Motorola vs HTC Mobile Phones (1989 vs 2010) Teardown - The Electronics Inside

[@awo1fman]

I had the immediate successor to that Motorola, the MicroTAC with the flip that was just a thin piece of plastic that protected the keyboard when closed. I also had all the accessories for it including antenna boosters and the modem cable to connect it to my Psion Series 5. I once used that combination on a camping trip when the "campground" I had booked turned out to be in the middle of town and dominated by big rig RVs. I was able to find a much better site up in the mountains to which we returned several times. After that I had two different versions of the StarTAC, which was an amazing bit of kit. It was tiny, smaller than anything I ever had after that.

[@AndrewGillard]

Fun fact: SIM cards were originally the size of credit/debit cards; the HTC shown here uses "mini-SIM" cards! But the mini-SIM size was introduced before mobile phones became particularly common (1996, so says Wikipedia), so yes, to most people that is the "full size" SIM card! (Hence the more recent size reductions being named "micro" and "nano", seemingly skipping "mini".) And RIP HTC :( My first _two_ smartphones were from HTC. The first one (HTC Touch Pro) ran Windows Mobile and had a full QWERTY keyboard and a stylus for the _resistive_ touchscreen! I remember having that around when the first iPhone came out. As a computer science student at the time (i.e. tech geek :p), the Windows Mobile device seemed a better option for me than the weirdly-limited iPhone (no copy-paste? no multitasking? no third party software? no 3G?). I was keeping my eye on Android and figured I'd probably switch in the coming years, but it just felt a bit too immature in 2009-ish, largely because Windows Mobile had _many years_ of third party apps available at that point, and Android app development was still getting started. (My second smartphone was the HTC Desire HD, running Android, so I was correct with my prediction!) The metal-coated-plastic of the Motorola phone is something I've seen a lot in laptops. It's pretty neat :) I think my Dell Studio 17 laptop from 2008-ish has the whole lid coated in copper behind the screen, for example.

[@a531016]

I can remember my dad having a motorola of this size with a "full size" sim card and getting in trouble for touching it and causing it to become unseated! I had an HTC One S in Circa 2013 ish? It was a wonderful phone, physically wonderful, although it benifited from a custom ROM to remove some of the bloaty HTC Sense.

[@s8wc3]

The fifth button on the Wildfire is actually an optical trackpad, you'd rub your finger over it to scroll and push to select. It was an HTC staple for a while but it didn't catch on. I thought it was a good idea because sometimes when scrolling on a touchscreen it can mis-register as a press but nevermind.

[@lokpok4077]

Thank you for this video series. Helps a lot.

[@mucholocodawg]

the antenna has an internal metal and at the base there is a ring contact

[@a531016]

The short (approx 1" part) coil at the base of the antenna definately has connections onto the main board, but the "full length" antenna had no clearly metallic parts or connections to anything?

[@zaprodk]

@@a531016 The plastic antenna has metal particles in it. It couples to the coil.

[@a531016]

@@zaprodk that's the kind of thing I was expecting, but couldn't see any evidence of!

[@dykodesigns]

Interesting to see a chip branded “AMI” in the Motorola phone. I wonder if it is a rom with firmware on it. As far as I’m aware American Megatrends not only make pc bios chips.

[@a531016]

That was certainly my assumption, AMI made but with the Motorola copyright covering the BIOS / Firmware?

[@Mr.FlaySepulcrast]

9:55 Clearly shows the date stamp saying 18-09-95, unless you mean this particular model was produced from 1989 and was still in production 6 years later?

[@a531016]

It seems it was, with modifications. The original 1989 model had the microphone in the flip section, where as my later model had it in the main body.

[@thomasandrews9355]

I have that same toolkit and love it.

[@Juicysmoolyay7259]

Do the Motorola star tac next

[@TobyDeshane]

My HTC Hero had a tiny trackball. It was great. :D

[@elandres83]

What’s the comparison of battery capacities??

[@a531016]

Great question! 3.7V 1300mAh Litium Ion for the Wildfire (4.81 Whr) 6V Nickel Camdium - Unfortunately, It doesn't state the actual capacity on the battery pack, and it would appear the information isn't very well know as I can't find much info online either! If I find any info, I'll let yoiu know.

[@Chriva]

Check the date stamps on the IC's in that ol Motorola phone. I saw chips dated as late as 1995 :) How often do you see models produced for that long these days?

[@a531016]

Not often at all, for better or worse. I guess it makes the significant investment easier to justify if it will last 6 years, and parts (batteries) will be about for longer!

[@andrelange9877]

NiCd batteries are much safer than today's lithium ion. I played with them a lot as a kid doing all sorts of ammateur electrical experiments and never saw one blowing up. At worst it would get very warm but no smoke. They usually kept working ok even after being abused by wrong charging methods.

[@a531016]

Lithium is a pretty nasty thing to want to keep in a pocket. But with that said, the energy density and charge cycles it could handle are much better than NiCd. Roll on graphine, super capacitors and solid state battery technologies!

[@andrelange9877]

This low energy density is one more reason NiCd are relatively safe to play with. If you end up shorting them out, they'll start heating up of course but from my experience they'll get completely discharged before something bad happens. There's just not enough energy available to heat up their big mass to the point of "boom". But it's enough to melt wires and plastic things.

[@jameswoll]

Symbian vs webOS... Nokia N900 vs Palm Pre?

[@sdttnkara]

I like your shirt.

[@a531016]

Thanks!

[@joesshows6793]

Came here to see if the antenna was real or not…mystery remains

[@rmartin275]

If anyone else is wondering where the car phone video is, it's here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b5_RmqWbncqnps0

[@nathancollins4556]

Let's see some Nokia!

[@peanutrabbit5847]

There is no metal in the microtac antenna.

[@a531016]

So was is a pure placebo? One of the "the previous model had one, so a good new model should have one too" type arragenments?

[@Hacker-at-Large]

I’d be far more interested in seeing repairs and repurpose rather than just ripping things into their constituent components.