Gadgetory

the BlackBerry key one is the first smartphone ever to remove itself from my shelf of shame the shelf of shame is a spot for smartphones that have failed my durability test blackberry stepped up super quick after the issue is brought to light and fix their fatal design flaw in the key one which is extremely impressive of them but even with the problem fixed this whole situation has left me with two extremely broken phones today's the day we bring them back to life and if I'm successful in fixing both I'll give one away let's see what happens I'm pretty sure that the only thing not working on these phones is the screen itself the rest the phones are pretty solid we'll start with the phone I tested first the one that had no adhesive under the screen the back panel can unclasp it'll never fall off on its own but it's only held in place by plastic tabs and a small bit of adhesive towards the bottom much easier access in any of the Samsung phones that are all glued shut up at the top of the battery the connector is screwed in with two Phillips head screws I'll set these off to the side and unclasp the battery connector with a plastic pry tool the goal here is a screen replacement so I'll jump down to where the display a ribbon cable connects the displayed ribbon is under a bracket with two more Phillips head screws I'll twist that off to the side after the screws are out and unsnap the screen ribbon just like a little Lego the ribbon was previously ripped in half during my durability test leaving the old screen pretty useless I did find two replacement screens though pulling off the red protector reveals that the replacement screens do not come with adhesive pre-installed which is fine there are several ways to attach the screen I'm going to use my normal double-sided tape method but it is possible to buy the permanent glue type stuff that Blackberry used for their display the second time around once my double-sided tape is in place I'll tuck the little ribbon cable through the slot in the frame and set the screen down inside the phone then I can plug the screen into the motherboard from the back it's an incredibly simple design screens are usually the first thing to crack or break on a cell phone so it's nice that Blackberry made the repair so simple I'll screw the bracket on over the screen connector to keep it from popping off if you ever drop the phone and I'll plug the battery back in my phone was dead after sitting around so long but plugging it in and turning it on revealed that our screen replacement was successful and the phone is still 100% functional even after all of its abuse since the screen repair was so shockingly easy let's jump back in and see how hardest to swap out the battery on the BlackBerry key won tournament looking the battery and then jump down to the bottom of the phone where there are seven Phillips head screws guarding the charging port removing these allow the back plastic to pop off exposing a non removable charging port this is unfortunate since charging port replacements are rather common in the cell phone repair world not as much as a broken screen or battery of course but it is nice when they can be replaced now normally most smartphones have an easy way to remove the battery whether they have the magical pull tabs like the iPhone or adhesive that is softened by heat Alexa Samsung's some batteries are relatively easy to pull out even if they are technically not replaceable and this is not the case on the blackberry key1 the battery adhesive is pretty permanent he not soften the adhesive puncturing the battery would be catastrophic but it is hard to avoid when the adhesive doesn't let go in the end it was brute force that got out the battery batteries are definitely not supposed to be bent like this and I probably should not reuse this particular battery anymore the large chunk of adhesive under the battery would have been the perfect size for the back of the screen it's almost like they should have switched those around this battery replacement is a nightmare and rather dangerous and now for the second screen this is the lesser abused of the two BlackBerry key ones I have and this is also the one that I'll be giving away if the screen replacement is successful the process is identical to the first phone pulling off the back cover pun plugging the battery and getting those two screws off the bracket better holding down the screen add a little bit of my own adhesive to the back metal panel and I'll tuck the screen ribbon through the metal back and set the whole thing down in place again this is seriously one of the easiest phones out there to do a screen replacement on testing out the screen after all the screws are back in and the batteries reconnected it is again a success which means that one of you guys now get to keep this phone I'll pick one random retweet er of this tweet over on my Twitter I'll also link this tweet in a video description and that one random person will get a blackberry key one of their own I'll list all the details and stuff down in the video description of this video I'm sure to read through those huge thumbs up to blackberry for building such a solid phone this second time around I'm definitely a fan come hang out with me on Twitter thanks ton for watching and I'll see you around