The Blackberry KeyOne 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 tests.
BlackBerry stepped up really quick after the issue was brought to light, and fixed their
fatal design flaw in the KeyOne, which is extremely impressive of them.
But even with the problem fixed, this whole situation has left me with two extremely broken
phones.
Today is 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.
[Intro]
I'm pretty sure that the only thing not working on these phones is the screen itself.
The rest of 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 will never fall off on it's own, but it's only held in
place by plastic tabs and a small bit of adhesive towards the bottom - much easier access than
any of the Samsung phones that are all glued shut.
Up at the top of the battery, the connector is screwed in with two Philips head screws.
I'll set these off to the side and unclasp the battery connector with a plastic pry tool.
The goals here is a screen replacement so I'll jump down to where the display ribbon
cable connects.
The display ribbon is under a bracket with two more Philips 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 night 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 for 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 it's abuse.
Since the screen repair was so shockingly easy, let's jump back in and see how hard
it is to swap out the battery on the BlackBerry KeyOne.
I'll turn the phone off again, unplugging the battery, and then jump down to the bottom
of the phone where there are 7 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 like the
Samsungs.
Some batteries are relatively easy to pull out even if they are technically not replaceable,
and this is not the case on the BlackBerry KeyOne; the battery adhesive is pretty permanent.
Heat did 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 KeyOnes 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, unplugging the battery, and getting those two screws off
the bracket that are holding down the screen.
I 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 battery is reconnected.
It is again a success which means that one of you guys now get to keep this phone.
I'll pick one random re-tweeter 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
KeyOne of their own.
I'll list all the details and stuff down in the video description of this video, so make
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 a ton for watching, and I'll see you around.