BlackBerry 8800 tear down…

I’ve been known to do post-mortem’s on my gadgets… Problem is that my current BlackBerry 8800 is holding up to my daily routine rather well – no mortem yet.

I’m not running around throwing it off the balcony or anything like that but it goes with me everywhere from my desk to my garage…

So I was getting a bit antsy to peek inside… and didn’t feel like waiting around for it’s 73rd fall from my pocket or face… So I removed 6 screws and took a peek inside. Conceptually it’s the same parts/case as the BlackBerry 8700 and 8100. Same external case parts and same process to tear-down and re-assemble.

Pros:

• Overall build/engineering quality: A+
• Kudos on the ultra-fine threaded screws with brass female threads
• Kudos on the bonded buttons – fewer parts to ‘place’ when re-assembling it

Cons:

• The network crashes WAY too easily – whether I’m using AvantGo, Google Maps, Google Talk or the like – once a certain uncaught exception occurs in the network…. buh-by network… seriously! This is the lamest bug ever – especially since EDGE remains prominently display in the corner and you don’t realize your network is GONE till you stop and ponder your lack of emails or try to go online with no success.
• My 8800 – we’ll call it Rudolph – likes to shine bright, unprovoked mind you. The backlight comes on randomly while it’s sitting on my desk and stays on for minutes at a time. Of course the AT&T tech tried to convince me that this was my fault… Thanks – I forgot to take: cell-phone 101 last semester and have no idea how to adjust my backlight settings.