The HTC Surround: A Windows Phone 7 Teardown

I’ve mentioned on a number of recent occasions Microsoft’s attempt to reboot its handset (and tablet?) ambitions in the form of the Windows Phone 7 O/S and app-and-services suite. And just two months (and a few days) ago, EDN published my cover story on touch interfaces. So when a touch controller-inside-Windows Phone 7 press release from Cypress Semiconductor entered my inbox a month ago, I ping’d my contacts at Cypress to see if they’d be interested in getting a HTC handset in my hands for Prying Eyes analysis. And shortly thereafter, a HTC Surround showed up on my doorstep:

I suspected that Windows Phone 7 would be a notable topic at Microsoft’s CES-kickoff keynote last Wednesday night, so I wanted to get a teardown published as quickly as possible. However, between already-planned holiday travel, CES preparation and other projects, I didn’t have time to tackle the dissection myself. So, as I’ve done many times before, I decided to contact Kyle and Miro at iFixit to see if they’d be interested in doing a joint project. Happily, they readily agreed. Head here for their results, and keep reading for my analysis.

I had only one request of the iFixit gang; do whatever they could to keep the handset fully functional, so that I could continue using it post-teardown. I wanted to get some hands-on time with Windows Phone 7 along with its bundled and third-party apps, both in their initial form and as Microsoft rev’d them in the future (to add, for example, multitasking and cut/copy/paste support). Unfortunately, as it turns out, the keep-it-functional requirement precluded us from showcasing the aforementioned Cypress touchscreen controller, as it’s located within the reassembly-not-feasible display subsystem.

Read through iFixit’s dissection prose, and you’ll repeatedly see how similar the phone’s internals are to those of the year-plus old Google Nexus One which I’m now using on a daily basis (and for which I owe you some coming-soon further Android O/S observations). Ironically, my Prying Eyes writeup of the still-very-relevant Nexus One, again done in partnership with iFixit, will appear in EDN’s February 17, 2011 edition. Silicon building blocks in common between the two handset designs, in spite of the dissimilar software builds, include a:

• Qualcomm RTR6285 multi-band UMTS/EGPRS transceiver with integrated GPS
• Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1GHz RISC microprocessor with embedded DSP
• Qualcomm PM7540 power management IC, and
• Skyworks SKY77336 power amplifier module

Like the Nexus One, the HTC Surround also embeds two MEMS microphones in conjunction with an Audience audio IC to process the mic outputs in order to suppress ambient background noise, therefore striving to improve perceived voice quality on the other end of the cellular connection. This approach is, as I’ve previously mentioned, unlike that of a phone such as the Motorola Droid, which also includes two microphones but executes the audio algorithm on the applications processor.

The memory subsystem on the HTC Surround is also comparable to that on the Nexus One, although you might not think so from an inspection of the product spec sheet. The Nexus One incorporated a multi-die single-package Samsung stack of NAND flash memory and SDRAM, both 512 MBytes in size, along with a user-accessible microSDHC socket (initially populated with a 4 GByte card). Conversely, the HTC Surround includes not only 448 MBytes of SDRAM and 512 MBytes of ‘ROM’ (i.e. NAND flash memory for the operating system and core apps) in a multi-die Samsung ’sandwich’, but also 16 Gbytes of additional integrated NAND flash memory…with the iPhone-like tradeoff of it not being user-replaceable and -upgradeable. It turns out, though, that Sandisk sources the additional NAND flash memory in the form of a well-hidden microSDHC card. iFixit’s writeup suggests that:

Should you decide that 16 GB isn’t enough, it definitely seems possible that you could easily swap the card out for a higher capacity MicroSDHC.

While that observation is true in a strict sense, such a task is (IMHO) beyond the capabilities of most HTC Shadow owners. For one thing, as teardown Step 5 notes, you’ll void your warranty in the process of doing the swap. And Microsoft’s O/S stores content on the media in a security-aware format, as well as demanding stringent (and esoteric) performance requirements.

The HTC Surround is one of three Windows Mobile 7 ‘launch’ handsets that are exclusively offered by AT&T; the Cypress-inclusive HTC Mozart is intended for T-Mobile’s 3G (or if you prefer, 4G) network as well as overseas GSM network use. Whereas the Nexus One employs a comparable OLED display to the one in the Samsung Focus, the HTC Surround makes do with a conventional LED-backlit LCD. And whereas the HTC Surround and LG Quantum both are ’slider’ phone designs, the Surround doesn’t mimic the Quantum’s included QWERTY keyboard.

Instead, what slides out from ‘underneath’ the phone is a multi-speaker grille along one edge, which (along with an integrated fold-out kickstand) aspires to transform the HTC Surround into a multimedia playback powerhouse:

iFixit’s teardown reveals that the Yamaha-branded speakers aren’t in the grill per se but instead are attached to one of the system boards. And reviews in CNET, Engadget and elsewhere unfortunately suggest that neither of the audio ‘enhancement’ algorithms supported by the HTC Surround (Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD) are able to notably counteract the diminutive transducers’ sonic shortcomings, thereby making the incremental thickness and weight of the HTC Surround versus its competitors a dubious-at-best rationalization.

Stay tuned for a print version of this Prying Eyes analysis, complete with system-internals photos (for now, see them at iFixit’s site), to come in a near-future edition of EDN. And thanks again to Kyle, Miro and the rest of the gang at iFixit for their assistance.