (I usually start with the side without the buttons) and gently lifting it up.
Ripping everything apart reveals that the SD slot cover and the weight is part of a bigger black piece. The "screen" is just a piece of paper, and the keyboard is a non-functional one that looks very close to the real one, minus the connector and the circuits.
GASP! A hole for the SIM tray slot! Interesting...but looking through some early pictures of Treo 700 prototypes, there WAS one which looked like a GSM version, as the case had the GSM slot. Neato!
The big black piece also fills up the hole where the speaker should be, the camera, as well as the HotSync port and audio jack.
Now, I take my 650 apart.
What my table looks like with everything taken apart.
And then?
I discovered right away that the 650's keyboard won't fit in the 700p. VERY close, but not good enough. ARGH! So what? I put the innards back to where they belonged, and checked out something else that I was curious about.
So, do the 700 series and the 650 have interchangeable antennas? Well, yes and no.
Looks like the 700's antenna piece would be slightly too big in the 650's housing, and...
...the 650's antenna is too big for the 700!
Ah well, it was worth a try anyways. So here's how the two units would look like without their antennas. 750, eat your heart out? Not really, but does look a bit sleeker! So my first foray into stuffing my 650 into a 700's housing was a failure, but next time I'll show you what I did next to try and remedy that. There will be scenes of graphic Treo-housing violence, so it won't be for the geek with an emphatic soul. haha until next time!
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