Anyone ever replace a 700p radio board...

[maitemia]

Has anyone ever put a 650 radio board (chip) on to the 700p mother board? Can it be done? Will it fit? Will it work? HELP!

[LotusLord]

Not familiar with the 700p internals, but I'd say it's probably not worth the work.

[maitemia]

Originally Posted by LotusLord

Not familiar with the 700p internals, but I'd say it's probably not worth the work.

What do you mean by "probably not worth the work"?

[LotusLord]

I mean if it is possible, which I again can't say for certain, you can't be sure if the other hardware would recognise it, or how the OS would react. It would almost definitely slow the device down assuming it did work, because as far as I know, CDMA 650s don't support EVDO and 700s do.

Those are the problems you'd have to deal with, assuming you were able to solder it on, which if it's a chip as you say would likely be very difficult.

I'm not saying it's impossible, because I certainly don't know for sure, but it seems like it would be less time consuming and more cost effective to simply get a new device.

[maitemia]

Thanks for the input. I believe a radio board is also called a chip because it has a microchip which basically is like a gsm chip which stores the internal info (ESN) of that particular phone (some also call it a modem module). If you look at the 650 and 700p radio boards, they are almost identical. They are a small funny shape circuit board that attach with two screws on the top of the mother board, next to the camera in the exact same space (no soldering).

I recently revived my 650 by buying a used 650 through ebay (with a bad ESN), removing its mother board, putting it (replacing) in my 650. All I did was reattach my radio board to the new mother board and it worked without a hitch. I have in my hands a 700p in perfect condition, but with a bad ESN. Hence my thoughts of putting my 650 radio board on the 700p.

You might be right in that the hardware might not recognize it. I think the OS wouldn't be a problem. As to the EVDO, I'm not well versed in it, but wonder how much of that has to do with the radio board, as much as the company's CDMA technology. Of course, I could be totally wrong! lol

So what I'm vying to do is quite simple, but I'm afraid of damaging my radio board or damaging the 700p's mother board.

Anyone out there with answers? I'd appreciate it!

ps. I found this definition for ESN:
An ESN is a numeric identifier that uniquely identifies a CDMA phone in the United States. The ESN can typically be found written underneath a phone's battery and is generally written in both decimal and hexadecimal versions. The ESN is what a CDMA network uses to identify a phone and determine which subscriber's account, if any, it is linked to. Because of this, when switching from one phone to another, subscribers will have to provide the ESN of the new phone to the network carrier before it can be activated. This can often be done at the carrier's website. The ESN is slowly being phased out in favor of the MEID, a longer number that is compatible with the IMEI system used in GSM and UMTS phones. This is happening because phone manufacturers are literally running out of ESN identifiers.

[jfa02]

Thanks for the informative post matermia.

[cyfer33]

Do you think its possible to use a Treo 650 GSM Radio chip on a 700p or even a 755p? I kinda like the 700p but was disappointed when Palm opted out the GSM version for it.

Though the 680 is a GSM model, I personally prefered the 700p over it.

[LotusLord]

Almost definitely not, I would think the differences in software would be a proplem there.

[maitemia]

Originally Posted by cyfer33

Do you think its possible to use a Treo 650 GSM Radio chip on a 700p or even a 755p? I kinda like the 700p but was disappointed when Palm opted out the GSM version for it.

Though the 680 is a GSM model, I personally prefered the 700p over it.

A 650 GSM Radio chip is a small thumb size chip, as you well know, but the 700p (I believe the 755p also) is CDMA technology and the chip info is on a small cirquit board, albeit, much bigger than a GSM chip. It's apples to oranges. Not inter-changeable.

As I understand, the 680 is a windows based OS, which is therefore incompatible with the 700p software, which is palm OS.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if there is a Treo with palm OS that is GSM?

[cyfer33]

The GSM models available for Treo is the 650 and Treo 680. I just kinda wished that Palm made a GSM model for the 755p.