Last week, we saw a report on cnet making claims that Apple’s iPhone 4 is powered by the same device as the Samsung Wave S8500. The renowned A4 chip is manufactured by Samsung – it makes sense that it might appear in a Samsung device.

What many North American’s don’t know is that Samsung is a massive company – much larger then they might think. Samsung plays in semiconductor design, manufacturing, consumer electronics, appliances and even automotive (ie. They make cars). From personal experience, the various divisions have difficulty working together. The concept of a Samsung device having a Samsung core is slightly less likely then you probably thought.

R&D costs on a chip such as the A4 are bound to be quite high. Have you ever seen a chip that you weren’t able to ID on Samsung’s website?  Chances are it has proprietary claims – much like “Apple’s A4″.

Well, today Dr. Wreck has news for you – semiconductor manufacturers often resell or repackage bare die in an effort to extend a devices life-expectancy or even functional base. That means you might find yourself purchasing a crippled or often repackaged device for your next design application. This is often done by rotating the die 90 degrees inside of the package – which modifies the pin-out.

What is the device actually called? The S5PC110A01. It’s no wonder Apple, the king of branding in all things electronic, decided on something simple and sexy like the A4. This news is really no surprise – that said, the iPhone is about the only smartphone anyone should really consider building proprietary devices for (sales volumes are high enough to support R&D and tapeout).

Technical Specifications at a glance:

• PowerVR SGX 535 3D Graphics core
• 1 GHz Cortex-A8 (iPad)
• L1 cache – 64KB
• L2 cache – 640KB
• PoP – 2x 128MB DDR SDRAM chips, 64-bit data bus

Make sure to check out @DrWreck on twitter for the latest and greatest in Smartphone news.

As promised, we’re coming at you with the second part of our analysis of the Palm Pre from Sprint. This time, we’ll be talking about the specifics of the form-factor design. What we like, what we don’t like and what is merely – satisfactory.

This review will be a good compliment to what ifixit has already done. Also, make sure an checkout our hardware analysis and UI Review!

So without further ado, we present you the Palm Pre Design Analysis!

Overall

The Palm Pre feels good in your hand and is much smaller than the Doctor’s weapon of the choice – The BlackBerry Bold.

In the next review, we’ll see how it stacks up to this device in terms of performance.

The Pre definitely has a minimalist design. To us, it’s shape resembles the perfect skipping stone… an expensive skipping stone at that. One thing this device definitely has is curves. The screen isn’t made of glass which may have been a cost cutting decision. However from a design perspective, this allowed Palm to shape and flex the screen around the chassis of the device which creates a genuinely sexy look. Unfortunately, as with all plastic screen covers, we’re skeptical about how it will resist scratches.

Smudge Magnet

One thing we’re used to seeing as of late is the faux/real metal border surrounding the device. This is a ploy often used by ODM’s to make the device looks smaller in your hand. Fortunately for Palm, this device is already quite small – this might reduce the devices resistance to drops and scratches though.

Cosmetically speaking, the all black look is definitely attractive and leaves the door open to many future colour options which we’re sure we’ll soon see.

Moving around the edge of the device, things are once again kept very simple – there is only one flap, the one that exists for the  microUSB port. It is flat and flush with the body – a very suprising and clever design move for Palm.

That door is flush.

Of course, there is no external (or internal) slot for removable storage. This thing comes packed with 8GB of internal memory – which as any iPhone user knows, isn’t a whole lot. At least we got a removable battery right? Dr.Wreck is calling future versions with 16-32GB of internal storage – mark his words.

Keyboard/Sliding Mechanism

The Palm keyboard we're so used to seeing

On the outward, this device doesnt feel like it has a keyboard – it’s so small and fits so nicely in our hands! In reality it probably feels like this as the keyboard is fairly small and shall we say… flimsy. The sliding mechanism feels solid although not as smooth as the Xperia’s which we previousely took apart.

The keyboard is the same as previous Palm devices – small and hard to press with anything but your nails. Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs and as such found it difficult to hit the buttons. Moreover, the space between the top keys and the device is fairly small… stay tuned for some speed typing benchmarking.

Dr.Wreck has some massive thumbs

As we started taking it apart, we revealed the sliding mechanism. We also peeled the keyboard off (turns out the keys are just a sticker with gelled buttons).

The leaf spring

Looking closer at the sliding mechanism, we can see there are two tracks. The entire device has a slight curve which allows the keboard to slide out and toward the user – a very cool and useful feature. There is a small leaf spring which helps pop the keypad into place but is not too loose or too resistive. That said, Dr. Wreck is also abnormally strong… which is also probably why he didn’t experience any binding.

The two tracks (phone is in closed position)

Back Cover/Touchstone Charging Kit

The back cover is suprisingly easy to remove – although with no removable storage or SIM card, there is very little reason to remove it – unless of course you got yourself the Touchstone Charging Kit. If you purchased the kit, you need to put the new backcover on. At this point, Dr.Wreck wanted to give a science lesson on inductive coupling. We figured that might be a little bit boring and decided to forgo it. That said, it charges the same way as your electric toothbrush and isn’t really that ground-breaking – unless of course you consider this as the first time it’s been implemented on a mobile phone.

Touchstone Charger and Touchstone Cover

It’s worth mentioning that the touchstone cover has a matte finish while the original cover is glossy. The glossy cover looks nice but is slippery and susceptible to smudges and scratches. We prefer the matte touchstone cover.

Conclusion

In conclusion this phone is fairly well built and very well designed. If you’re a sprint customer looking for an upgrade, without a doubt this is the phone to choose. If your thinking of switching carriers to get this phone we suggest you try before you buy.

First Impressions: 9

Build Quality: 8

Estimate on Durability: 5

Keypad/Interface devices: 7

That’s it that’s all! In the meantime, subscribe to our RSS, watch Dr.Wreck’s Twitter and check out the Pre’s hardware review and UI Review!

Keep WRECKING!

Dr. Wreck

These past couple of days, we’ve been busy filling this site up with content.  We’ve gotten the review and teardowns of the: BlackBerry Bold, Motorola Krave ZN4, and the Nokia N95.  We’ve also put up the wiki, so you can access any of the content whenever you want at: www.phonewreck.com/wiki.

We’re launching this website the same time we’re launching the teardown of, well, the above.  Make sure you give that post a good read and a good look!

We’ll be honest with you.  We want this site to be popular and viewed by you folks regularly, because we want this site to have a purpose!  We’re truly passionate in our work of opening up phones and we’re fully willing to share our work with you. So keep checking this site out!  We’ll be having weekly teardowns, reviews, and maybe even hardware designer guests come in and write a couple articles (we have connections).  We’ll also be updating the wiki as often as possible, and we’re hoping that you’ll use it as your source of information for all your phone-related needs!

We hope that YOU, whether you may be an engineer, hardware designer, systems analyst, or just a curious blog reader, will use this information for rightful purposes.

… We’ve also never started this many sentences with “We”.

You can access the phoneWreck Wiki at: www.phonewreck.com/wiki

Hope you folks are ready for a teardown show.  We’ve put a wiki up with content across all handset manufacturers, carriers, and most importantly: handset teardowns!  Keep in mind, this wiki is still in the making and so content is relatively limited at the moment.  However, the teardown content we do have, is pure quality.

Of course, this blog will be continually updated to showcase our latest and greatest teardowns.  Subscribe to our RSS feeds (through that handy button at the top right), or continue checking here!

We hope you will continue to use this blog and this wiki, as your source of good teardown indulgence.  Please enjoy responsibly!

We are thrilled and excited to showcase: phoneWreck.com! Over the next few months, we will cover some of the latest and greatest cellphones, smartphones, and mediaphones out in the market today. As our service to you, the reader, we’re going delve deep into the device, provide full breakdowns, benchmarks and anything else you want or need – and we’re going to do this FREE.

We know there are other companies whose biggest source of revenue is providing specific documentation on each of the little bits and parts that make up a cellphone. We know that many of these companies rely on people like you to pay upwards of $2000 to view the specifics of a measly cellphone. But we are going to grab your attention, because we’re going to do this for FREE. Obviously you ask why – and here’s the answer.

We’ve got a whole cabinet full of phones waiting to pose for pictures, and waiting to be opened up by cellphone surgeons (i.e. Dr. Phone and Dr. Reck). We love cellphones, and we can’t stop looking at them or researching about them. Furthermore, community collabation is cool – just look at how awesome Google appeals to consumers like you and us. The latest HTC Dream/G1 with Android, emotionally feels like a dream come true! Okay, here’s the truth: we’re big fans of Star Trek. Apparently in the future, we don’t require money to research. We do it because of the passion of advancing humankind. And so be it.

Stay tuned, buddies. We’re going to launch, launch hard, and launch proud.

- Dr. Phone and Dr. Wreck.