Teardowns

Motorola Droid 2 Teardown

Motorola Droid 2 teardownMotorola made significant evolutionary changes to the Droid 2‘s internals (1 GHz processor, 802.11n, etc.) that provide an overall speedier experience for the user. Yet, the phone’s internal layout is so similar to the original Droid that it is difficult to discern which is which once they’re apart. Motorola certainly took the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it route” by keeping everything people didn’t complain about exactly the same, and upgrading the bits that mattered. Who wouldn’t like smoother games and faster browsing?

The phones are so similar that you can use our Droid repair guides to fix pretty much anything on the Droid 2! We’re updating the guides to compensate for a couple of small differences — the Droid 2 uses T3 and T5 Torx screws in place of Phillips — but anyone can use the guides right now without much hassle.

Teardown highlights:

  • Unlike the iPhone 4 with its “Authorized Service Provider Only” pull tab, the Droid 2 has a helpful note stating “Battery Removal Here.” Thank you, Motorola.
  • The Droid 2 has a 3.7V, 1390 mAh Li-Ion Polymer battery, identical to the one found in the Droid. Yet, Motorola advertises a 575 minute usage time for the Droid 2, compared to a 385 minute usage time for the Droid. That’s a claimed 49% improvement while still using the same battery!
  • The Droid 2’s 5 MP rear-facing camera with dual-LED flash supports DVD-quality video recording at 6 more FPS than the original Droid – 30 FPS vs. 24 FPS.
  • The Droid 2 uses the same 3.7 inch, Full WVGA, 854×480 TFT LCD as the original Droid.
  • After de-routing the ribbon cable through the slider mechanism, the keyboard can be easily removed from the back of the slider bracket. We believe that you can transplant a Droid 2 keyboard into your old Droid (they look identical on the back side) but haven’t tested it yet.
  • The camera board is actually a separate circuit board that can be easily removed from the motherboard, just like in the original.
  • We suspect the TI OMAP 3630 processor is buried beneath an Elpida K4332C1PD package, which appears to be a DDR mobile RAM chip. We’ll have Chipworks investigate this further.
  • The Droid 2 has a SanDisk SDIN4C2 8 GB NAND flash package that wasn’t included in the original Droid. But it includes a half-as-large micro SD card, so out the box it doesn’t have more capacity than the original.
  • The TI WL1271B WLAN Bluetooth/FM chip gives the Droid 2 802.11n capability.
Motorola Droid 2 teardown
Lifting off the plastic rim
Motorola Droid 2 Teardown
Final layout